Dalesman (ship, 1940)
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The Dalesman was a British cargo ship built in 1940 that was sunk by the German Air Force in May 1941 off Crete and later lifted. It was the only captured British ship in the Regia Marina , which it classified as an ammunition carrier under the name Pluto . After Italy surrendered in September 1943, the ship was confiscated by the Germans and assigned to the Mediterranean shipping company and sunk in 1945. After the war, the upscale ship went back to the original owner, who had it scrapped in 1959.
The name Dalesman is derived from the residents of the Yorkshire Dales .
Construction and technical data
The ship was laid down in Great Britain at the Lithgows shipyard in Port Glasgow in Scotland under construction number 927. The launch took place on March 26, 1940 under the name Dalesman , the completion took place in July of that year, also the delivery to the shipping company Harrison Line in Liverpool .
Her length was 135.75 meters, she was 17.20 meters wide and had a draft of 9.00 meters. It was measured with 6343 GRT or 3883 NRT and had a load capacity of 6500 tdw. The drive consisted of a triple expansion machine with an exhaust turbine from David Rowan & Co. from Govan , whose output was 2500 PSi . This acted on a screw, the steamer reached a speed of 14.0 knots . Under the British flag she had a crew of 32 officers and men.
history
British cargo ship Dalesman
Less than a year after commissioning, the Dalesman was sunk for the first time: On May 14, 1941, German bombers attacked the ship in the Souda Bay of Crete and damaged it so badly that it had to be set aground in order not to (completely ?) to decline. The 32-man crew were captured, one of whom died. 24 crew members managed to escape to Egypt with an abandoned landing ship (LCT).
Italian ammunition transporter and German freighter Pluto
At the end of May 1941, the ship is said to have been under German control. However, it is unclear whether they or the Italians lifted the ship again. According to various sources, it is said to have initially served as a stationary Hulk or accommodation ship for the Germans; according to other sources, the Italians dragged it to Trieste for repairs . According to the literature, it passed into the hands of the Italian government by 1942 at the latest, which assigned it to the Regia Marina and renamed it Pluto .
The further history of the ship initially remains contradictory: According to Italian information, the Regia Marina classified the Pluto as an ammunition transporter - with a crew of 138 officers and men - and is said to have used it for transports. According to other sources, the repair of the ship was not finished by the time Italy surrendered in September 1943. Accordingly, the Germans confiscated the ship on September 11th in Trieste, completed the repairs and only now gave it the name Pluto . It was assigned to the semi-state German Mediterranean shipping company for ship management , which used the ship in the Adriatic and also carried out military transports.
The ship was sunk for the second time in the spring of 1945: first of all, the British motor torpedo boat MTB 406 attacked the Pluto off Cittanova / Novigrad on the night of February 7th to 8th, 1945 and severely damaged her. The ship could still be towed to Trieste. There it sank on February 20, 1945 by bomb hits.
British cargo ship Empire Wily and Dalesman
In May 1945 the Pluto was spoiled by the British in Trieste. The British lifted and repaired the ship and placed it under the Ministry of War Transport (MOWT) as Empire Wily . In 1946, the former shipping company, the Harrison Line, got her ship back and gave her its old name Dalesman again . The shipping company used the ship until 1959 and then sold it to Van Heyghen Frères in Ghent for demolition, which began on August 15, 1959.
literature
- Reinhart Schmelzkopf: Foreign ships in German hands 1939–1945 . Strandgut-Verlag, Cuxhaven 2004.
- Ian Collard: Ships of the Mersey: A Photographic History . Amberley Publishing, Stroud (Gloucestershire) 2013, ISBN 978-1-4456-2403-7 (eBook).
- Donald A. Bertke, Gordon Smith, Don Kindell: World War II Sea War . Volume 3: The Royal Navy Is bloodied in the Mediterranean . Bertke Publications / Naval-history.net, Dayton OH 2012, ISBN 978-1-937470-01-2 .
Web links
- Steamer & Motorships , 1940. (PDF) Lloyd's of London, plimsollshipdata.org; accessed on November 18, 2017
- clydeships.co.uk (with photo), accessed November 18, 2017
- shipsnostalgia.com (with photo), accessed November 18, 2017
- theshipslist.com. Retrieved November 18, 2017
- wlb-stuttgart.de, accessed on November 18, 2017
- marina.difesa.it accessed on November 18, 2017
Individual evidence
- ↑ Schmelzkopf, p. 60, clydeships.co.uk shipsnostalgia.com
- ↑ Bertke, p. 503, wlb-stuttgart.de Collard
- ↑ Bertke, p. 503, wlb-stuttgart.de Collard, shipsnostalgia.com
- ↑ marina.difesa.it Schmelzkopf, p. 60
- ↑ Schmelzkopf, p. 60, clydeships.co.uk shipsnostalgia.com
- ↑ Schmelzkopf, p. 60, clydeships.co.uk
- ↑ Schmelzkopf, 60. clydeships.co.uk