Barøy (ship)
 The Barøy in Lødingen Harbor (1930)
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The Barøy was a passenger ship put into service in 1929 by the Norwegian shipping company Vesteraalens Dampskibsselskab, which transported passengers and cargo on the Hurtigruten along the Norwegian west coast. The unarmed, not escorted Baroy was a British on Sept. 13, 1941 air raid on the Vestfjord by a torpedo from a Fairey Albacore - Torpedo Bombers sunk. 112 people, mostly Norwegian civilians, died.
The ship
The 424 GRT steamship Barøy was built at the Trondhjems Mekaniske Værksted (TMV) shipyard in Trondheim and completed on August 19, 1929. The shipyard founded in 1872 was one of the more important in Trondheim. She was built for the Norwegian shipping company Vesteraalens Dampskibsselskab, founded in 1881 by Richard With , which originally had its headquarters in Stokmarknes and which specialized in shipping on the Hurtigruten . The Barøy was also used on this route, commuting on the coast of the province of Nordland . Her home port was Narvik , from where she sailed to Lødingen and Svolvær and back. The Barøy was 43.83 meters long, 7.34 meters wide and had a maximum draft of 4.94 meters. The hull was made of steel .
The triple expansion steam engine could develop 450 hp and helped the ship to a speed of 11 knots (20.37 km / h). The Barøy was a classic Norwegian Hurtigruten ship with an open weather deck, an area for first class in the aft deck and accommodation for third class below deck. The ship could take up to 200 passengers, 45 of them in first class. The crew consisted of 26 people. On August 23, 1929, the ship cast off on its maiden voyage.
In World War II
The outbreak of World War II in September 1939 had a major impact on the Hurtigruten and northern Norwegian shipping in general. From October 1, 1939, strict regulations applied to the Hurtigruten. The permitted travel speed was reduced and the number of departures in Bergen was reduced from seven to five per week. The new regulations resulted in a sharp increase in shipping traffic on the Norwegian coast in the autumn of 1939, as supplies and reserves were brought to many coastal towns in the region in preparation for the war. Due to massive public protests, daily departures began again on December 5, 1939.
In April 1940, many of the regular steamers were taken out of service and prepared for the coming season. For this reason, many replacement ships were used. One of them was the Barøy , which now drove on the express route from Narvik to Trondheim. She served as a replacement for the 873-ton steamer Nordnorge , which was undergoing major maintenance in the Trondhjems Mekaniske Værksted shipyard. The Barøy ran out on April 2, 1940 in Bergen on her first voyage on the new route, reached Trondheim on April 4 and docked in Hammerfest on April 9 .
On the same day was part of the Weserübung company the invasion of the German Wehrmacht in Norway and Denmark instead. This was followed by the 62-day Norwegian Campaign, a first Allied offensive against the German armed forces. The Barøy survived both, although numerous Norwegian ships were lost, especially during the Norwegian campaign. It also replaced the Nordnorge , which was used by the German occupiers as a troop transport and sunk by warships of the Royal Navy on May 12, 1940 . The use of the Barøy was a stopgap solution because it was basically considered too small to be able to cope with the long distance from Bergen to Narvik.
Sinking
On Saturday, September 13, 1941, the Barøy was under the command of Captain Andreas Alfred Liland on another crossing from Trondheim to Narvik. She was the fifth of the ships sailing to Narvik on a weekly basis. After the last stop in Skutvik , the Barøy steamed north in the early hours of the morning to her next port of call, Tranøy in Hamarøy municipality . There were 26 crew members and 105 passengers on board, including 37 German soldiers from the 197th Infantry Division . The remaining 68 passengers were Norwegian civilians. The ship was not armed and had no escort . As the cargo was still being stowed on deck, the Barøy was brightly lit.
At 3:50 a.m. on September 13, the Barøy was hit by a torpedo about two nautical miles west of the Tranøy lighthouse in the forecastle . The projectile tore open the hull so that the ship quickly filled with water. The lights on board went out because the power supply immediately collapsed. The ship sank so quickly that there was no time to lower the lifeboats . Passengers and crew had to jump into the 7 to 8 ° C cold water of the Vestfjord to survive. The torpedo came from a Fairey Albacore torpedo bomber of the 817th Squadron Royal Australian Navy Fleet Air Arm . A total of seven of these planes carried out an attack on shipping in the Vestfjord that morning. The machine had started from the aircraft carrier Victorious , which was part of the convoy escorting the veteran Argus . The Argus transported 24 Hawker Hurricane - fighters in the Soviet Union .
On the way back to Great Britain , the Albacore pilots received orders to launch a series of attacks on the Norwegian coast, attacking ships and important land targets. At around 3 a.m., twelve Fairey Albacores started in an easterly direction. The seven machines of the 187th Squadron were armed with torpedoes and the five machines of the 832nd Squadron with bombs . The 187th Squadron Airman buried the Baroy , while that of the 832nd Squadron power station of Glomfjord , the aluminum factory of Haugvik and the radio station of Røst bombed. Two Norwegian civilians died in Glomfjord and one in Røst.
The first ship to learn of the sinking of the Barøy was the Norwegian 762 ton freighter Skjerstad , which passed the disaster on its way south. He took in 19 survivors and recovered 15 bodies. The survivors were taken to Svolvær. 18 of the 26 Norwegian crew members (including five women), 35 of the 37 German soldiers and 59 passengers were killed, including 21 women and seven children. A total of 112 were killed, including 77 civilians.
Reactions
One of the consequences of the sinking of the Barøy and Richard With on the same day off Rolvsøy on the coast of Finnmark was the new regulation that from then on the Hurtigruten ships were not allowed to sail further north than Tromsø . Only small replacement ships were used between Tromsø and Hammerfest.
The National Socialists used the sinking of the Barøy and attacks on other Norwegian civilian ships for their propaganda against the Allies. On May 20, 1944, the Norwegian postal authority Posten Norge, still controlled by the Germans, published a series of stamps designed by Harald Damsleth , dedicated to three of the most serious attacks on Norwegian ships by the Allies.
The ten Øre stamps recalled the sinking of Barøy on September 13, 1941 (112 deaths), the 15 Øre stamps of the Sanct Svithun off Stadlandet on September 30, 1943 (47 deaths) and the 20 Øre stamps Stamps to the Irma in front of Kristiansund on February 13, 1944 (61 dead). For each stamp ten more Øre were asked, which were donated to the survivors and bereaved.
literature
- Odd G. Engdal. Norsk marinehistorisk atlas 900–2005 . Vigmostad & Bjørke AS (Bergen), 2006 (Norwegian).
- Bjørn Hafsten, Ulf Larsstuvold, Bjørn Olsen, Sten Stenersen. Flyalarm - airy over Norge 1939–1945 (second edition). Sem og Stenersen AS (Oslo), 2005.
- Per Voksø. Krigens Dagbok - Norge 1940-1945 . Forlaget Det Beste (Oslo), 1994 (Norwegian).
- Dag Bakka, Jr. Skipene somebody tied together - Hurtigruten gjennom 100 år . Rhema Forag (Bergen), 1993 (Norwegian).
Web links
- Entry in the ship directory Miramar Ship Index
- The Barøy in a listing of Norwegian merchant ships (with further links)
- Short entry about the Barøy in a list of passenger ships sunk during the war (with a picture of the postage stamp)
- Entry of Barøy in Lloyd's Register of Shipping (No. 15243) (PDF; 147 kB)