Cap Finisterre (ship, 1911)
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The Cap Finisterre of the Hamburg-South American Steamship Company (HSDG) was the first express steamer of the Hamburg shipping company and its largest and fastest ship when it went into service. It was built by Blohm & Voss for the HSDG.
When the First World War broke out, the Cap Finisterre was in Hamburg. In 1919 she was extradited to the USA via Great Britain, where she was used from April to November 1919 to return American troops to the USA. In 1920 it was assigned to Japan as spoils of war, where the ship remained in service under the new name Taiyo Maru until it was sunk by the US submarine Grenadier on May 8, 1942.
History of construction and use
The competitive pressure in the lucrative passenger service to South America led in March 1910 to Hamburg-Süd placing an order with Blohm & Voss for a particularly high-quality passenger ship. It was supposed to be bigger and faster than all ships used on this route so far. On August 8, 1911, the new express steamer was launched as Cap Finisterre , named after the westernmost point in Spain - Cape Finisterre . The 14,500 GRT ship had space for 297 passengers in the first class, 222 passengers in the second class and 870 in the III. Class. The first class was particularly luxurious, had a two-deck high dining room with 315 seats, in which all passengers in the class could dine at the same time, and above that a smoking salon with a glass dome. In addition to other special rooms and an elevator, an outdoor swimming pool on the boat deck was available to passengers for the first time on a ship. The high dining room and the swimming pool high in the ship with its 75 tons of water placed high demands on the strength of the hull. To dampen the ship's movements, the ship had Frahm's rolling tanks.
On November 21, 1911, the Cap Finisterre left Cuxhaven towards La Plata. On the 26th the crossing of the Atlantic began in Lisbon with 1,350 passengers and already on December 9th 1911 Buenos Aires was reached after a trip in record time.
To strengthen the German part of the South America traffic even further, took place in 1912, a reconstruction of the luxury cabins of the previously used on the North Atlantic Blucher of Hapag (12,334 GRT, 16 kn), which in the existing joint service of the two Hamburg shipping companies in addition to the Cap Finisterre to Río de la Plata should be used. On June 26, 1912, the Blücher was hired for the first time in this service.
But international competition did not leave the field to the Germans. Already in 1912 a somewhat larger ship was used with the Arlanza of the Royal Mail Line and the French Compagnie de Navigation Sud-Atlantique brought faster ships into service in 1912 with the formerly German Burdigala and then with the 20 knots ships Lutetia and Gallia, built with government support .
Therefore, the two other fast steamers planned for Hamburg-Süd were not sister ships to Cap Finisterre , but larger ships with three funnels, with Hamburg-Süd remaining at 17 knots of service speed:
- Cap Trafalgar , 18,710 GRT, maiden voyage in March 1914
- Cap Polonio , 20,576 GRT, February 1915 auxiliary cruiser Vineta
However, the commissioning of the Cap Trafalgar led to a change in the appearance of the Hamburg-Süd fleet. With it a white chimney with a red cap was introduced for all ships of the shipping company. Until then, only the Cap steamers had yellow chimneys and the rest had black chimneys.
Cap Finisterre survived the First World War without any special incidents. Since it was in Hamburg when the war began, it was launched there. and found no use.
Under other flags
On April 4, 1919, the Cap Finisterre , which had been made ready for use again, was delivered to Great Britain and there on April 11 made available to the USA, which took it into service. On four trips between Brest and New York, she transported troops back to the USA and also brought new occupation troops to Europe. After her fourth voyage in August, she came to the New York Navy Yard, where maintenance work was being carried out. On November 25, 1919, she was decommissioned together with the two large ex- NDL passenger ships Prinz Friedrich Wilhelm and Zeppelin and returned to Great Britain, where the Orient Steam Navigation Company , London, was to use the Cap Finisterre .
In 1920, however, the ship was given to Japan as spoils of war. So she became the largest Japanese merchant ship. Renamed Taiyo Maru to Toyo Kisen Kabushiki Kaisha, Yokohama, who used the ship on its line from Hong Kong via Shanghai, Kobe, Yokohama, Honolulu and San Francisco to Los Angeles. In 1926 the Taiyo Maru was also used on the west coast of South America. Since the lines were transferred to the Nippon Yusen Kaisha in 1926 , the ship was also handed over to this company, which then bought it on May 4, 1929. It was still used in the Trans-Pacific service to San Francisco. From October 1939 the ship was temporarily used between Japan and Shanghai.
On October 22, 1941, the Taiyo Maru Yokohama left for Hawaii with the last foreigners to leave Japan. Among the crew members were three camouflaged Japanese naval officers, two frigate captains and the commander of a micro-submarine . The ship was on a northern route, as it was later used by the Japanese attack force against Pearl Harbor . From November 1st to 5th, 1941, the ship remained in Honolulu, Oahu and then returned to Japan with the camouflaged officers and 477 resettled Japanese. It arrived back in Yokohama on November 17 and the officers were able to familiarize the crews with the micro-submarine to be used against Pearl Harbor with the current situation.
In May 1942 the Taiyo Maru was assigned to the Japanese Army as a transporter. On May 5, she left Hiroshima with 34 soldiers and 1,010 civilian passengers. Among these were administrative staff, doctors, teachers and technicians who were needed for the use of the conquered area in Southeast Asia, in particular for oil production and processing in Sumatra and Borneo, the repair of an aluminum hut in Java and the construction of a cement factory in Davao . In addition, there were 2,450 ts of material, such as ammunition, hand grenades, flares and 150 ts of calcium carbide .
On May 7, 1942, the journey to Singapore began in convoy No. 109 with another passenger ship ( Yoshino Maru , the former Kleist of the NDL) and three freighters, which were secured by the armed cargo steamer Peking Maru . The Taiyo Maru led the ships running in a line. Although she could still run 14 knots, she had been assigned to a slow 9 knot convoy that could not even maintain this speed in heavy seas.
In the early evening of May 8, 1942, the Taiyo Maru was hit by two torpedoes from the American submarine Grenadier in a forward hold and at the stern. The calcium carbide caught fire and exploded, along with parts of the hand grenade charge and the flare ammunition. The front part of the ship was blazing. Panic broke out among the passengers when several of the 18 lifeboats were also badly damaged. Approximately one hour after the hits the ship sank to 30 ° 45 '0 " N , 127 ° 40' 0" O . The captain and 156 men of the 263-strong crew could not be saved. Of the 1,044 passengers, 656 could not be rescued, and four of the 53 military personnel on board died. The escort ship tried to attack the submarine and saved 15 men. The summoned destroyer Minekaze and another escort boat were able to save 480 survivors by midnight despite the adverse weather conditions, and others were rescued by fishing boats. 543 men survived the attack, 817 were lost with the Taiyo Maru 170 km southwest of Me-Shima , Nagasaki Prefecture , Kyushu.
Re-use of the name
On May 16, 1956, Hamburg-Süd received another Cap Finisterre from Hamburg's Howaldtswerke . She was the last ship of the second series of Cap motor ships with a cargo cooling room for fruit, meat and other refrigerated goods and was used in the express service via Rio de Janeiro and Santos to La Plata. Her sister ships Cap Roca , Cap Verde and Cap Ortegal also had names of Cap steamers from the time before the First World War. The white-painted 154 m long, 8,980 GRT ship offered space for twelve passengers and was powered by an 8-cylinder Borsig MAN two-stroke diesel with an output of 7,200 hp, which enabled a service speed of 17 knots.
In March 1972 the second Cap Finisterre was sold to Greece as the last ship in the series and was canceled there in 1985.
Greenhouse of the Cap Finisterre
1st class dining room
Ballroom
Swimming pool
Frieze on the fireplace in the smoking room by the sculptor Otto Stichling
Wintergarden on board
Fountain in the winter garden by the sculptor Otto Stichling
literature
- Arnold Kludas : The History of German Passenger Shipping. Volume 3: Rapid growth 1900 to 1914. Ernst Kabel Verlag, Hamburg 1988, ISBN 3-8225-0039-9 ( writings of the German Maritime Museum 20).
- Arnold Kludas: The History of German Passenger Shipping. Volume 4: Destruction and rebirth 1914 to 1930. Ernst Kabel Verlag, Hamburg 1989, ISBN 3-8225-0047-X ( writings of the German Maritime Museum 21).
- Arnold Kludas: The ships of Hamburg-Süd 1871-1951 , Verlag Gerhard Stalling, Oldenburg / Hamburg 1976, ISBN 3-7979-1875-5 .
- Hans Georg Prager : Blohm & Voss , Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft , Herford 1977, ISBN 3-7822-0127-2 .
- Claus Rothe: German ocean passenger ships 1896 to 1918 . Steiger Verlag, 1986, ISBN 3-921564-80-8 .
Web links
- Ship list HSDG (Engl.)
- USS Cap Finisterre (ID # 4051), 1919-1919
- Use of Taiyo Maru (Engl.)
Footnotes
- ↑ a b c d Kludas: The history of German passenger shipping , Volume III, p. 49ff.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h Kludas: The ships of Hamburg-Süd 1871-1951 , p. 75.
- ↑ Kludas: Passenger Shipping , Vol. III, p. 102.
- ↑ Article with two postcards
- ↑ a b Kludas: Passenger Shipping , Volume III, p. 54.
- ↑ Kludas: Passenger Shipping , Vol. IV, p. 45.
- ↑ Rothe, p. 130.
- ↑ picture of the Cap Verde (2)