Hejmdal (ship)
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|---|---|
 The Hejmdal 1906 |
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| Overview | |
| Type | Protected cruiser |
| Shipyard | |
| Launch | August 30, 1894 |
| Namesake | the god Heimdall of Norse mythology |
| Commissioning | April 16, 1895 |
| Whereabouts | Sold for demolition October 22, 1930 |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
1,342 t |
| length |
72.3 m over everything |
| width |
10.3 m |
| Draft |
3.6 m |
| crew |
156 men |
| drive |
8 Thornycroft - water tube boilers , 3,000 hp |
| speed |
17.0 kn |
| Range |
1000 nm at 10 kn |
| Armament |
2 x 12 cm L / 40 Krupp guns |
| Coal supply |
125 t |
| Armored deck |
up to 48 mm |
|
Armament 1910 |
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The Danish protected cruiser Hejmdal , which entered service in 1895, was the last cruiser that the Danish fleet received. She was the third ship of the Hekla class and again had only one funnel. The Hejmdal served from 1895 to 1901 as a station, fisheries protection and survey ship in the Faroe Islands and off Iceland . From 1903 to 1914 the Hejmdal was a training ship for the officer candidates. The cruiser also made several trips to the Mediterranean during the winter.
During the First World War , the Hejmdal was part of the fleet to ensure Danish neutrality, before being used again as a training ship.
In October 1930 the Hejmdal in Denmark was sold for demolition.
Building history
The Hejmdal was a variant of the Hekla, which was also previously built at the Danish state shipyard . The cruiser III. Class was not a requested order from the Danish Navy, which actually wanted to acquire another ironclad like the Iver Hvitfeldt , for which the parliament, however, did not approve any funds. With the approved funds, two more Hekla- class cruisers were ordered. The previous Gejser differed from the sister ships in that it had two chimneys, as the Hejmdal again only had one chimney. In the armament it was no different from its predecessor: You also had two 12 cm L / 40 Krupp - rapid-fire guns with shields on the front and back decks and four 8.7-cm Krupp Schnellfeuergeschützein the swallows' nests at the ends of the superstructures. There were also four five-barreled 37-mm Hotchkiss cannons and two 37-mm Hotchkiss individual guns. With a bow and a stern tube and two torpedo tubes on the side of the deck, all three ships had powerful torpedo armament. The armor of the Gejser consisted of an armored deck of up to 48 mm normal steel. By Burmeister & Wain been delivered 3,000-horsepower machine generated, as in the previous cruisers, the necessary steam with eight small Thornycroft - water tube boilers are actually for torpedo boats had been constructed.
Mission history
The Hejmdal came into service for the first time on April 16, 1895 and went after the test drives. as a station, fisheries protection and survey ship to the Faroe Islands and Iceland . On September 30th she was taken out of service for the winter. These tasks were repeated in the years 1896 to 1901, in which she usually took these tasks from mid-March to October-November. From October 1896 to February 22, 1897 she made a winter cruise in the Mediterranean and visited Toulon , among others .
Cadet training ship
From May 16 to June 30, 1903, the Hejmdal was the first training ship for the officer cadets, and then practiced with the maneuvering fleet until the end of September. On October 15, she began another winter cruise in the Mediterranean, this time visiting Cádiz , Alexandria , Piraeus , Pola , Venice and Málaga , before returning to Denmark on March 30, 1904.
As early as May 20, she resumed her work as a cadet training ship. Launched after July 1, 1904, she went on another winter cruise to the Mediterranean Sea and Madeira , from which she returned on February 15, 1905. In 1905 and 1906, she began her work as a cadet training ship on May 31, and then switched to the training fleet at the end of July until the end of September. In 1906 a winter cruise to the Mediterranean followed (this time also with visits to Antwerp , Gibraltar and Greenhithe with the 'Thames Nautical Training College') from October 15, 1906 to February 26, 1907.
In 1907 and 1908 the missions were similar to previous years, and from October 15, 1908 to February 23, 1909, the next and last Mediterranean cruise to Constantinople took place . The most important event of this trip was the help after the earthquake in Messina . On January 22, 1909, she met with units of the American White Fleet ( Connecticut , Minnesota , Vermont , Kansas ) in Villefrance . On the last leg of Frederikshavn , shortly before Copenhagen, the cruiser had a collision with the British freighter Astrakhan , which towed the damaged cruiser into Copenhagen. In June the cruiser was operational again, trained cadets and took part in the fleet maneuvers. From the Skagerrak he made contact with the fleet's new radio station in Holmen. From October the ship was completely overhauled and the boiler system replaced.
In the following years 1910, 1911, 1912 and 1913, the cruiser began its service as a cadet ship in May, partly joined the fleet exercises and was decommissioned in September. In September 1913 he was assigned to the winter squadron around the coastal armored ship Herluf Trolle and then had only a short break in the spring of 1914 until he started working on the training ship.
Protection of neutrality
During the First World War , the Hejmdal belonged to the activated fleet from August 1, 1914 and served to ensure neutrality like the other units, alternating with the 1st Squadron on the Öresund or the 2nd Squadron on the Great Belt . Occasionally she continued to conduct cadet training. In February 1918 the Hejmdal almost got into a combat situation when the Spanish freighter Igotz Mendi (4648 GRT), seized by the German auxiliary cruiser Wolf , ran aground with a prize crew on the last leg of its journey from Bergen to Kiel near Skagen . He was discovered by the guard ship Diana (1917, 288 t), which established the original identity of the ship and that on board was not only a German crew of 20 men, but in addition to the original Spanish crew of 32 men also many British, Japanese, Chinese and American prisoners, plus a Dane and even nine women and two children. The Danes brought the prisoners ashore in lifeboats. To protect against German and British interference, the torpedo boat Spæhuggeren (1911 Schichau, 284 t) ran from the Sund and the Hejmdal from the 2nd squadron to the damaged vessel. The cruiser prevented a German submarine from communicating with the prize crew initially by interfering with the radio with its more powerful radio system, and finally by three warning shots. When the weather got worse, the Spaniards gave up the ship on the 26th and the Germans on the 28th. On March 10, the Igotz Mendi was brought down by a salvage tug and the Hejmdal escorted her to Frederikshavn with the torpedo boats Spæhuggeren and Springeren (1917, 109 t). After necessary repairs, the freighter was returned to Spain. Until March 1919, the Hejmdal belonged to the security squadron in the Baltic Sea against Germany.
Last years of service
From August 4 to October 15, 1919, the Hejmdal made a trip to England and France to bring Danish “prisoners of war” back home. These were German soldiers from North Schleswig , who now voted for Denmark. From the summer of 1920 the cruiser was then used as a cadet training ship every summer until 1928.
In 1925 the Hejmdal belonged to a Danish fleet association that visited Helsinki , Tallinn and Riga with the Niels Juel , the cruiser Gejser , the mine- layer Lossen , the submarines Bellona , Flora and Rota and the torpedo boats Hvalrossen , Delfinen and Sværdfisken . In 1926, during an exercise with the submarine flotilla, the cruiser collided slightly with the submarine Rota . Since the cruiser had reacted after recognizing the danger, the damage was insignificant.
From May 22 to August 30, 1930, the old cruiser was last used as a cadet training ship. He also made a trip abroad when he visited the Polish naval base in Gdynia with the workshop ship for submarines Henrik Gerner (1928, 463 t, 13.2 knots) and the submarines Ran , Triton , Galathea , Daphne and Dryaden .
On October 22, 1930 the Hejmdal was sold for demolition and scrapped in Denmark.
Danish cruiser
| Surname | Launch | displacement | speed | Main armament |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Valkyria | September 8, 1888 | 3,020 t | 17.5 kn | 2 × 21 cm L / 35, 6 × 15 cm L / 35 |
| Hekla | November 28, 1890 | 1,322 t | 17.1 kn | 2 × 15 cm L / 35 |
| Gejser | May 8, 1893 | 1,282 t | 17.3 kn | 2 × 12 cm L / 40 |
| Hejmdal | August 30, 1894 | 1,342 t | 17.0 kn | 2 × 12 cm L / 40 |
literature
- R. Steen Steensen: Vore krydsere. Marinehistorisk Selskab, 1971.
- B. Weyer: Taschenbuch der Kriegsflotten. JF Lehmanns Verlag, Munich 1905.
Web links
Footnotes
- ↑ Sources not clear, Weyer and other Thornycroft boilers, Danish Wiki only "from 1910"
- ^ Danes arrest Astrakhan NYTimes, February 22, 1909
- ↑ Igotz Mendi y el corsario Wolf span.
- ↑ Michael H. Clemmesen: The Danish armed forces 1909–1918, Between politicians and strategic reality (PDF; 3.9 MB) pp. 60ff
- ^ Photo of the Hejmdal arriving in Helsinki