Heidelberg (ship, 1925)
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The Heidelberg of the Hamburg-American Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft (Hapag) was a motor ship built in 1925 by the Vulcan shipyard in Hamburg as Duisburg for the German-Australian Steamship Company (DADG) , which was sold to Hapag at the end of 1926 through the merger of the two shipping companies got.
The first DADG motor ship made its maiden voyage from Hamburg to the Dutch East Indies . In 1927, the passenger facility in Duisburg was expanded by Hapag. In 1928 she was deployed to the Pacific coast of the USA and Canada with the new San Francisco- class combi-ships and renamed Heidelberg .
At the beginning of the war in 1939, the ship Aruba called and was laid up there . In 1940, Heidelberg tried to escape from there to home. It was captured by the British cruiser HMS Dunedin and then sunk by its crew to avoid falling into Allied hands.
history
The German-Australian Steamship Company (DADG) purchased three motor ships from 1925 onwards, with a size of just over 6000 GRT roughly the same as the large turbine ships previously purchased. As the first ship of the class, the freighter Duisburg was delivered by the Hamburg Vulcan shipyard in May 1925 , which also delivered the Rendsburg in 1926 . Blohm & Voss built the motor ship Magdeburg , which was delivered at the end of 1925. All three were given city names that had already been used by pre-war DADG freighters.
The Duisburg largely corresponded in its hull design and equipment to the freighters Hagen and Bochum delivered by the shipyard to the DADG in 1921/22 . However, she and her sister ship Rendsburg were the only DADG ships with a cruiser stern . It was driven by two 4-stroke diesel engines that acted on a screw via a hydraulic transmission .
commitment
Duisburg made its first trip to the Dutch East Indies. She stayed on this route even after the takeover of DADG by Hapag in November 1926. On departure from Hamburg on January 22, 1927, she offered Hapag passenger services in this area for the first time. Its passenger capacity was increased to 24 adults and 13 children in 1927. In 1928 she was one of the ships that were used to secure the three-weekly departures in Hapag's west coast service to the North American ports to reinforce the San Francisco class coming into service . During the service in this service it was renamed Heidelberg , since a new combined ship for the Australia and East Asia service was under construction at the German shipyard, which was named Duisburg in September .
In the 1930s the Heidelberg was used again mainly in the Dutch East Indies.
Fate of war
At the beginning of the war in 1939, the ship called at the Dutch port of Aruba , as Curacao was already overcrowded by German ships and the Dutch authorities refused further ships. She was there since September 1, 1939 with the German ships Consul Horn (1904, 8384 BRT), Troja (1922, 2390 BRT), which were diverted to there on August 31, as well as the Antilla , which also arrived on September 1 (1939, 4363 BRT).
On the night of January 9, 1940, Consul Horn and a mixed crew of four German ships managed to break out of Aruba. Disguised as a Soviet freighter, she successfully returned to Europe.
The remaining Hapag ships Antilla , Troja and Heidelberg attempted the nocturnal escape on February 29, 1940, but were soon discovered because the British knew that Heidelberg had taken over fuel. The Antilla broke off the attempt to escape and turned back. The Troy was already 11 miles from Aruba by British light cruiser HMS Despatch asked and sank himself.
On March 2, the British light cruiser HMS Dunedin under Captain CE Lambe discovered Heidelberg, camouflaged as the Dutch Heemskerk, west of the Windward Passage . Before a British boarding party could take possession of the ship, the German crew opened the sea valves, started a fire and left the sinking and burning ship with lifeboats. The Dunedin took the 25 castaways on board, shot the Heidelberg further on fire and brought the prisoners to Jamaica , where they were interned with the Troy crew .
Fate of the DADG motor ships
| Launched in service |
Surname | tonnage | shipyard | fate |
| 08/30/1925 02/02/1926 |
Rendsburg (II) 1940: Toenjoek 1943: Tango Maru |
6200 BRT 9045 tdw |
Vulcan shipyard Hamburg construction no. 200/639 |
Sister ship of the Duisburg / Heidelberg , maiden voyage to the Dutch East Indies, confiscated in Batavia in 1940 , sunk as a block ship in Tanjung Priok in 1942, lifted and in Japanese service, with 3500 prisoners / forced laborers on board on February 25, 1944 between Java and Ambon by the U -Boat USS Rascher (SS-269) sunk, over 3000 dead |
| 18.04.1925 08.12.1925 |
Magdeburg (II) | 6128 BRT 9230 tdw |
Blohm & Voss building no. 104 |
first ship of Blohm & Voss with two-stroke diesel engine, maiden voyage to the Dutch East Indies in 1940 by the Navy as Sperrbrecher VI , in August 1944 by the Allies in Royan sunk |
literature
- Reinhart Schmelzkopf: The History of German Passenger Shipping, Vol. IV Destruction and Rebirth 1914 to 1930 , Writings of the German Maritime Museum, Volume 21
- Arnold Kludas : The History of German Passenger Shipping, Vol. V An era comes to an end from 1930 to 1990 , Writings of the German Shipping Museum, Volume 22
- Hans Georg Prager: Blohm & Voss . Koehler Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford 1977, ISBN 3-78220-127-2 .
- Reinhardt Schmelzkopf: German merchant shipping 1919–1939 . Gerhard Stalling, Oldenburg, ISBN 3-7979-1847-X .
Web links
- Prelude for the scuttling of the Antilla , the lost wreck of the Troy
- Sea War "1.– 2.3.1940 West Atlantic"
- Transport TANGO MARU: Tabular Record of Movement
- The barrier breaker 6 ex Magdeburg
Individual evidence
- ↑ Schmelzkopf, pp. 96-97
- ↑ A DADG freighter of 4520 GRT had already carried the name of the large city of Duisburg on the Rhine from 1900 to 1915.
- ↑ Kludas, Vol. IV, p. 191
- ↑ Kludas, Vol. IV, p. 195
- ^ Kludas, Vol. IV, p. 162
- ^ Confiscation of German merchant ships in the Dutch East Indies
- ↑ Prager, before p. 129
- ↑ Fall of the barrier breaker 6