Erik af Klint

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Erik af Klint

Erik Johan Gustaf af Klint (born December 11, 1816 in Visby ; † July 20, 1866 near Lissa ) was a Swedish naval officer who entered Austrian service and was named k. k. Captain of the line in the Battle of Lissa fell.

Life

He came from an originally peasant family from Småland , later ennobled , whose members had made a name for themselves in civil service, in the military and especially in the navy since the 17th century . After having been embarked as a cabin boy on merchant ships and as a cadet on warships , he was appointed second lieutenant in the Swedish Navy in 1837 . But he wanted to gain more experience and worked for three years as a simple seaman and as a helmsman on British and American merchant ships between the ports of England, North and South America and West India.

He then resumed his service in the Swedish Navy and was promoted to lieutenant in the sea in 1845 . Not directly in the wake of the Danish Admiral Dahlerup , who had reformed the Imperial and Royal Navy since 1848 , but in connection with the recruitment of naval specialists he had begun from the north, he entered the Austrian service in 1853. There he was first employed in the Naval Arsenal of Venice . Then, as captain of the armed schooner Arethusa , he took over the protection of merchant shipping in the Adriatic and Ionian Seas . In view of his outstanding performance as a naval officer, he quickly made a career and became a corvette captain in 1856 and a frigate captain in 1858 .

In 1861 he became the captain of the liner. In the naval battle of Lissa on July 20, 1866, he took part as commander of the Novara steam frigate . When the 2nd Division, to which the ship belonged, was able to attack the Italian fleet in the rear at a favorable moment, the Novara received 47 hits in the fire fight. Erik af Klint was fatally wounded in one of them. Admiral Tegetthoff expressed his mourning for the beloved officer in a letter of condolence that he addressed to Erik af Klint's young widow, Mary Stewart, on the same day. He wrote: “I know how deeply your loss hits you, but be sure that the whole fleet mourns just as deeply. Erik von Klint was a man of honor in every respect, a brave and capable naval officer, loved and respected by everyone who knew him. "

literature

  • Erik af Klint . In: Herman Hofberg, Frithiof Heurlin, Viktor Millqvist, Olof Rubenson (eds.): Svenskt biografiskt handlexikon . 2nd Edition. tape 1 : A-K . Albert Bonniers Verlag, Stockholm 1906, p. 597 (Swedish, runeberg.org ).