Wolfsburg (ship, 1916)
 The Wolfsburg
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The second Wolfsburg of the Deutsche Dampfschiffahrtsgesellschaft Hansa (DDG "Hansa"), completed in 1916, was one of a series of four cargo ships for the shipping company's South American service that were commissioned before the outbreak of the First World War. The ship was delivered to Great Britain in March 1919 and bought back by the shipping company in October 1924.
The ship on its way out arrived in Pernambuco , Brazil, before the start of the Second World War , and was laid up there. From February 2, 1940, Wolfsburg attempted to reach home with a cargo of food, cotton and other goods essential to the war effort. On March 2, 1940, she was at the position 67 ° 30 ′ 0 ″ N , 32 ° 30 ′ 0 ″ W in the Denmark Strait north of Iceland by the British cruiser HMS Berwick discovered and sank itself.
History of the ship
The second Wolfsburg was named after a cargo ship built in Middlesbrough by the Sir Raylton Dixon & Co. shipyard , which was in service with the DDG "Hansa" from 1896 to 1907. It was named after the ruins of Wolfsburg near Neustadt an der Weinstrasse .
The first Wolfsburg (2489 BRT, 3700 tdw), delivered in January 1896 , was one of four “Argentina steamers” built in Great Britain from 1895 to 1897 by the shipping company. In 1907 she was sold with two of her sister ships to the Belgian shipping company Armement Deppe , which she renamed Egypte . The ship was lost on a voyage from Belgium to Bulgaria on February 20, 1909 off Patras in a collision with a Greek steamer.
The second Wolfsburg was built at the Joh. C. Tecklenborg shipyard under construction number 268. It was part of a series of four ships with a carrying capacity of over 10,000 tdw that were ordered from three German shipyards before the First World War . Only the type ship of the series, the Trostburg built by Howaldtswerke in Kiel , could be completed before the outbreak of war. It reached Calcutta on its maiden voyage , where it was confiscated by Great Britain. At the end of March 1915, the Trostburg was lost to the Entente due to stranding. The sister ships Aschenburg and Wolfsburg ordered from Tecklenborg and the Rudelsburg built in Flensburg were delivered to the DDG "Hansa" during the First World War, but were laid up for the duration of the war. In the spring of 1919, the three war buildings were delivered to the victorious powers.
The new Wolfsburg was the second Tecklenborg building in the series. It was launched on June 12, 1915 and delivered on June 28, 1916. The ship had a length of 149.44 m over all and 142.73 m between the perpendiculars. The width was 18.92 m and the draft 7.43 m. The Wolfsburg was measured with 6201 GRT and 3826 NRT and had a load capacity of 10,020 tdw. Driven by a 3-cylinder triple expansion machine from the shipyard with 3600 PSi, which acted on a propeller, the ship could reach a speed of 12 kn.
An attempt to use the ship in autumn 1918 was stopped by the victorious powers and on March 27, 1919 the Wolfsburg was delivered in the Firth of Forth .
Calls
Like most German merchant ships that have been delivered, the ship was initially used under its old name by Elder, Dempster & Co. on behalf of the state shipping controller for military transport tasks. In 1920 the Hogarth Shipping Co. bought the ship and used it as Baron Lovat . The private shipping company, also known as "Baron-Line" because of the naming of its steamers, had lost fourteen ships in the World War, managed several ships for the state from 1919, including the Solfels (5821 BRT / 1913) of the DDG "Hansa", and bought them 1919 also some ships (also of German origin) from the state administration for military transport tasks.
As early as October 1924, the shipping company active in the trampoline trade sold the ship to DDG "Hansa". The ship was the sixth repurchase of a former ship and was given its original name Wolfsburg again . Along with a steamer chartered from 1919 to 1923, she was the only ship of the shipping company that had a name ending in -burg until 1939 .
The Wolfsburg was used on all lines of the shipping company and had the mixed crew of European and Indian seamen typical of the shipping company, who were not limited to the machine personnel. In 1939 Wolfsburg left Nordenham on August 16 with a load of coal and coke. When she received the warning message QWA 7 on the 25th (outbreak of war threatened, planned routes abandoned), she headed for Pernambuco in Brazil, which she reached before the outbreak of war.
Fate of war
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The Wolfsburg was launched in Pernambuco and its cargo was sold. At the beginning of 1940 she took over cargo again to return to Germany like many other ships from Brazil. On February 2, 1940, she left Pernambuco with a load of 2,400 tons of bacon in boxes, 1,600 tons of lard in cans, 4,000 tons of soybeans and soybean oil, 1,800 tons of cotton and small amounts of ore (tantalite) to break through the blockade to Germany. She should disguise herself as the Norwegian steamer Alf .
On March 2, 1940, the crew sank their ship in the Denmark Strait north of Iceland at position 67 ° 30 'N, 32 ° 30' W itself when the British heavy cruiser HMS Berwick discovered it.
The sister ships
| Surname | Shipyard | GRT tdw |
Launched in service |
further fate |
| Trostburg (1) | Howaldtswerke building no. 583 |
6342 10,330 |
03.1914 01.06.1914 |
Seized August 1914 in Calcutta , March 26th 1915 stranded on the Moroccan coast with a load of coal on the way from England to Gibraltar , |
| Aschenburg | Tecklenborg building no. 266 |
6394 10.110 |
16.01.1915 06.19.1915 |
Delivered in 1919, bought by Ellerman´s in 1920 : Lorenzo , 1929 City of Christchurch , March 21, 1943 sunk by German aircraft off the Portuguese coast |
|
Wolfsburg (2) |
Tecklenborg building no. 268 |
6201 10,020 |
12.06.1915 06.28.1916 |
Delivered in 1919, bought back in December 1924, self-scuttled on March 2, 1940 |
| Rudelsburg (2) | Flensburg building no. 346 |
6173 10,230 |
04/12/1916 10/21/1916 |
Delivered in 1919, 1921 to Hall Line : City of Westminster , October 8, 1923 west of Penzance , stranded with a load of corn and general cargo coming from South Africa, |
Individual evidence
- ^ H. Hogarth & Co. / Baron Line
- ↑ Schmelzkopf: Deutsche Handelsschiffahrt , p. 242
- ^ Rohwer: Seekrieg, p. 33
Web links
- The Wolfsburg on ddghansa with links to the sister ships
literature
- Hans Georg Prager: DDG Hansa - from liner service to special shipping , Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford 1976, ISBN = 3-7822-0105-1
- Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronicle of the Naval War 1939-1945 , Manfred Pawlak VerlagsGmbH (Herrsching 1968), ISBN 3-88199-0097
- Reinhardt Schmelzkopf: German merchant shipping 1919–1939 . Verlag Gerhard Stalling, Oldenburg, ISBN 3 7979 1847 X .