Yellow fleet

Location of the Suez Canal

The Yellow Fleet was a group of 15 ships that were moored in the Suez Canal for almost eight years from June 1967 to May 1975 . The name came from the yellow shimmer of the sand that was blown from the desert by the constant wind onto the decks of the ships.

history

On June 5, 1967, a convoy of 14 cargo ships from Port Taufiq near Suez drove northward along the Suez Canal when the Six Day War broke out. The ships anchored in the Great Bitter Lake , the widest point in the channel. Since the canal was blocked by deliberate sinking, the ships were stuck for an indefinite period. Another ship, the US Tanker Observer , was anchored in the Timsah Sea .

The ships were temporarily in the combat area, but they were not affected. Some of the crews were able to leave the ships after a few weeks, the rest were regularly replaced every six months. A strong feeling of togetherness developed on the ships and between the crews. In autumn 1967 the crews of the ships on the Melampus founded the “Great Bitter Lake Association”, an association with the aim of promoting friendship and mutual help.

To reduce costs, the ships were grouped into 3 groups from 1969, each of which was looked after by a single crew of around 10 men. During this time, a number of hand-painted postage stamps with the group names of the ships, which were recognized by the Egyptian post, were created. The letters so franked are now sought-after collector's items. The ships did not leave the lake until May 1975, only the two German ships were able to do so on their own.

The 53-minute documentary Captured in Bittersee was filmed in 2009 about the events and the people affected, directed by Jens Arndt and Fayd Jungnickel.

In May 2020, Zenith Magazin conducted an interview with Jürgen Katzler, who was the captain of the German ship Münsterland from June to December 1969. In it, he describes in retrospect that the occupations witnessed the war between Egypt and Israel first hand . Air battles took place over the ships, tanks shot across the lake and sometimes cartridge cases even fell on deck. In addition, Katzler describes his time on the Bitter Lake as an international "association of comradeship" and says that he especially enjoyed the weekly sailing regatta.

List of ships

Surname	nationality	group	Owner / shipowner	captain	charge	Tonnage (GRT)	Remarks
North wind	Germany	MüWiNiKiEs	Nordstern shipping company	Gerhard Lomer	Oil cake, cotton products, general mixed freight	8 656	IMO: 5255868; Built at the Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft shipyard in 1958. Other names Rodanthi A. and Centaurus . Canceled in Shanghai from May 28, 1985 .
Münsterland	Germany	MüWiNiKiEs	HAPAG	Karl Hoffmann	including steel, wool, sand, lead, canned food, pears, hides, grain, jam, eggs, meat	9 365	Saarland class The Münsterland was overhauled after she arrived in Hamburg on 24 May 1975, continue to be used in East Asia service. Sold to Greece on June 21, 1978 and continued to operate under the name Munsterlandes . Launched on January 2, 1983 in Trincomalee . November 17th in tow to Kaohsiung , Taiwan . December 1983 on to the People's Republic of China , demolition from March 1984 in Fuzhou , Fujian Province .
Killara	Sweden	MüWiNiKiEs	Rederiaktiebolaget Transatlantic	Stubborn Sundnér	Wool, rawhide, fruits	10 714	1975 sold to Hellenic-Lines and back in service
Nippon	Sweden	MüWiNiKiEs	Svenska Ostasiatiska Kompaniet			10 309	sold to Norway as Marit ; from 1975 as Hellenic Patriot momentum
Essayons , ex- Sindh	France	MüWiNiKiEs	Messageries Maritimes			7 051	Ruul-Pedersen shipping company, Norway, at the start of the war the ship was called Sindh , Messageries Maritimes, France
Lednice	Czechoslovakia	LedMelAga	Danube shipping company		Rawhide	1 462	on the move again; 1989: Dija ; 1992: Atlsaco Pride , Ocean Trader ; Shot off a wreck off Sri Lanka in 1994.
Agapenor	United Kingdom	LedMelAga	Blue funnel line		Toys	7 654	Ammunition load unloaded in Cyprus, sold and canceled when Nikos was on the way, 1981.
Melampus	United Kingdom	LedMelAga	Blue funnel line	Jim Starkey		8 509	1975 in service as Annoula II ; Canceled in 1983.
Scottish Star	United Kingdom	DjaBiPorSt	Blue Star Line	Brian McManus		10 174	Launched in Piraeus from 1975 to 1979, then canceled.
Port Invercargill	United Kingdom	DjaBiPorSt	Port line	Arthur Kensett		10 463	1976 in operation as Greek Kavo Kolne . Canceled in 1979.
Djakarta	Poland	DjaBiPorSt	Polskie line Oceaniczne			6 915	back on the road as Manina III ; Stranded and abandoned in 1981.
Bolesław Bierut	Poland	DjaBiPorSt	Polskie line Oceaniczne	Bogdan Kryspin		6 674	General cargo ship of the type B-54, of the Polish Ocean Lines. Mostly drove in the East Asian service. In 1975 she was sold to a Greek shipowner.
Vassil Levsky	Bulgaria		Navigation Maritime Bulgarians	Ivan Stanchev		4,975	Built in 1943 by Burntisland Shipbuilding Company as the MAC ship Empire MacKendrick . After the end of the war Granpond , Condor (1951), Saltersgate (1959). Canceled in 1975 .
African Glen	United States		Farrell Lines			6 116	sunk in 1973 in the Yom Kippur War
Observer	United States	-	Marine Carriers Corporation			17 614	anchored in the Timsah Sea

literature

• Hans Jürgen Witthöft: Trapped in the Great Bitter Lake for eight years , ProMar, Hamburg 2015, ISBN 978-3-00-051599-6 .

Web links

• Wolfgang Scharrnbeck: Trapped in the Suez Canal. In: Spiegel Online. May 17, 2008, accessed April 6, 2015 . 
• Peter Kiehlmann: Pictures of the north wind. German Steamship Company "HANSA", December 11, 2009, accessed on April 6, 2015 . 
• Jörn Teger: Trapped in Bitter Lake. In: Mare No.40. October 2003, accessed April 6, 2015 . 
• Bjoern Moritz: Post from the Great Bitter Lake! In: Seemotive - motif philately around the seafaring. May 13, 2011, accessed April 6, 2015 . 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Jörn Teger: Caught in the Bitter Lake. In: Mare No.40. October 2003, archived from the original on August 8, 2014 ; Retrieved April 6, 2015 . 
2. ↑ Documentation Captured in Bitter Lake
3. ↑ "We even played football on a ship." May 28, 2020, accessed June 3, 2020 . 
4. ↑ Schiff Nordwind at: shipspotting.com (English). Retrieved November 11, 2012.
5. ↑ Thierry Bressol: Le Sindh et le plus mauvais jour du Canal de Suez 1 ( Memento of 29 March 2009 at the Internet Archive (French)). Retrieved November 11, 2012.
6. ↑ Ship Bolesław Bierut (PDF file; 104 kB) at: cargo-vessels-international.at (English). Retrieved November 11, 2012.
7. ↑ Schiff Observer at: shipspotting.com (English). Retrieved November 10, 2016.