Goðafoss (ship)
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The Goðafoss was a 1921 steam-powered cargo ship of the shipping company Eimskipafélag Íslands (today Eimskip under the umbrella company Hf. Eimskipafélag Íslands ).
history
The Goðafoss was built for the shipping company Eimskipafélag Íslands ("Icelandic Steamship Company") at Frederikshavns Vaerft & Flydedok , Frederikshavn . The launch took place in July 1921. The combined cargo / passenger ship had cabin space for 76 passengers and before the Second World War it mostly operated routes to Denmark, England and Germany. After the beginning of the war, she was only allowed a max. Hold 40 passengers and was given a gray camouflage.
Downfall
On November 10, 1944, the land was already in sight and the journey time to the port of Reykjavík was approx. 2 hours, an explosion occurred. At 1:36 p.m. the British tanker Shirvan from convoy UR-142 was torpedoed by the German submarine U 300 under the command of Oblt.zS Fritz Hein. Contrary to the current order, the civilian passenger steamer Goðafoss turned on and tried to pick up survivors of the Shirvan who had jumped from the burning tanker into the cold North Atlantic. Since the Goðafoss was camouflaged at that time, it could not be clearly classified as a civilian passenger ship by the commander of the U-300 . At 1:59 p.m. a torpedo, shot down from the submarine, struck the Goðafoss at the level of the engine room, leaving a large hole in the ship's side, whereupon it finally sank within eight minutes in the extreme south of Faxaflói Bay . 24 people were killed in the sinking, including three children. 19 people, 18 Icelanders and one British, were able to save themselves.
The wreck
The wreck of the Goðafoss was apparently found in 2016 off the coast near Gardur at a depth of around 40 meters under a layer of sand. After the Icelandic coast guard carried out a number of location attempts with multibeam sonar devices, a private German-Icelandic expedition team headed by Thomas Weyer tried to locate the wreck.
literature
- Ottar Sveinsson, Stefan Krücken: Goðafoss: The sinking of the Goðafoss (Icelandic original title: Árás á Goðafoss ). Ankerherz, 2011, ISBN 978-3-940138-10-1
Other ships called Goðafoss
Web links
- Information on the search expedition can be found on the official website of the expedition team .
- World War Drama - The Boat . Spiegel Online , 2011