Kulmerland (ship, 1929)
 The Kulmerland
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The Kulmerland was a combined ship of the Hamburg-American Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft (Hapag) for the East Asia service. The shipping company had four very similar ships, of which the Leverkusen and Duisburg , completed in 1928, were also built at the Deutsche Werft in Hamburg- Finkenwärder . The Kulmerland , which has been in service since 1929 , was launched in Japan in September 1939 due to the start of the Second World War .
From 1940 the ship was used by the Navy as a supply for auxiliary cruisers and made two trips from Japan. On August 26, 1942, the Kulmerland Dairen left to run to Europe as a blockade breaker . On November 7th, she reached Bordeaux, which was occupied by the Germans . It was not used again as a blockade breaker, as the Kulmerland was sunk by bombs in Nantes on September 23, 1943 .
Building history
From the Havelland (6354 GRT) in 1921, Hapag added new ships to its East Asian service. The Saarland (6863 GRT) and Vogtland (7106 GRT) with 47 passengers, supplied by Blohm & Voss in 1924, had the largest passenger facilities. While the Saarland was a turbine ship, the Vogtland , like four other predecessors, was a motor ship with two propellers.
In 1928/29 Hapag acquired five more new buildings that could accommodate 24 passengers. The model ship of the series was the Leverkusen from the German shipyard, completed in 1928, which also delivered the Duisburg in 1928 . These came from the Flensburg shipbuilding company still Burgenland . In 1929 the class was completed by the Sauerland built by Schichau in Danzig as the last ship and the Kulmerland .
In the service of Hapag
The ship was named after the West Prussian region of Kulmerland around the city of Kulm , which had belonged to the so-called Polish Corridor since 1920 . It was the third newbuild from Deutsche Werft in this series and was delivered shortly before the Sauerland . As the last ship in the new series, she began her maiden voyage to East Asia on April 26, 1928 . The ship remained in service on this route until 1939.
On April 19, 1932, the Kulmerland rescued the crew of the burning Latvian freighter Selonija off the Spanish coast.
The importance of the combination ships for passenger traffic to East Asia was initially significant, as their increased service speed, modern equipment and faster handling of the journey appealed to many passengers. This importance diminished when, from 1936 onwards, Norddeutsche Lloyd used the express steamers Scharnhorst , Gneisenau and Potsdam, the latter of which had been built for Hapag before the "reorganization of the shipping lines" by the German government.
Supply ship of the Kriegsmarine
The Kulmerland , laid up in Japan in September 1939 , was used by the Navy in 1940 to supply auxiliary cruisers. On October 4, 1940, she left Kobe with 1700 tons of diesel and other supplies to supply the auxiliary cruisers Komet and Orion . The Orion had marched through the Atlantic around Cape Horn to New Zealand and had been waging a trade war there since June 1940 . Since the supply of the ship from the stage in South America does not come, this auxiliary cruiser should be supplied from Japan. The Regensburg des NDL was sent to her as the first supplier . The comet had entered the Pacific through the Northeast Passage with Soviet help and was supposed to wage a trade war in the South Seas and Australian waters. The Kulmerland , which left Kobe, met the Komet when it was passing Japan on its way south and continued with her to the Lamotrek -Atoll, where on October 18, 1940 the Orion with the Regensburg also arrived. All four German ships that met were camouflaged as Japanese, but both suppliers were called Tokio Maru without any visual reference to an existing ship and the camouflage of the Orion was very superficial except for the Japanese mark of neutrality. The strange accumulation in the atoll was also reported to the responsible Japanese authorities by a Japanese cruise ship passing through. The German ships quickly went back to sea and the Regensburg was released to Japan to procure additional supplies and required spare parts.
The Kulmerland and the two auxiliary cruisers formed a broad reconnaissance chain southwards to attack the traffic from Australia and New Zealand across the Pacific. The sinking of the Rangitane on November 27, 1940, however, then led to the retreat in the South Seas before the British search operations with warships and long-range flying boats. The Kulmerland soon had 257 prisoners on board, including 52 women and 6 children. Calling Japan with prisoners was strictly forbidden by the SKL . The attack on Nauru planned by the commander of the Komet could not take place as desired because of the weather conditions, which also meant that a landing of the prisoners was not an option. Eyssen decided to dismiss the bulk of the prisoners (women, children, younger non-British seamen) in Emirau . There the association also split up. While the Komet carried out a second attack on Nauru, the Orion ran with the Kulmerland in the direction of the Mariana Islands , with the supply ship continuing its voyage to Japan, while the auxiliary cruiser advanced into the Indian Ocean after being overtaken in an island hiding place.
The Kulmerland , which arrived back in Japan on December 31, 1940, was equipped for a second mission to support German auxiliary cruisers. On September 3, 1941, she left Kobe with 4000 tons of diesel, 225 tons of oil, provisions for 6 months and white metal spare parts for the auxiliary cruiser Kormoran , with whom she met on October 16 in the Indian Ocean west of Australia at the “Marius” supply point. She stayed with the auxiliary cruiser for nine days to find a suitable sea area for transhipment. The Kormoran was the former freighter Steiermark , Hapag's most modern ship on the East Asia route. The white metal bearings carried by the Kulmerland were urgently needed for the operational capability of the auxiliary cruiser's engines.
The Kulmerland started the march back to Japan on October 24th with 86 prisoners of the cormorants . The prisoners were handed over to the Society Islands on November 17, 1941, to the Spreewald blockade breaker (5083 BRT, 1922) who had left Dairen with a rubber load on October 21, 1941 . This was mistakenly torpedoed by the German submarine U 333 north of the Azores on January 31, 1942 . Despite a rescue operation initiated immediately, only 25 crew members and 55 prisoners were rescued from the total of 152 men on board.
Breakthrough to France and end of the ship
In August 1942, the Navy began to send blockade breakers from Japan to Germany again. After the Tannenfels (8th, 7840 GRT, 16 kn, 1938) and Dresden (20th, 5567 GRT, 15 kn, 1937) from Yokohama, the Kulmerland left Dairen on August 26, 1942 with a load of raw materials essential to the war effort and reached around Cape the Good Hope Bordeaux on November 7, 1942, a few days after the two ships set out in front of her. She was the last German surface ship that reached the German-occupied southern France undamaged as a blockade breaker. Of the 16 ships that were sent to Europe for her, only the Pietro Orseolo and the Osorno reached the Gironde in April and December 1943, respectively .
When the British marines (Operation Frankton) attacked the blockade breakers in the harbor on December 12, 1942 with collapsible boats and mines, the Kulmerland remained undamaged. Relocated to Nantes in 1943 , it was badly damaged in an Allied air raid on September 23, 1943. When the Germans withdrew in August 1944, the damaged ship was sunk as a block ship.
In 1945 the Kulmerland was lifted and a restoration for the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique was considered. The damage was too extensive and the damaged ship was towed to Briton Ferry , Wales, and scrapped there in 1950
Fate of the sister ships
| Launched in service |
Surname | tonnage | shipyard | fate |
| May 26, 1928 July 21, 1928 |
Leverkusen | 7386 GRT 10,060 dw |
German shipyard BauNr. 107 |
August 4, 1928 Maiden voyage to East Asia, from March 4, 1930 the only voyage of one of the new combi ships to Australia (outward journey through the South Atlantic around the Cape of Good Hope / return journey through the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean Sea), launched in Baia in September 1939 as Transportation on May 1, 1941. Kerkena by British submarine Upholder sunk |
| 05/12/1928 08/16/1928 |
Burgenland | 7320 BRT 10075 dw |
Flensburger SG building no. 362 |
September 1, 1928 Maiden voyage to East Asia, September 3, 1939 launched in Kobe , self-sunk in the South Atlantic on January 5, 1944 when she was caught by the US cruiser Omaha and the destroyer Jouett while attempting to break through to Europe |
| 07/19/1928 09/22/1928 |
Duisburg | 7389 BRT 10195 tdw |
German shipyard BauNr. 108 |
October 13, 1928 Maiden voyage to East Asia, September 6, 1939 in Naples , sunk as a transporter in an Italian convoy on November 9, 1941 by the British destroyer Lively of Force K in the Mediterranean Sea |
| December 11, 1928 March 19, 1929 |
Sauerland | 7087 BRT 9670 tdw |
Schichau building no. 1201 |
April 3, 1929 Maiden voyage to East Asia, October 3, 1939 Blockbreaker VII of the Kriegsmarine , shot on fire by British fighter bombers off La Pallice on August 12, 1944, incapable of maneuvering wreck sunk by Polish destroyer Piorun , 4 dead |
literature
- Arnold Kludas: The History of German Passenger Shipping . Volume IV: Annihilation and Rebirth 1914 to 1930 . Writings of the German Maritime Museum, Volume 21
- Dieter Jung, Martin Maass, Berndt Wenzel: Tanker and supplier of the German fleet 1900–1980 . Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1981
Web links
- The supply ship Kulmerland Photo
- German Raiders in the Pacific: The Komet Enters the Pacific
- East Asia stage
- Blockade breaker Japan
- Italian site about the German blockade breakers with pictures
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kludas, p. 162 f.
- ↑ melt head, p. 155
- ↑ HOLMWOOD AND RANGITANE SUNK
- ↑ The rescue of the 496 prisoners comes faster than expected; the Kulmerland was identified as an involved ship in Chronicle, Adelaide, Jan 9, 1941
- ↑ Information and pictures about the Tannenfels
- ↑ Kulmerland . In: frenchlines.com . 2012. Archived from the original on January 23, 2013. Retrieved March 11, 2013.
- ^ Vince O'Hara: The Duisburg (Beta) Convoy Battle