Harald Haarfagre (ship, 1897)
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 The Harald Haarfagre in the dry dock of Karljohansvern , 1903 |
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| Overview | |
| Type | Coastal armored ship |
| Shipyard |
Armstrong, Whitworth & Co , |
| Keel laying | March 18, 1896 |
| Launch | January 4, 1897 |
| Namesake | King Harald I. "fair hair" |
| Commissioning | June 1897 |
| Whereabouts | Canceled in 1948 |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
3,435 ts construction, |
| length |
92.7 m over everything |
| width |
14.8 m |
| Draft |
5.38 m |
| crew |
225 men |
| drive |
3 cylinder boilers |
| speed |
16.9 kn |
| Range |
5000 nm at 10 kn |
| Armament |
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| Armament from 1941 as Thetis |
6 × 10.5 cm Flak 38 , |
| Coal supply |
200 (max. 553) ths |
| Armor |
Harvey type |
| Belt armor |
177 mm |
| Turrets |
127 to 203 mm |
| Command tower |
152 mm |
| Sister ship | |
The Harald Haarfagre was a coastal armored ship of the Royal Norwegian Navy . She was laid down at Armstrong Whitworth in Newcastle-upon-Tyne , England, in 1897, launched on January 4, 1897 , and put into service on March 21, 1898. Since the two armored ships of the Bjørgvin class ( Bjørgvin and Nidaros ) ordered in Great Britain in 1912 were confiscated by the British Royal Navy at the outbreak of the First World War , the Harald Haarfagre and her sister ship Tordenskjold remained important pillars of the Norwegian Navy until the mid-1930s .
The ship was named after Harald I. "Schönhaar" (Norwegian: Harald Hårfagre), the first king of most of the coast of Norway .
Construction and technical data
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The Harald Haarfagre , the Tordenskjold and the two coastal armored ships Eidsvold and Norge , built two years later, were built as part of the general armament to protect Norway against possible military action by Sweden and finally in 1905 in the dissolution of the Swedish-Norwegian personal union and the complete independence of Norway culminated. In 1895 the Norwegian Parliament approved the construction of four new ironclad ships to replace existing obsolete monitors . Because of the political tension, they were not ordered from Sweden , but from England. In 1896, the Armstrong Whitworth shipyard received the order for two ships of 3500 t, which should be armed with two 21 cm guns in single turrets and a 12 cm medium artillery battery . They were built at the Low Walker shipyard, which at the time lacked civilian orders, and not at Elswick at the company's warship yard.
The Harald Haarfagre was a typical ironclad for the pre- dreadnought era, comparable to the ships of the German Siegfried class . She was 92.66 m long and 14.78 m wide, had a 5.38 m draft and displaced 3,435 ts by design and 3,380 ts as the standard displacement . Two coal-fired steam engines with 4,500 hp gave a top speed of 16.9 knots . The armament consisted of two 21-cm guns in single turrets fore and aft, six 12-cm cannons, six 7.6-cm cannons, six 1.5-pounder rapid-fire cannons and two 45-cm underwater torpedo tubes . The ship had an armored deck and belt armor 178 mm thick; the two 21 cm barbeds had 203 mm armor. The crew numbered 245 men.
fate
1898-1940
The Harald Haarfagre knew routine service and made training cruises. In 1901 she made a long voyage along the Norwegian coast with the sister ship Tordenskjold and the new coastal armored ship Norge and the destroyer Valkyrjen . Harald Haarfagre also made visits abroad, including a visit to the United States in 1907 on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the beginning of the settlement of the USA. The coastal armored ship surprisingly arrived in New York on June 18 with 25 additional midshipmen on board as the first Norwegian warship after Norway's independence. She then ran to Hampton Roads and visited the Jamestown exhibition with the small Swedish armored cruiser Fylgia . The coastal armored ship returned home via Madeira .
In 1911 she visited Copenhagen as the escort of King Haakon VII's state yacht . During the First World War, the ship stayed in local waters to ensure Norwegian neutrality . While in the 1920s some modernization measures were carried out, but in the second half of 1930, the ship was then but retired due to aging and as Lagerhulk launched . The two 21 cm cannons were removed and reused in the coastal artillery. However, the machinery remained in the ship.
1940-1945
During the German occupation of Norway , the ship fell into German hands. After a thorough inspection, and since the machines were still delivering a speed of around 14 knots, the ship was converted to a floating anti-aircraft battery at the Deutsche Werken in Kiel and put into service by the Navy on February 1, 1941 under the name Thetis .
The displacement was now 3,858 t and the armament consisted of six 10.5 cm Flak 38 , two Bofors 4 cm Flak and 14 2 cm Flak 30 . In contrast to other captured ships that were converted into anti-aircraft batteries, the Thetis was able to move under its own power. The Thetis was used in northern Norway, including in the Ofotfjord off Narvik and in the Altafjord , where it was supposed to provide anti-aircraft protection to the battleship Tirpitz .
In the last days of the war, the Thetis lay in Kilbotn Bay south of Harstad , where the Navy maintained a submarine base from autumn 1944. There she survived the air raid by the Royal Navy on May 4, 1945 ( Operation Judgment ), to which the living and depot ship Black Watch and the submarine U 711 fell victim, unscathed, as she was closely below due to her position on the west bank of the bay Country was probably not an easy target.
1946-1948
After the war, the ship was returned to Norway and was given its ancestral name again. The anti-aircraft guns were expanded and reused in the coastal artillery. The hull was used as a living ship and at times to transport German prisoners of war . In 1947 the ship was sold for scrapping and in 1948 it was scrapped.
literature
- Frank Abelsen: Norwegian naval ships 1939–1945. Sem & Stenersen, Oslo, 1986 (p. 290), ISBN 82-7046-050-8 (norw. & Engl.)
- Peter Brooke: Warships for Export: Armstrong Warships 1867-1927 , World Ship Society, Gravesend (1999), ISBN 0-905617-89-4
- Robert Gardiner (ed.): Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1922-1946. Conway Maritime Press, London, 1987. ISBN 0-85177-146-7 (English)
- Hans H. Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German Warships , Mundus Verlag, Ratingen, 1979, ISBN 3-88385-028-4
- Bruno Weyer: Taschenbuch der Kriegsflotten 1905 , 2nd edition, JF Lehmann Verlag, Munich on archive.org
Web links
- Flak battery ship Thetis , at german-navy.de
- HARALD HAARFAGRE coastal battleships
- HARALD HAARFAGRE coastal battleship