Brazza (ship)
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The Brazza was a passenger ship of the French shipping company Compagnie des Chargeurs Réunis , which carried passengers, freight and mail from Bordeaux to the French territories of French West Africa from 1927 to 1940 . On May 28, 1940, the ship was sunk by a German submarine off Portugal , killing 379 passengers and crew.
The ship
The motor ship Brazza was built at the Ateliers et Chantiers de la Loire shipyard in Nantes , launched on November 10, 1923 and completed in 1924. The ship was launched under the name Camranh and was initially used as a cargo ship. It belonged to the shipping company Compagnie des Chargeurs Réunis, founded in 1872, which had its headquarters in Le Havre and maintained a lively passenger and freight service to the French colonies in West Africa , but also to South America , the Gulf of Mexico , South Africa and Asia . Le Havre was also the home port of the Brazza .
The Brazza was 18.01 meters wide and had a maximum draft of 8.87 meters. It was equipped with two chimneys and two masts . The diesel engines, which worked on two screws , made nominal horsepower in 1816 and accelerated the ship to 14.5 knots (26.8 km / h). It was mainly used on the Bordeaux – West Africa route.
In 1927, the Camranh was converted into a passenger ship, with an increase in the space content from 8,898 GRT to 10,193 GRT. The ship also got by Pierre Savorgnan de Brazza in Brazza renamed. In 1936 the hull was lengthened to 144.6 meters, increasing the tonnage to 10,387 GRT. From then on, the passenger accommodations were designed for 178 passengers in first class and 90 each in second and third class.
Sinking
On Friday, May 24, 1940, the Brazza left Bordeaux for a crossing to Casablanca , West Africa and New Caledonia . There were 132 crew members and 444 passengers on board; a total of 576 people. Among the passengers were women, children and other civilians, but also French troops. The command was the 51-year-old captain François Pierre Marie Rébillard, a porter of the Croix de guerre . The usual cargo included wines and spirits.
The Brazza drove through the Bay of Biscay in convoy 60-XF , but broke away from it in the course of the journey for reasons unknown. On Thursday, May 28th, she was discovered on the west coast of Portugal by U 37 , a German type IX A submarine that was under the command of Lieutenant Victor Oehrn on its fifth patrol .
At 09:26 in the morning the ship of two torpedoes from the tail pipes of was U 37 hit and dropped within four minutes, about 100 nautical miles west of the postage on the position of 42 ° 43 ' N , 11 ° 0' W . 79 crew members and 300 passengers were killed, and Captain Rébillard drowned. His last words were “Au revoir, les gars” (in German “Goodbye, guys”). The 197 survivors were from the gunboat of the French Navy Enseigne Henry and the British auxiliary cruiser Cheshire recovered. The Brazza was the largest ship sunk by U 37 and also the only ship on Konvoi Route 60 that was sunk by a German submarine during the Second World War.