Falcon (ship, 1926)
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The falcon was one of six torpedo boats of the type 1923 ( bird of prey class ) of the German Reichsmarine and Kriegsmarine . The boat, which came into service in 1927, was sunk by aerial bombs in the port of Le Havre on the night of June 15, 1944 . In this attack, the seagull and jaguar were sunk and the condor , which was already unclear to drive, was damaged even more.
Building history
The boat was on December 7, 1925 at the Imperial Naval Shipyard Wilhelmshaven on down Kiel and ran there on 22 September 1926 by the stack . The falcon and the condor launched on the same day were the last two boats in the class, which also included the type ship Möwe as well as the Griffin , the Seeadler and the Albatros .
From 1870 to 1890 the name of the worldwide widespread bird of prey was a Rad-Aviso falcon of 1230 t and then from 1891 to 1912 the unprotected 1868 t-cruiser falcon in the Prussian and then Imperial Navy .
Years of peace
The falcon was put into service on August 1, 1927 with Oberleutnant zur See Hans Hartmann as the first in command, ended its test drives on November 3, 1927, and was assigned to the 4th torpedo boat semi-flotilla under Corvette Captain Otto Schniewind . The boat undertook the usual training trips, maneuvers and trips abroad (July 1928 Scandinavia, June 1931 Latvia, June 1932 Sweden, 1933 Norway, 1934 Denmark). From autumn 1928 to February 1929 it was the successor of the sister boat Albatros leader boat of the 4th torpedo boat half flotilla, then served for three months with the 3rd torpedo boat half flotilla, and after a short stay in the shipyard returned to the 4th torpedo boat half flotilla, which on October 1, 1935 in the 4th torpedo boat flotilla was renamed.
From August 20, 1936, the boat was used for two months in Spain , where it was first used to monitor the northern Spanish coastal waters and support German citizens and other foreigners fleeing the war during the Spanish civil war . The march out of the boat was carried along with the cruiser Nürnberg , the flagship of the BdA Rear Admiral Boehm and the battleship Admiral Graf Spee and the Cross . The other two boats in the flotilla had been moved to Spain earlier. On August 25, Boehm replaced Rear Admiral Carls as commander of the (German) naval forces off Spain.
Also in June-August 1937 and again from October 1937 to March 1938, the Falcon was back in Spain with the other boats of the 4th T-Flotilla. In the sector assigned to the Germans on the south-eastern Spanish Mediterranean coast, maritime traffic was monitored. Active support for the putschists was only possible to a limited extent for the German naval forces in this area.
After a major overhaul in Wilhelmshaven from June 1938 to March 1939, the boat was assigned to the 5th torpedo boat flotilla on April 4, 1939.
Second World War
During the war years of 1939 and 1940, the falcon took part in the 5th flotilla of torpedo boats in numerous mine-laying, security and escort operations in the North Sea. During the German raid on Norway , the falcon was not part of the attack units , but on April 14, 1940 it led the second crew transport from Frederikshavn to Oslo with Jaguar , T 5 and the artillery training ship Brummer . Further escort duties followed between Germany, Denmark and Norway. In June, the falcon , which formed a couple with the Jaguar , was used to secure the German fleet from Kiel through the Skagerrak to southern Norway, which was leaving with the battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the Admiral Hipper for Juno . Both boats secured the auxiliary cruisers Thor and then Pinguin , which were running out for the trade war, and the relocation of the cruiser Nürnberg from Kiel to Trondheim . The last major operation of the two boats in June 1940 took place from 21 to 23 when the Scharnhorst, damaged by a torpedo hit, was returned from Trondheim to Kiel. Mining operations in the North Sea and in the canal followed . When the battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau attempted to break through into the North Atlantic at the end of December 1940 (canceled) and on January 22, 1941 (successful, → Enterprise Berlin ), the falcon was part of their security in the initial phase.
From February to May 1941 the boat was given a general overhaul in Rotterdam and then used again in security service off Norway and Denmark . On August 25, 1941, the North Marine Group Command released the flotilla from active service and the boats were assigned to various units for training purposes. So that served hawk in the second half of 1941 temporarily as a torpedo fishing boat for the 24 Unterseebootsflottille in Trondheim Fjord , as a school boat for the Torpedo School of the Navy and again as a torpedo fishing boat for the 24th U-boat Flotilla in the Baltic Sea.
In order to serve as escort for the three capital ships at Cerberus (February 11-13, 1942), the "canal breakthrough" of the battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen , the Falke and the entire 5th torpedo boat flotilla were deployed in early 1942 relocated to the English Channel ; she took part in the company as planned from Cap Gris-Nez . On 13./14. March the falcon and four other torpedo boats drove from Vlissingen from escort for the auxiliary cruiser Michel on its breakthrough to western France. After that, the flotilla stayed in Brest on the west coast of France . After the British commando attack on Saint-Nazaire on March 28th (=> Operation Chariot ), the Falcon sank a British motor torpedo boat . On 12./13. May 1942 the torpedo boats Iltis , Kondor , Falke and Seeadler and 16 mine clearance boats led the auxiliary cruiser Stier from Rotterdam through the English Channel to the Bay of Biscay ; In the early morning of May 13, shortly after 4 a.m., attacking British speedboats sank the polecat (115 dead) and the sea eagle (85 dead) near Boulogne within five minutes .
The falcon stayed in western France until 1944, with brief interruptions. Initially, the boat primarily performed security and escort tasks. From mid-1943 the boats of the 5th T-Flotilla were primarily entrusted with the laying of defensive mine barriers in the canal against an expected landing by the Allies, while the security tasks in the Bay of Biscay were taken over by destroyers or the larger and considerably more armed torpedo boats that new came into service. The securing of the old mining boats in the canal was mostly done by speedboats .
Last missions in 1944
On the night of May 23-24, 1944, the 5th T-Flotilla with a falcon and a jaguar (leader boat of the Flotilla Chief Corvette Captain Heinrich Hoffmann ), Kondor , Greif , Möwe and the 6th minesweeping flotilla were to move from Cherbourg to Le Havre. During the march, the German association was attacked several times by British aircraft. An Albacore torpedo bomber sank the Greif in the Bay of the Seine, killing only two of the crew. Kondor reached Le Havre despite a heavy hit from the bottom of the mine. The sinking griffin had collided with the falcon , which then had to go to the shipyard in Le Havre and was not ready for action again until June 13, a week after the Allied landing in Normandy .
Only two days later, on the night of June 14th to 15th, 1944, the Falcon received at least five bombs during a heavy British air raid with 325 Lancaster bombers on the port facilities of Le Havre at around 3 a.m., capsized and sank to 49 ° 28 ' N , 0 ° 9' O . 26 men of their crew , including the commander, Kapitänleutnant Günter Krüger, lost their lives. The attack by the Royal Air Force Bomber Command was aimed at the light German naval forces concentrated in the port of Le Havre. The seagull (12 dead) and the jaguar (16 dead) were sunk by bomb hits . The unclear condor was also badly damaged again. Thus the last of the built by the Imperial Navy torpedo boats were bird of prey - and predator class lost.
In addition to the three torpedo boats, the Navy lost fifteen speedboats and a large number of smaller vehicles in this attack.
technical description
Commanders
| August 1, 1927 to September 27, 1928 | OLzS | Hans Hartmann | 1897-1976 | Rear admiral |
| September 27, 1928 to February 15, 1929 | OLzS | Werner Ehrhardt | 1898-1967 | Rear Admiral (also German Navy ) |
| February 15 to June 1, 1929 | KL | Hans-Armin Czech | 1898-1970 | Lieutenant General of the Air Force |
| October 11, 1929 to September 1930 | KL | Fritz Berger | 1900-1973 | KzS |
| September 1930 to September 1932 | KL | Paul Ascher | 1899-1948 | KzS |
| September 1932 to September 1934 | KL | Ernst-Ludwig Thienemann | 1898-1964 | Flotilla admiral of the German Navy |
| September 1934 to September 1936 | KL | Alwin Albrecht | 1903– | KK |
| September 1936 to June 11, 1938 | KL | Walter Riede | 1903– | KzS |
| April 4, 1939 to March 1940 | KL | Günter Hessler | 1909-1968 | FK |
| March 1940 to December 1941 | KL | Jan Heinrich Hansen-Nootbaar | 1911– | KK |
| December 1941 to October 17, 1942 | KL | Heinrich Hoffmann | 1910-1998 | KzS of the German Navy |
| October 17, 1942 to March 1943 | KL | Konrad Loerke | 1909-1975 | KzS of the German Navy |
| March 1943 to September 1943 | KL | Hans-Walter book | 1912-2001 | KzS of the German Navy |
| September 1943 to June 15, 1944 | KL | Günter Kruger | 1916–1944 † | fell the falcon at sinking |
literature
- Harald Fock: Z-before! International development and war missions of destroyers and torpedo boats , Volume 1 1914 to 1939 , Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg, 2001, ISBN 3-7822-0762-9
- Hans H. Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German Warships , Mundus Verlag, Ratingen
- Volkmar Kühn: Torpedo boats and destroyers in action 1939–1945. Motorbuchverlag, Stuttgart, 4th edition, 1983
- Jürgen Rohwer, Klaus Hümmelchen: Chronicle of the Naval War 1939–1945 , Manfred Pawlak VerlagsGmbH, Herrsching, 1968, ISBN 3-88199-009-7
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