Franken class
| Franken class | ||
|---|---|---|
 The former Hessen as an Australian bulla |
||
| Launch : | ?. August 1905 - June 8, 1906 January 30 - September 10, 1907 |
|
| Commissioning: | October 10, 1905 - August 23, 1906 March 4 - October 4, 1907 |
|
| Builders: |
|
|
| Sister ships: |
Franconia , Swabia . Hesse , Westphalia , Thuringia , Lorraine |
|
| very similar: |
Silesia . Göttingen , Greifswald |
|
| Crew: | 50 men | |
| Technical specifications | ||
| Measurement: | 4994-5122, ~ 5441-5536 BRT | |
| Load capacity: | 7,560 to 8,200 ~ 8,800 dwt | |
| Length over all: | 130.54-131.16, 133.70-135.94 m | |
| Width: | 16.08 - 16.85 m | |
| Machinery: | Quadruple expansion steam engine | |
| Number of screws: | 1 | |
| Power: | 3,200 PSi | |
| Top speed: | 11.5 kn | |
| Whereabouts | ||
|
1915–1954 loss / demolition |
||
The Franken class was a series of freighters that North German Lloyd commissioned for the Australian service and that were completed from 1905 to 1907. From 1912 this freight service was reinforced by the ships of the Rhineland class .
description
It was the first order for large cargo ships from NDL for its new cargo line to Australia. The Bremer Vulkan , the Tecklenborg shipyard and the AG Weser each built two ships.
With a size of 4994–5122 GRT, a carrying capacity of 7,560–8,200 tdw, the ships equipped with a quadruple expansion steam engine of 3200 hp were 11.5 knots fast. They were 130.54 to 131.16 m long and 16.08 m wide and had a crew of 50 men.
In 1907, three slightly larger freighters from the Bremer Vulkan ( Göttingen , Greifswald ) and the Flensburger Schiffsbau-Gesellschaft ( Silesia ) followed.
The latter was the only one of these first freighters that did not go to Australia, but to the Río de la Plata .
Use at the North German Lloyd
On October 10, 1905, the Franken (Bremer Vulkan, construction no. 483) came into service as the first ship of this class, which immediately opened the freight service to Australia . The new line went via Benelux ports into the Mediterranean, through the Suez Canal and then called at Padang , Batavia and Soerabaya in the Dutch East Indies, then circumnavigated the northern tip of Australia and ran along the coast of Queensland via Townsville and Brisbane to Sydney . In 1905, the Hessen and Westphalia manufactured at Tecklenborg (construction no. 207/208) were also put into service on November 9th and December 30th.
On March 6, 1906, the Bremer Vulkan delivered the Swabians (construction no. 484), which was followed by Lorraine and Thuringia (construction no. 149/148) manufactured by AG Weser on April 3 and August 23, 1906.
The similar Silesia (5536 GRT) was delivered on March 4, 1907 by Flensburger Schiffbau and was used on the route to the Río de la Plata .
In 1907 the slightly larger Göttingen (5441 BRT, 8850 tdw, 135.94 m long) followed on August 23 and Greifswald (5486 BRT) on October 4 (construction no. 503/504) for the line to Australia, the in July, however, changed her route by leading through the South Atlantic to Cape Town and then heading for Fremantle in Australia and now leading around southern Australia, possibly as far as Brisbane .
At or after the start of the war the ships were:
| Francs | August 1914 Rio de Janeiro , 1917 confiscated Taubate |
| Hesse | Confiscated August 4, 1914 in Port Philipp , Australia, Bulla |
| Westphalia | August 1914 Valparaíso , Chile |
| Swabia | Bremerhaven, March 1917 barrier breaker |
| Thuringia | Applied at Fremantle on August 27, 1914 by HMAS Pioneer , then Moorina |
| Lorraine | Confiscated August 5, 1914 in Melbourne , Moora |
| Silesia | Applied August 7, 1914 in the Bay of Biscay by HMS Vindictive , Maritime , 1915 Waikawa |
| Goettingen | August 1st from Moji with coal to the cruiser squadron , in the train across the Pacific, October 31st to Valparaíso |
| Greifswald | Confiscated in Fremantle August 1914, Carina |
Operations in the First World War
Five freighters that had fallen into British hands at the beginning of the war were immediately used as transporters. Bulla ex Hessen and Carina ex Greifswald were used by Australia. The Moora ex Lorraine and Moorina ex Thuringia , which were also confiscated there , were later made available to India as troop transports.
The Moorina was sunk on November 10, 1915 in the Mediterranean south of Crete by the German submarine U 35 with Indian troops on board. There should have been no losses. Silesia , which was attacked on August 7 in the Biscay by the British cruiser Vindictive , which became famous in the raid on Zeebrugge , was used under the name Maritime and from 1915 Waikawa and sunk in ballast on October 19, 1917 east of Plymouth by UB 31 .
On the German side, the Göttingen under Captain Nauß was sent from Moji to the cruiser squadron of Count Spee with 5000 tons of coal from the Japan stage . She first met the auxiliary cruiser Cormoran and met with this and the steamer OJD Ahlers on August 26th on the squadron at the Majuro Atoll. In the entourage of the squadron she ran on over Christmas Island to Comptroller Bay on the island of Nukuhiva in the Marquesas . With the Reichspoststampfer Yorck and the escort ship Titania she ran with the squadron to Easter Island off the Chilean coast at Mas a Fuera ( Robinson Island ), she was then finally emptied and released on October 31, 1914 to Valparaíso .
On October 31, the Glasgow arrived in Coronel in search of Leipzig, which was still individually operating from a British perspective . There she was discovered by Germans, and Göttingen , who had just arrived in Valparaíso just like the Yorck , lifted anchor again and radioed outside the three-mile zone at 02:50 on November 1st: "Cruiser Glasgow anchored in Coronel Roadstead." Spees' squadron marched with them immediately 14 knots south to intercept the Glasgow and encountered the British squadron, which lost two armored cruisers in the ensuing naval battle at Coronel .
Swabia , which was only in Germany at the beginning of the war , became a barrier breaker of the Imperial Navy in March 1917 .
Post-war missions under foreign flags
Seven of the six Franken-class freighters and the three very similar ships survived the war. Two were sunk by German submarines after being seized by the British in their service.
The three ships still in British service were all assigned to the Australian state line. In 1923, the Moora ex Lorraine was sold to the Southern Whaling & Sealing Co. Ltd of the British fat-processing company Lever Brothers , which they renamed Southern King . In 1935 the ship went to the whaling company South Georgia Co. belonging to the shipping company Christian Salvesen , Leith (Scotland) , was renamed Saluta and served as a support ship. In 1945 she was the only larger ship of the shipping company still in existence and supported the reconstruction of the whaling station in Leith Harbor on South Georgia . In 1951 the former Lorraine was finally broken off.
The Carina ex Greifswald was sold to Greece in 1926 and renamed Captain Rokos there . In 1931 she was stranded on Virgin Gorda near Saint Thomas . The Bulla ex Hessen was sold to the Schuchmann shipping company in Germany in 1926 .
On May 5, 1919, the Schwaben , the only ship in Germany during the war, was delivered to Great Britain. Initially managed by Strick Line, it came to various owners under the name Cragness from 1921 . It was lost in June 1924 on a trip from Durban to Perim in the Mozambique Strait .
The type ship Franken , confiscated in Brazil in 1917, was renamed Taubate and was chartered to France from 1920 to 1922 - like many other Brazilian loot ships. She had the longest service life of all ships in the class, as she was not lost due to stranding until July 2, 1954 after the anchor chain broke off Recife .
Post-war use under the German flag
Two freighters in Valparaíso at the end of the war were part of the Columbus Agreement in 1921 and remained in service with the NDL when they were returned from South America.
On October 7, 1922, Göttingen carried out the NDL's first trip to Australia after the World War. It was also used in East Asia, launched in March 1932 and sold for demolition in June 1933.
The Westfalen had already been deployed to East Asia on January 3, 1921. The now superfluous ship was chartered to Deutsche Lufthansa (DLH) on July 1, 1932 and converted into the first catapult ship for its airmail service across the South Atlantic. In 1933 she carried out the first tests with Dornier Wal flying boats between Bathurst and Natal . Regular service began in early 1934. In 1938 the Westphalia was sold to the DLH. In March 1938 she was involved in setting a new long-distance world record. A Do 18 D , D-ANHR, had been modified for this purpose into a Do 18 W (W for world record). It did not belong to Lufthansa, but remained with Dornier-Werke GmbH as a Reich-owned aircraft , where it was prepared for the record attempt and provided with special equipment. The Westfalen was on the way from Bremerhaven to Bathurst in Gambia. On March 27, 1938, the Westphalia , with the D-ANHR on board, briefly anchored southeast of the English port of Dartmouth . There she catapulted the flying boat loaded with additional fuel into the air at 14:05 GMT . The launch point was chosen so that the entire distance to Brazil could be flown over the sea at all times. Two days later, on March 29, 1938, at 10:05 a.m., after 43 hours, the flying boat landed at the small town of Caravelas in Brazil. The 8,392 kilometers covered meant a new world record. The Westphalia was last used in 1938 when it first replaced the Ostmark in Bathurst in April and then relocated to South America after its return, as the Friesenland was withdrawn from there for the North Atlantic tests. The last catapult take-off of a postal plane from Westphalia took place on November 4, 1938 in front of Fernando de Noronha by the Dornier Do 18 D-ARUN Zephir, which exceptionally flew directly 4050 km to Las Palmas .
On February 1, 1940, the ship was confiscated by the German Air Force and assigned to the Hörnum Seefliegerhorst on Sylt. During the invasion of Norway in April, it was used to transport troops and materials. On May 1, 1941, the Westphalia was relocated to Trondheim , 1942 to the Altafjord and 1943 again to Trondheim; during this time she served as a mother ship for long-range reconnaissance aircraft.
On September 7, 1944, Westphalia left Norway with around 200 German soldiers and 75 to 80 prisoners. The prisoners were to be transported to Germany and were housed deep down in the ship. On September 8, 1944, the ship ran into heavy seas in the Kattegat. At 11.15 a.m. there was a serious explosion in the forecastle, and a minute later a second one aft. The Westphalia ran on two mines. It broke apart and quickly sank in the stormy seas. The prisoners were released from inside the ship when the ship began to sink. There was panic on deck and everyone was trying to get a place in a lifeboat. Later there were only five Norwegian prisoners among the survivors. In total, only 78 people survived.
In addition to the two ships again used by the NDL, the Bulla ex Hessen, bought by the Schuchmann shipping company, came into service as a Weissesee under the German flag. It was lost on July 25, 1943 in Hamburg by a bomb hit.
literature
- Carl Herbert: War voyages of German merchant ships . Broschek & Co, Hamburg 1934.
- Arnold Kludas : The ships of the North German Lloyd 1857 to 1919 . Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, 1991, ISBN 3-7822-0524-3 .
- Reinhart Schmelzkopf: The German Merchant Shipping 1919–1939 . Stalling, Oldenburg-Hamburg, 1974, ISBN 3-7979-1847-X .
- Otto J. Seiler: Trip to Australia . Mittler, Herford 1974, ISBN 3-8132-0270-4 .
Individual evidence
- ^ [1] Image of the Bulla ex Hessen
- ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from September 30, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Stakes of the Pioneer
- ↑ [2] Image of the Moora ex Lorraine
- ↑ [3] Operations of the Vindictive
- ^ [4] Picture of Carina ex Greifswald
- ↑ [5] Report on the sinking of the Moorina
- ↑ [6] Report on the sinking of the Waikawa
- ↑ [7] several pictures of the Southern King and their working environment
![[1]](http://www.flotilla-australia.com/images/bulla-slnsw.jpg){kind=link}
![[2]](http://www.flotilla-australia.com/images/s-king-moora-slq-179430p.jpg){kind=link}
![[4]](http://www.flotilla-australia.com/images/carina-slnsw.jpg){kind=link}