Canstatt (ship, 1913)

**Canstatt**
	The Canstatt as HMAT Bakara
Ship data
flag	German Empire Australia German Empire Finland United Kingdom; ; ; ;
other ship names	Bakara ; Witell ; Rosario ; Albertina ; Kotka
Ship type	Cargo ship
home port	Hamburg ; Bremen
Owner	DADG; Australian Government ; Roland Line , sp. NDL ; Hamburg-Süd; two Finnish shipping companies ; Great Britain
Shipyard	Flensburg shipbuilding company
Build number	328
Launch	October 10, 1913
Commissioning	November 22, 1913
Whereabouts	Sunk 23 July 1956 with a cargo of warfare agents in the Atlantic
Ship dimensions and crew
length	137.1 m ( Lüa )
width	17.8 m
measurement	5930 GRT
crew	56 men
Machine system
machine	1 triple expansion machine
Machine ; performance	4000 hp
Top ; speed	13 kn (24 km / h)
propeller	1
Transport capacities
Load capacity	9400 dw

The Canstatt of the German-Australian Steamship Company (DADG) in Hamburg was a standard freighter of the shipping company built in 1913 by the Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft (FSG) for the Australian service. The Flensburg shipyard built almost identical ships for the DADG from 1911 to 1918.

In 1914 the Canstatt was confiscated at the start of the war in Brisbane and started up as the Transporter Bakara (A 41) by the Australian government .

In September 1925, the Bremen Roland-Linie bought the former Canstatt together with two other former DADG freighters from Australia and wanted to use the ships to South America. The Canstatt was renamed Witell . As a result of a merger, they came into service with Norddeutscher Lloyd on January 1, 1926 . With the state unbundling of the German shipping companies, it was one of the ten ships that NDL had to surrender to Hamburg-Süd . There it was renamed Rosario in 1937 .

The ship survived the war badly damaged and was awarded to Denmark. After repairs carried out in Hamburg, it was sold to Finland in 1948, where it was used as the Albertina , then Kotka until 1955. The British Ministry of Transport then acquired the Kotka to sink it in the Atlantic with superfluous ammunition.
On July 21, 1956, the former Canstatt u. a. sunk with 26,000 bombs with the chemical warfare agent tabun as part of Operation Sandcastle on the edge of the continental shelf.

Building history and operations until 1914

The Canstatt was one of a series of eight 5800 GRT freighters with a load capacity of over 9000 tdw with cargo cooling, which the DADG procured from the Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft from 1911 to 1919. In 1920 another ship came with the Hamburg as the first post-war construction of the DADG from the FSG. The Joh. C. Tecklenborg shipyard in Geestemünde delivered seven similar ships from 1911 to 1914. AG Neptun in Rostock delivered two somewhat larger ships in 1912. With the Brisbane , Swan Hunter also delivered a similar ship in 1911 , the last at a foreign shipyard ship made for the DADG.

The Canstatt was completed as the sixth ship in the series by the Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft in November 1913. The ship was named after Bad Cannstatt , the oldest part of the Württemberg capital Stuttgart . Her first return trip from Australia was to take place on March 14, 1914 from Hobart , Tasmania, where she was supposed to pick up a load of apples. It was part of a new direct service from the producer island to the European mainland. In addition to her, the sister ships Adelaide and Hobart were also involved in the service, plus the freighters Pomerania and Palatinate of the NDL. On July 14th, the Canstatt arrived again in Melbourne. At the beginning of the war, the ship was in Brisbane , where it was confiscated with the small imperial mail steamer of the Japan-Austral line, Prince Sigismund .

Use as Bakara (A-41)

At the beginning of the war, Australia confiscated nine DADG freighters. The Australian government immediately used some of the confiscated German freighters as troop transports. The Canstatt was renamed Bakara in 1914 and was given the identification A 41 . She was to take part in the second Australian convoy to the war zone in Europe, which was to transport the 2nd squadron of Australian and New Zealand troops on December 31, 1914. Fourteen Australian and three New Zealand vans gathered in King George Sound near Albany in Western Australia from December 28th . The Bakara was one of the five formerly German ships that were to be used. She had left Melbourne on December 21st with troops and horses on board and had to stay behind in her coal bunkers because of a fire. The Barunga (A 43 ex Sumatra ), which left Melbourne on December 22nd with reinforcements for the “4th Light Horse Regiment”, was also canceled due to propulsion problems. The sister ships of the Bakara , A 36 Boonah (ex Melbourne ) and A 37 Barambah (ex Hobart ) as well as the A42 Boorara (ex Pfalz / NDL) were used. The fire on board the Bakara could be extinguished when she called the inner harbor in Albany, but she had to unload all the coal and clean the bunkers. She then crossed the Indian Ocean alone and reached Suez on January 29, 1915, just one day after the convoy.

From 1915 to the end of 1918, the Bakara repeatedly brought reinforcements to the front for the Australian troops deployed in the World War. In addition, it also transported goods such as meat, fruit and wheat from Australia to Great Britain and goods required in Australia in the opposite direction. In May 1917, the facilities for the transport of troops were removed again and from August 1917 it ran in areas with submarine danger in the existing convoy. Since May 1, 1918, the ship belonged to the Commonwealth Government Line . The first voyage under the new company took the Bakara from Plymouth to South Africa with returning South African troops and 50 Caledonians who returned to Noumea via Sydney .

After the end of the war, the shipping company was unable to establish itself and the traditional shipping companies took over the transport tasks again, so that the Commonwealth Government Line sold its ships from 1924. In August 1925, the Bremen Roland-Linie acquired the Bakara and its sister ships Boonah and Barambah . The three ships had left Australia with loads of fruit in May and were then put up for sale in Falmouth . The Australian shipping company still had four other former DADG freighters, which were sold to Greece (2), Finland and China in 1925/26. The largest ship confiscated in 1914, the Sumatra (1913, 7484 GRT), and the oldest, the Altona (1902, 4312 GRT), were lost to German submarines in 1918.

Again under the German flag

On September 29, 1925, the Roland line took over Boonah (ex Melbourne ) as Witram , Barambah (ex Hobart ) as Justin and the Bakara (ex Canstatt ) as Witell . With the Murla (ex Forst ), the Roland had had a ship of this class since November 1924. As early as January 1, 1926, the steamers became ships of the Norddeutscher Lloyd , when the latter took over the entire Roland line. The NDL strengthened its group of former DADG freighters to six by acquiring the Grandon (ex Düsseldorf ) in July 1927 and Remscheid (ex Waldenburg ) in April 1928 from British shipping companies.

The first use of the Witell took place on its main route to Australia and with apples as return freight. The ship made a similar voyage the following year. The main area of application for the former DADG ships, however, was the routes to South America. At the end of 1932, the NDL gave up the first of these ships in the course of the economic crisis, when it sold the Murla and Remscheid to the Soviet Union . In June 1935 the Justin was scrapped in Bremerhaven . The three remaining former DADG freighters came to Hamburg-Süd in the course of the unbundling of the German shipping companies. Initially chartered, they were transferred to Hamburg-Süd with their home port of Bremen and renamed after final payment in the course of 1937.

In January 1937 the Witell became the third Rosario of Hamburg-Süd (home port further Bremen). The name of the Argentine city of Rosario was previously owned by Hamburg-Süd from 1881 to 1892 by a new Blohm & Voss building of 1824 GRT (Building No. 9) and from 1893 to 1904 a mail steamer of 3194 GRT (Blohm & Voss No. 95) guided.

In 1940 the Rosario was used as a transport by the Navy and used in the 2nd sea transport squadron, which transported an infantry division to Oslo during the raid on Norway . On April 9, 1945, the Rosario was bombed in Hamburg, which severely damaged her.

Post war history

In 1945 the damaged ship was confiscated by the British and in 1946 assigned to Denmark as reparations. It was repaired in Hamburg until 1948 and then sold to Finland, where it came into service as the Albertina . Sold to another shipping company in 1950, it was renamed Kotka for the last time . In 1955 the British government bought the old freighter to be scuttled with ammunition.

The British had after the war a part of that found in Germany chemical warfare agents (14,000 t filled with Tabun 250-kilogram bombs) in October 1945, Hamburg and Newport strategic ammunition reserve of the Royal Air Force to Llanberis transferred. The bombs were to be stored at the disused RAF Llandwrog airfield , now Caernarfon Airport, where they were transported by truck from August 1946 to July 1947. Many of the bombs were not leakproof and outdoor storage caused further damage. Protective layers on the bombs and storage in halls brought no improvement. In June 1954 it was decided to remove the entire inventory. This "Operation Sandcastle" was to be carried out in two steps. The Tabun bombs were to be transferred by sea to Cairnryan near Stranraer and from there sunk outside the continental shelf northwest of Ireland in old hulls.

To do this, a road had to be built from Llandwrog to Fort Belan , from where the bombs were to be transported to Scotland on six LCTs . The bombs had to be downsized and packaged to reduce the number of trips. As the first hull was Empire Claire loaded from the end of June 1955, the previously convicted 16,000 bombs on July 25 from the tractor Forester pulled and secured by the patrol boats Mull and Sir Walter Campbell Cairnryan left and 56 ° 30`N, 12 ° W was sunk by three explosive devices on July 27th. On May 30, 1956, the Vogtland followed with 28,737 bombs.
The company was completed on July 21 (23?) 1956 with the sinking of the Kotka at 56 ° 31 ′ 0 ″ N , 12 ° 5 ′ 0 ″ W Coordinates: 56 ° 31 ′ 0 ″ N , 12 ° 5 ′ 0 ″ W with 26,000 bombs, 330 tons of arsenic and 50 boxes of unidentified material. 56.516666666667 -12.083333333333

Similar ships made by the FSG for the DADG from 1911 to 1919

Launched in service	Surname	tonnage	shipyard	fate
1911 .07.1911	Adelaide	5898 GRT	FSG construction no. 309	1914 Refuge in Luanda , confiscated by Portugal in 1916, Cunene / Pt, demolition Dunston-on-Tyne 1955
1911 .08.1911	Sydney	5893 GRT	FSG construction no. 310	Launched in 1914 in Tjilatjap / Dutch East Indies, delivered in 1919, Caucasier / B in 1922 , sold to Italy for demolition in 1932
11/21/1911 12/29/1911	Melbourne	5926 BRT 9266 tdw	FSG construction no. 315	Confiscated in Sydney in 1914 / Boonah / Aus, 1925 purchase by Roland-Linie: Witram , 1926 to NDL, to Hamburg-Süd, 1937: Buenos Aires , March 8, 1940 Transporter of the Kriegsmarine , May 1, 1940 south-east of Skagen by British underground Sunk boat Narwhal
4.07.1912 24.08.1912	Hobart	5923 BRT 9266 tdw	FSG construction no. 323	Confiscated in Melbourne in 1914 / Barambah / Aus, 1925 purchase by Roland-Linie: Justin , 1926 to NDL, deployment to the Pacific coast of the USA, May 21, 1934 again in Melbourne, demolition of Bremerhaven in 1935,
1912 .01.1913	Stolberg	5886 BRT 9835 tdw	FSG construction no. 325	Launched in 1914 in Tjilatjap / Dutch East Indies, delivered in 1919, 1921 Waiotapu / NZ, 1946 Victoria Peak / GB, 1946 Shahrokh / Pan, 1947 Dah Hung / Ch, 1951 demolition in China
16.08.1916 06.14.1917	Waldenburg	5823 BRT 9400 dw	FSG construction no. 347	Delivered April 6, 1919, 1921 Maritime / GB, 1922 Cambrian Queen / GB, April 1928 purchase NDL: Remscheid (II), December 1932 sale to the Soviet Union / Kiev (Odessa), sunk by U 35 east of the North Cape on April 13, 1942
.12.1916 .02.1919	Gera	5831 GRT	FSG construction no. 348	Sold to GJH Siemers & Co in 1917 : Mayor Schröder , delivered in February 1919, 1920 Bourne / GB, 1921 Bennekom / NL, 31 October 1941 sunk by U 96 off Bathurst
February 5, 1918 July 18, 1919	Forest	5850 BRT 9430 tdw	FSG construction no. 349	Delivered to July 22, 1919, 1921 Baron Ogilvy / GB, November 14, 1924 purchase by Roland: Murla , 1926 NDL, November 1932 sold to the Soviet Union / Minsk (Odessa), demolished after 1960

During this period the FSG delivered three larger ships with the Australia (1912, BNr. 326, 7485 BRT), Sumatra (1913, BNr. 332, 7484 BRT), Tasmania (1913, BNr. 333, 7514 BRT) and the smaller one Lübeck (1914, BNr. 338, 4770 BRT) to the DADG.

The other ships of this type

Launched in service	Surname	tonnage	shipyard	fate
12.04.1911 05.20.1911	Fremantle	5964 GRT	Tecklenborg building no. 239	Refuge in Cádiz in 1914 , extradited to France in 1919: Andromede , demolished in 1931
.07.1911 .08.1911	Brisbane	5878 GRT	Swan Hunter construction no. 848	1914 refuge in Mormugoa : 1916 seized by Portugal Damao , from New York coming on April 28, 1918, when U 91 in St. George's Channel sunk
September 7, 1911 October 17, 1911	Albany	5976 GRT	Tecklenborg building no. 243	Refuge in Syracuse in 1914 , confiscated by Italy in 1915: Matteo Renato Imbriani , 20 March 1918 sunk by mines after leaving Marseille
10.07.1911 11.22.1911	Mannheim	5972 GRT	Tecklenborg building no. 244	Delivered to France in 1919: Lieutenant St.Loubert Bie , demolished in 1950
4.02.1912 26.03.1912	Dusseldorf	5877 GRT	Tecklenborg building no. 247	1914 Refuge in Barcelona , 1919 extradited to France, 1921 Ellerman Lines: City of Boston , 1927 purchase by NDL: Grandon , 1934 Hamburg-Süd, renamed Patagonia in August 1937 , sunk in the Skagerrak with gas ammunition on October 4, 1945
.1912 .07.1912	Bochum	6161 GRT	AG Neptun building no. 3 ??	Support of SMS Geier , from the end of August 1914 in Manila , confiscated from the USA in 1917: Transporter Montpellier (ID1954) until October 1919, 1923 civil service, 1927 Nevadan / American-Hawaiian SS, loaned to the Soviet Union from January 1943 to April 1944, launched in 1946, 1949 cancellation
15.06.1912 08.06.1912	eat	5972 GRT	Tecklenborg building no. 248	1914 Refuge in Delagoa Bay , confiscated by Portugal in 1916: Inhambane , 1955 Vassiliki / CR, 1959 demolished
.1912 .09.1912	Colmar	6184 GRT	AG Neptun building no. 322	1914 Refuge in Funchal / Madeira , confiscated by Portugal in 1916: Machico , 1925 Luso / Pt., Demolished in 1954
11/12/1912 12/21/1912	Luneburg	5912 GRT	Tecklenborg building no. 251	Launched in Macassar / Dutch East Indies, delivered in 1919, P&O: Padua , canceled in 1934
03/12/1914 04/11/1914	Freiberg	5879 GRT	Tecklenborg building no. 261	Launched in Surabaja / Dutch East Indies, delivered in 1919 / City of Sydney / GB, 1923 repurchase by DADG: Lüneburg (II), 1926 Hapag, 1940 Sperrbrecher 9 , July 1, 1944 self- sunk off Brest

literature

Carl Herbert : War voyages of German merchant ships . Broschek & Co, Hamburg 1934.
Arnold Kludas : The ships of Hamburg-Süd 1871 to 1951 . Gerhard Stalling Verlag, Oldenburg 1976, ISBN 3-7979-1875-5 .
Arnold Kludas: The ships of the North German Lloyd 1920 to 1970 . Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, 1992, ISBN 3-7822-0534-0 .