Cap Vilano
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The Cap Vilano was built in 1906 as a scheduled passenger ship for the Hamburg South American Steamship Company (HSDG) and was the first of four of a type of ship for the joint service with Hapag to South America since 1901 . Both shipping companies use two ships of this type each.
From 1924 to 1939 she was used by the French Messageries Maritimes as the mail steamer Général Metzinger on various lines. Used as a troop transport after the outbreak of World War II , the former passenger ship of Hamburg-Süd was sunk by German bombers in 1940 off Le Havre .
history
The Cap Vilano , named after Cape Vilán on the Costa da Morte in the A Coruña province of Spain , was the first ship of this type to be built by Blohm & Voss for Hamburg Süd. She was for 200 passengers of the 1st class, 98 of the III. Class and 302 tween deck passengers. It was launched on April 7, 1906, delivered on August 4, and began her maiden voyage on August 25, 1906. She served the La Plata service in conjunction with her HAPAG sisters.
A sale of the ship to HADAG planned in 1914, in which the Cap Vilano was to come into service with a prince's name, failed when the First World War broke out . At that time she was on her way to South America and on August 4, 1914, with 600 passengers, she called at Recife ( Pernambuco ), where Hapag's Blücher was also located. Both passenger steamers were laid up there . There were also nine other German ships.
On October 28, 1917, the Brazilian government confiscated Cap Vilano and renamed it Sobral . Like other ships confiscated in Brazil, she was made available to the French government in 1918.
Service as a French mail steamer
In September 1924 she was sold to Messageries Maritimes in Marseille, which had already taken over the sister ship Cap Arcona . It was rebuilt in La Seyne-sur-Mer , equipped with an oil furnace and renamed Général Metzinger . The renewed passenger facility offered 98 passengers in the first class, 112 in the second class and 87 in the III. Great place. In addition, 684 passengers could be transported in the intermediate deck.
Her first voyage under the new flag took place on September 10, 1924, from Marseille to the Levant . From 1927 to 1933 she ran the Europe – Indochina line and in 1933 switched to the post line to the French possessions in the Indian Ocean. In 1937 she was assigned to a new line in the Black Sea, where she was used alongside the motor ship Théophile Gautier and two chartered ships. In 1938 she returned to the Réunion and Mauritius line .
The end of the ship
During the Second World War, the Général Metzinger served as a troop transport. In May 1940 she was supposed to bring soldiers from Brest to Namsos , Norway . Because of a collision in the Irish Sea, she had to hand over the embarked troops to the Ville d'Alger in Liverpool .
While trying to evacuate civilians or troops from France, it was set on fire and sunk on June 11, 1940 by a German bombing raid in the roadstead of Le Havre. The attack resulted in few casualties (six dead, two wounded) due to its proximity to the coast. The wreck was lifted and scrapped in 1950. Some remains of the wreck ( 49 ° 32 ′ 29 ″ N , 0 ° 1 ′ 54 ″ W ) are still a destination for divers today.
literature
- Noel RP Bonsor: North Atlantic Seaway. An illustrated History of the Passenger Services linking the old World with the new. Volume 3. Enlarged and completely revised edition. Brookside Publications, St. Brelade 1979, ISBN 0-905824-02-4 , p. 1315.
- 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 ships of Hamburg-Süd. 1871-1951. Gerhard Stalling Verlag, Oldenburg et al. 1976, ISBN 3-7979-1875-5 .
- Claus Rothe: German ocean passenger ships. 1896 to 1918 . Steiger Verlag, Moers 1986, ISBN 3-921564-80-8 .
Web links
- History of Cap Vilano with two postcards
- Paquebot Général Metzinger at Messageries Maritimes, 1924-1940 , French, accessed May 27, 2013
- Le Général Metzinger , French, accessed May 28, 2013
Footnotes
- ↑ a b c d Kludas, Vol. III, p. 38.
- ↑ Rothe, p. 110
- ↑ sinking of the General Metzinger engl. accessed May 28, 2013
- ^ Report on a dive in French, accessed May 28, 2013