Galathea (ship, 1934)
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The Danish frigate Galathea (A546) was a research vessel . The ship, purchased in 1949, was the second new build of the Grimsby-class sloops for the Royal Navy by the Naval Shipyard in Devonport . The ship was completed as HMS Leith in 1934. Stationed in New Zealand in the prewar period , the Leith mostly served as an escort ship for North Atlantic convoys during World War II. In 1946 it was sold and renamed Byron . A Danish organization bought the former sloop in 1948 and named it Freedom .
The Danish state took over the initially private research ideas and the ship intended for this purpose. During a research trip around the world it was supposed to advertise Denmark and remind of the circumnavigation of the Danish corvette Galathea about 100 years earlier. The world tour took the ship, renamed Galathea , from October 15, 1950 to June 29, 1952 via Cape Town , Ceylon , Singapore , the Philippines and Australia to New Zealand. The return journey took place from March 3, 1952 over the Pacific to Hawaii , San Francisco , through the Panama Canal , over the Antilles and Azores to Europe .
A planned further use of the ship in the Danish Navy did not take place and the former British escort sloop was scrapped in Odense in 1955 .
History of the ship
On November 1, 1932, the Royal Navy ordered two sloops of a modified design from Devonport Dockyard . The new ships were to be used primarily as escort ships and had a modified main armament with two 120 mm Mk.IX cannons and a 76 mm L / 45 anti-aircraft gun . After the type ship Grimsby of the new class, the keel-laying of the second ship of the class took place on February 6, 1933, which was then launched on September 9, 1933 and was the first ship of the Navy to be named after the port of Leith in the Scottish capital Edinburgh . On July 10, 1934, it entered service with the Royal Navy.
Mission history
HMS Leith (L36) was assigned to the New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy and arrived in Auckland on November 13, 1934 . She replaced the Sloop Veronica of the Acacia group of the Flower class , which had been used in New Zealand since September 1920 and had already been decommissioned in Chatham in February 1934 . The Sloop Laburnum of the Flower class, used in the New Zealand Division since 1922, left Auckland on February 1, 1935 and was decommissioned in Singapore , but continued to be used as a stationary drill and training ship for the Naval Volunteer Reserve. The Laburnum was replaced by the Wellington , a sister ship of the Leith, completed in January 1935 .
Leith made many visits to British possessions in the Pacific during her service in New Zealand and was also made available to the Queen of Tonga , Salote Tupou III, for a tour of the Tonga Islands .
When the Second World War broke out, the two sloops stationed in New Zealand moved to Singapore in order to monitor shipping traffic in the waters around the Malay Peninsula and the activities of German merchant ships that had sought refuge in the ports of Dutch East India . As early as the beginning of November, the two sloops moved across the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean to Europe. In Gibraltar the sloops were then assigned to various convoy to reinforce the security as far as Great Britain.
From February 1940 the Leith belonged to the " Western Approaches Escort Force". At that time, intensive securing of the North Atlantic convoys only took place on the eastern side of the Atlantic. The Leith was involved in two important convoy battles :
In mid-October 1940, it was one of the participants in one of the first large convoy battles, when the convoy SC 7 with 35 ships en route from Sydney (Nova Scotia) to Great Britain in one of German submarines Reconnaissance strip ran. A total of eight submarines attacked the convoy and sank 21 ships with a total of 79,592 GRT and damaged two more. The defenders who Sloops Scarborough and Fowey and the Corvette Blue Bell were indeed in the second attack night, Leith amplified and a Corvette, but could only do little against the submarines, as in Leith , Fowey and Bluebell existing ASDIC devices with were overwhelmed by the speed and the large number of submarines in the convoy.
Leith was able to rescue parts of the crews from three ships: on the 18th from the Estonian Nora (1186 BRT, 1902,? Dead) 19 survivors and on the following day 34 shipwrecked British Assyrians (ex Fritz , 2962 BRT, 1915, 17 dead) and others 19 of the Dutch Soesterberg (1904 BRT, 1927, 6 dead).
After a two-month deployment period of Newfoundland from the secured Leith in late summer 1941 with the Norwegian destroyer Bath of the Town-class , six corvettes and an anti-submarine trawler as "5th Escort Group" the 23 merchant ships comprehensive Convoy OG 71 from the UK to Gibraltar. After a Fw 200 Condor of I./KG 40 discovered the convoy on August 17, 1941, Condor scouts or submarines were able to keep in touch with the convoy for long periods of time, even though the security ships were able to push away the contact holders several times. Despite the reinforcement of the convoy security by the destroyers Gurkha and Legion and then the Boreas and later Vidette and Wivern , five of the submarines attacking the convoy were able to sink eight merchant ships with a total of 13,225 GRT as well as the Norwegian destroyer Bath and the corvette Zinnia . The attacks by Ju-88 bombers were unsuccessful because they were not carried out as a single unit . Over 400 people lost their lives, including 22 wrens on the Aguila .
However, only five ships of the convoy reached Gibraltar, the other unsunk ships sought refuge in neutral Portugal.
In June 1942 the Leith belonged to the "43rd Escort Group" with the destroyer Bradford (ex USS McLanshaw DD264) of the Town class and the sloops Rochester , Sandwich and Scarborough , which was used between Bathurst and Liverpool. The Allied landings in North Africa ( Operation Torch ) led to the temporary use of the Sloop in the western Mediterranean. This was followed by operations to secure convoy from Freetown and Bathurst as well as Gibraltar. After repairs at home, the last missions followed from Portsmouth on the southwestern canal accesses , where she secured the deployment of mines against submarines with the sister ships Deptford and Fleetwood in early 1945.
The end of active service
The sloop was decommissioned shortly after the end of the war and sold on the civilian market in 1946. As Byron she came under the Panamanian flag. In 1948 it was sold to Denmark where it was named Freedom .
Research vessel Galathea
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During the World War, Danish citizens and scientists had the idea of repeating the Corvette Galathea's voyage from 1845 to 1847. After the end of the war, the idea also found interest in the Danish government and the state developed it further. The former Sloop Leith , which belongs to a Danish peace committee , was bought for the Navy on August 26, 1949 and converted into a research ship. The focus of the trip around the earth should be research on geomagnetism as well as on life in greater ocean depths. In memory of the first Danish circumnavigation, the ship was named Galathea and was referred to as a frigate . The disarmed sloop was - although a naval ship - not re-armed and received only three 57 mm salute guns. From September 4 to 16, 1950, the ship made the first major test voyage to Norway.
On October 15, 1950, the Galathea left Copenhagen for a journey around the world, which was to last two years. The ship was bid farewell to the Danish royal couple and a large number of onlookers. In addition to the naval crew, there were usually around fourteen civilians on board. In the case of scientists, the composition changed according to the nature of the tasks at hand. There were also changing journalists on board, who reported on the course of the voyage and took care of any Danish community in the ports of call.
The first stage led around Skagen through the North Sea to Plymouth , where the ship was originally built. Then came Lisbon , Tenerife and Dakar , and then called at the most important ports near the coast.
In Accra , a special task of the ship became relevant for the first time. There had in Christiansborg the center of the to 1850 Danish possessions on the Gold Coast found that had been sold to the UK 1850th The documentation of any remnants of the Danish colonial endeavors was one of the few tasks on land and should also compare the situation with the reports of the first Galathea .
After visiting other ports and first attempts with the deep-sea trawl, the ship spent Christmas in Walvisbay and New Years in Cape Town . The ship was then overhauled for the first time in the South African naval base at Simonstown . The trawl net was fitted with a new steel cable over 12 km long, which was stored in the bow for reasons of stability and spread the trawl over the stern via deflectors on the ship. In addition, the electrical system was improved and a new alternator installed. In addition to the usual changes among the civilians on board, the commander of the ship was also replaced as planned.
In mid-February 1951, the Galathea continued its voyage and filled its bunkers cheaply in Beira, Portugal . The bad weather around the time of year allowed the frigate to go as far as Mombasa before attempting the crossing of the Indian Ocean from there . Colombo was reached via the Seychelles in mid-April .
The three following stations took the ship back into Denmark's colonial history. First the small town of Trankebar (today Tharangambadi) was visited, which was the capital of the Danish East Indies and the starting point for the Lutheran missionary activity in India until it was sold to the British in 1845. Then came Calcutta , where the first university in Asia based on the European model was built by Danish missionaries in nearby Serampore , when the place was also part of the Danish East Indies. From May 6th to 8th the visit of the Nicobars , who were Denmark's last colony in South Asia, followed. Denmark had given up its claims in 1868, after which the British occupied the islands in 1869 and annexed them to British India .
The ship then sailed on to Singapore, which for six weeks became the base of the ship, which now began intensively with deep-sea research. A drive along the Malay coast to Bangkok was also used for this purpose. In order to keep the trawl on the bottom, the ship was only allowed to make a very slow speed of about 1.5 knots . In July and August, extensive investigations of the Philippines Trench followed and the discovery of the Galathea Depth as the deepest point of the trench with a depth of 10,540 m. To the surprise of the researchers, life could still be found at this depth.
After these investigations, the ship continued through Indonesia , visiting, among other things, Djakarta and then Port Moresby , where the ship remained for 14 days, before going to Australia as the first Danish warship, where Brisbane , Sydney , Adelaide and Melbourne were visited. At Christmas 1951 the Galathea was in Wellington, New Zealand . In the first stationing area of the ship as a British gunboat, she stayed for two months and visited several ports. She left Auckland on February 28, 1952 and crossed the Pacific with stops at Raoul Island , Nukualofa , Pago Pago when surveying the Kermadec Trench and Honolulu to San Francisco , where the ship arrived on April 10, 1952, along the American Pacific coast, the Galathea ran then to the Panama Canal with a longer stay in the US naval base in San Diego and further port visits, but also final deep-sea surveys off the Central American coast. The ship's last major visit took place from May 26th to 30th, 1952 in Charlotte Amalie . The capital of the American Virgin Islands , named after the Danish Queen Charlotte Amalie , was founded by Denmark and the capital of the Danish West Indies until it was sold to the USA in 1917 . Puerto Rico , the Azores and Plymouth were the last stops on the Galathea's voyage , which began on June 29, 1952, about 20,000. Crowd in Copenhagen.
The great interest in the ship's return was due to the continuous reporting during the voyage. The scientific findings of the expedition were of great importance for marine biology, over a hundred deep-sea creatures were discovered and documented. The material collected about the former Danish colonies and the films made in these places attracted wide public attention as they were introduced into school lessons.
A further use of the ship by the Danish Navy was not considered. In December 1954 the Galathea was canceled and the former British escort sloop was scrapped in 1955 in Odense .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Service History HMS Leith
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. October 16-19, 1940, North Atlantic
- ↑ HMS Leith (L 36 / U 36)
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. August 10-23, 1941, North Atlantic
- ↑ Map and list of ports called
- ↑ On an expedition with GALATHEA (1950–1952)
literature
- Arnold Hague: Sloops: A History of the 71 Sloops Built in Britain and Australia for the British, Australian and Indian Navies 1926-1946. World Ship Society, Kendal 1993, ISBN 0-905617-67-3 .
- HT Lenton: British and Empire Warships of the Second World War. Greenhill Books, ISBN 1-85367-277-7 .
- Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships, 1922-1946. Naval Institute Press, ISBN 0-87021-913-8 .
