Barbacena (ship)
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The Barbacena of Lloyd Brasileiro was one of his many ships of German origin. She was put into service in 1910 by the Hamburg-Bremer Afrika-Linie (HBAL) as its fastest ship under the name Gundrun .
The ship, which has been lying up in Brazil since August 1914, was, like the other ships of the Central Powers, confiscated by Brazil in June 1917 under pressure from the Entente . From 1922 it was used as a barbacena by the Brazilian shipping company , which in 1927 also became the owner of the former Gundrun .
On July 28, 1942, the Barbacena in the Atlantic was torpedoed and sunk by U 155 at 13 ° 10 ′ 0 ″ N , 56 ° 0 ′ 0 ″ WThere were six dead and 54 survivors.
History of the ship
On June 8, 1909, the Gundrun was launched at the Joh. C. Tecklenborg shipyard in Geestemünde as the first new building ordered by the shipping company for the Hamburg-Bremen Africa Line with hull number 226. The 119.7 m long and 15.9 m wide new building received a quadruple expansion machine of 3000 hp, which enabled a speed of up to 12 knots (kn). It was bigger and faster than the ten ships previously commissioned from 1903 to 1906 that had been ordered by the Menzell Group. The ships from four shipyards, which were between 1547 and 3081 GRT, were all only 9 knots.
The Gundrun did not enter service until May 21, 1910. The pre-war flagship of HBAL, the 5401 GRT Answald , delivered by Bremer Vulkan in 1909, was finished before her, which remained the largest ship actually used by HBAL until the Tübingen was registered for the Bremen Africa shipping company in 1934 . It is unclear why the Gundrun was delivered so late and why a sister ship that had been ordered under hull number 227 was not exported. Like most of the HBAL ships, the Gundrun was only used in West Africa service in 1914 and was the shipping company's third largest ship.
At the beginning of the First World War, the Gundrun sought refuge in the Brazilian port of Recife , where it was laid up. The Walburg (3081 GRT, 1905) of the HBAL and a further eleven German ships also used in passenger traffic, including the 12,350 GRT Blücher of Hapag, were also in this port . On June 2, 1917, the Gundrun, like 44 other German and two Austrian ships, was confiscated from Brazil under pressure from the Entente. When Brazil entered the war on October 26, 1917, these ships became the property of the Brazilian state.
Use under foreign flags
However, the country was not able to get this fleet up and running straight away, especially since maintenance was not sufficiently possible during the years of lay-up. In addition, the German crews had made some of the machines unusable in anticipation of confiscation. In December 1917, the Brazilian parliament approved the chartering out of 30 of the seized ships to France. In May 1920 there was a dispute between Brazil and France, which refused to return 28 formerly German ships after the charter contract expired. In Barbacena after a city in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais renamed Gundrun probably one of the most awarded ships.
From 1922, the ship was used as a Barbacena by the Brazilian shipping company Lloyd Brasileiro , which also became the owner of the former Gundrun in 1927 . She was one of more than 30 formerly German ships in her service. When the Second World War broke out, it was still part of the shipping company.
The end of the barbacena
In the early morning hours of July 28, 1942, the Barbacena was hit by two torpedoes and sunk in the Atlantic 400 km east of Barbados . The steamer was attacked by U 155 , which had previously fired two missed shots and had pursued Barbacena armed with a 12 cm cannon during the night. She had loaded coffee, castor seeds, and beans, and was on her way from Santos to New York via Trinidad . The survivors were able to leave the sinking ship in four boats, one of which was picked up by the British freighters Elmdale and San Fabian , and the Argentine Tacito . The fourth boat reached Tobago. This 14th sinking of a Brazilian ship by an Axis submarine resulted in six deaths and 54 survivors.
The Barbacena was the first sinking on the third patrol of the submarine. In the evening he succeeded in another sinking when she torpedoed the also Brazilian tanker Piave and sank it with artillery 100 nautical miles off Barbados at 12 ° 30 ' N , 55 ° 49' W.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Kludas: Ships of the Africa Lines , p. 122
- ↑ Kludas: Afrika-Linien , pp. 119–122
- ^ Dates of the Gundrun
- ↑ Criticism of the construction work or the prevailing global shipping crisis could be the cause.
- ↑ Kludas: Afrika-Linien, p. 121, Walburg ex Lotte Menzell , used as Curityba in Brazil until 1954
- ↑ France asked by Brazil to return the German ships borrowed during war The Deseret News - May 4, 1920
Web links
- Sinking Barbacena wrecksite
- Sinking Barbacena on uboat.net
literature
- Arnold Kludas : The ships of the German Africa Lines 1880 to 1945 . Verlag Gerhard Stalling, 1975, ISBN 3-7979-1867-4 .