Cincinnati (ship)
 The Cincinnati (photo from La bella Napoli , 1911)
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The Cincinnati was a passenger ship for the North Atlantic Service, which came into service in 1909 for the Hamburg-American Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft (Hapag). From 1910 to 1913 it was also used on the route from the Mediterranean to the east coast of the United States in winter . When the war began, the ship was in Boston and was laid up there.
After the USA entered the war, the confiscated ship drove from New York to France as a US troop transport under the name USS Covington (ID-1410) from 1917 . In 1918 she sank after torpedo hits near Brest on the sixth return voyage to the USA. She had transported over 20,000 US soldiers to France.
history
In 1908, Hapag ordered two large passenger steamers for the North Atlantic with a large capacity for cabin passengers and the possibility of transporting many emigrants on the tween deck. The Cincinnati was the first ship that the Hamburg shipping company ordered from the F. Schichau shipyard and was the largest merchant ship completed by the shipyard in Danzig by 1922 . The sister ship Cleveland was ordered from Blohm & Voss .
The ship with two funnels and four masts was 183.9 m long and 19.9 m wide. The two six-cylinder quadruple expansion engines developed 9,300 hp in regular operation and enabled a service speed of 15.5 knots . There was space on board for 246 passengers in 1st class, 332 in 2nd class and 488 in 3rd class. It was also possible to accommodate 1,800 between deck passengers.
Rides as Cincinnati
On May 27, 1909, the Cincinnati started on her maiden voyage in Hamburg via Southampton and Cherbourg to New York . Her first voyage from Genoa to New York via Naples took place on April 4, 1910. From the winter season 1910 it was regularly used next to the Moltke and the Hamburg in winter on this route until 1913. The first departure on this service was on October 26th in New York. In addition, the ship was also used for cruises . A Svalbard cruise in July 1911 suffered from very bad weather conditions. The Cincinnati got partially caught in the ice and was unable to reach Svalbard because of the ice. As a replacement, she visited Bear Island . A planned shore excursion to the North Cape also had to be canceled due to the weather conditions. A highlight of the trip was the meeting with the imperial yacht Hohenzollern in front of Bergen , which was passed very closely to greet Kaiser Wilhelm . The Cincinnati returned to Hamburg with some damaged floor slabs .
On July 15, 1912, the Cincinnati collided with the tug Michel in front of Kuhwerder Hafen , who sank. The last voyage from Genoa via Naples to New York took place on April 2, 1913. On May 21, 1913, the ship ran for the first time from Hamburg to Boston , as there was overcapacity on the route to New York due to the use of the new Imperator . From January 14, 1915, the ship was to make a five-month trip around the world from Hamburg, just like her sister ship Cleveland in 1912. On this trip, the completed Panama Canal was to be passed. On August 8, 1914, the ship was due to the outbreak of the First World War in Boston launched .
Rides as Covington
When the USA entered the war on the side of the Entente , the Cincinnati was confiscated by the American Customs for the United States Shipping Board on April 6, 1917 and put into service by the US Navy as a Covington troop transport on July 28, 1917 . Captain RD Hasbrouck took command. First of all, damage inflicted on the ship by the German crew before it was confiscated by the Americans was repaired. From mid-October 1917, the ship was used as a troop transport between Hoboken and Brest to bring troops to France.
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On May 10, 1918, the Covington was on its fifth voyage to Europe in the first US convoy of troop transporters . She left together with the former Hapag ship President Lincoln (18,084 GRT), the Rijndam (ex Holland-America Line , 12,527 GRT), the British flag Dwinsk (ex Russian American Line , 8,173 GRT) and the Italian ships Dante Alighieri (9,754 GRT) and Caserta (6,847 GRT) New York and met a group of transporters from Newport News with the former NDL ships Princess Matoika (ex Princess Alice , 10,911 GRT) and Antigone (ex Neckar , 9,835 GRT) at sea, the US ships Pastores (ex United Fruit , 7,782 BRT), Wilhelmina ( Matson Navigation Company , 5,974 BRT) and Lenape (Clyde Line, 3,389 BRT), the formerly Russian America-Liner Kursk (7,858 BRT) and the Italian Duca d ' Aosta (7,804 GRT). The cruiser Frederick escorted this largest American troop transport convoy with 40,000 soldiers on board across the Atlantic. On May 20, an attacking submarine was reportedly sighted and turned out to be a floating bucket. On the 21st, nine destroyers from Brest arrived with the convoy and replaced the old cruiser as security as far as France. The convoy with its 13 ships arrived unhindered in Brest on the morning of May 24th. On their return journeys, however, the President Lincoln was sunk by U 90 as the first ship to be confiscated by the USA and the Dwinsk by U 151 .
On June 15, 1918, Covington , who had returned unhindered, left New York for the last time with 4,120 soldiers for the Western Front. In total, the Covington made six trips to France and carried 858 officers and 20,871 soldiers.
Downfall
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After her sixth voyage in the early evening of July 1, 1918, on her voyage westwards to America , the Covington was in a convoy with Rijndam , Dante Alighieri , Princess Matoika , Wilhelmina , Lenape and the former NDL ships George Washington (25,570 GRT) and de Kalb (ex Prince Eitel Friedrich , 8,865 GRT). The convoy of eight transporters ran on a zigzag course, had taken precautions against German submarines and was secured by seven US Navy destroyers stationed in Brest.
He was about 150 miles southwest of Brest when at 9:12 p.m. a torpedo shot down by the German submarine U 86 exploded and tore open the forward engine room. The Covington ran at that time as the second ship on the left side in the first group in the convoy. The ship lost speed and came to a standstill as the convoy split up and tried to escape. The destroyers Little and Smith stayed with the drifting ship for protection. The crew of the Covington boarded the lifeboats ; six crew members were killed in the torpedo attack. The destroyers tried by depth charges to prevent submarine attacks and took 770 shipwrecked people on board. The next morning the damaged ship was still listing about 40 degrees to port.
Captain Hasbrouck decided to board the Covington with a small crew of 25 people in order to make it as seaworthy as possible. On the morning of July 2, 1918, two tugs from Brest reached the scene of the accident and hooked the damaged vessel. However, more and more water penetrated into the ship and in the afternoon the vessel dropped to the position of 47 ° 24 ' N , 7 ° 44' W .
literature
- Arnold Kludas : The History of German Passenger Shipping. Volume 3: Leap growth 1900 to 1914. Ernst Kabel Verlag, Hamburg 1988, ISBN 3-8225-0039-9 , p. 56ff. ( Writings of the German Maritime Museum 20).
- Claus Rothe: German ocean passenger ships 1896 to 1918 . Steiger Verlag, 1986, ISBN 3-921564-80-8 .
Web links
- Entry on Miramar Ship Index is no longer freely accessible
- USS Covington Department of Navy Historical center
- USS Covington .htm with many images and sources
Footnotes
- ↑ Rothe, p. 126.
- ↑ Kludas, p. 140.
- ↑ Kludas, p. 196.
- ^ Kludas, p. 57.
- ^ Kludas, p. 198.
- ↑ DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY - NAVAL HISTORICAL CENTER, USS Covington (ID 1409)
- ↑ USS Covington on wrecksite