Hela (ship, 1940)
.jpg) Aviso Hela on a workshop trip in 1941
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The Hela was a former special ship of the German Navy , also known as a fleet tender, at times also known as Aviso , a forerunner of today's command ships (“Command Ships”). It was equipped with everything a fleet or squadron command staff needed, and the superstructures mainly contained work and accommodation rooms for a large staff.
Planning, construction and technical data
Because the previously used fleet tender Hela , the former M 135 minesweeper , had become too small for the new tasks and needs of the fleet staff, a planned new building was included in the 1936 state budget under the name of Ersatz Hela . The ship was commissioned on June 19, 1937 from the Stülcken shipyard in Hamburg , where the keel was laid on November 23, 1937 . The ship was launched on December 29, 1938 and was handed over to the Navy on October 16, 1940.
The ship had a length of 99.8 m over all or 92.5 m in the waterline and was 12.8 m wide, with a side height of 7.45 m and a maximum draft of 4.05 m. The water displacement was a maximum of 2,520 tonnes (standard 2,113 tn.l. ). The armament consisted of two 10.5-cm SK L / 45 C32 rapid-loading cannons , a 3.7-cm SK C / 30 and two 2.0-cm Flak C / 30 automatic cannons . A conspicuously large ship crane for watering and recovering the various barges and dinghies as well as for loading the ship with ammunition and supplies was located amidships behind the chimney. The equipment with a catapult and seaplane of the type Arado Ar 196 A-1 , as envisaged in the original draft, was not implemented because it was foreseeable early on that the ship would hardly leave its home waters and thus an airborne aircraft would not be needed for reconnaissance or transport .
The procurement of the initially planned four MAN 9-cylinder four-stroke marine diesel type W 9 Vu 40/46 with Buchi - charging , with planned 6300 hp total, considerable difficulties and led to long delays in construction. Eventually this plan was abandoned and the ship received two two-stroke six-cylinder diesel engines from MAN instead , which were removed from the not yet completed cargo ship Sofia of the German Levante Line . Their total of 4720 hp gave the Hela a top speed of 20 knots over two shafts with volcano drives and propellers . The bunker supply of 280 t of diesel fuel enabled an action radius of 2000 nautical miles at a cruising speed of 15 knots.
The crew consisted of 224 to 259 men (without admiralty staff). In addition, officers and crew quarters were available for up to 108 other people who would serve as staff on board.
fate
Navy
After almost three years of construction, the ship was put into service on October 16, 1940 under the command of Corvette Captain Paul Schulze and, after completion of the test drives, placed under the command of the fleet . From December 1940 it served as a command ship for the newly created office of the 2nd Admiral of the Fleet with his staff, at that time Rear Admiral Leopold Siemens (later Vice Admiral, 1889–1979).
On May 5, 1941, the Hela brought Hitler to Gdynia , the so-called Gotenhafen during the German occupation from 1940-45, where he visited Bismarck , which was in the roadstead , before it broke out into the Atlantic . After the sinking of the Bismarck only three weeks later, on May 27, 1941, in which the fleet chief Günther Lütjens and his entire staff were killed, the office of the 2nd admiral of the fleet was dissolved in order to create a new fleet command, and the Hela stood now available to the fleet command again until the end of the war. In October 1943, Corvette Captain Oswald Neumann took command of the ship, which he commanded until the end of the war.
On April 16, 1945, the Hela was slightly damaged in a British air raid on Swinoujscie . Before the end of April, in view of the approaching Soviet armed forces, it was still possible to take the ship across the Baltic Sea to Eckernförde , where it was confiscated by Great Britain after Germany's surrender . While the naval officers, by the victors as Nazis considered and so called, were arrested, was the rest of the crew under the command of the last remaining officer, the Chief Engineer Lieutenant (Eng.) Heinz Johann Schulz, by foot after Mittelholstein into captivity guided. The team had to camp in an open field for several weeks until the first were released from captivity in July 1945.
Soviet and Russian navies
After the end of the war, the ship was awarded to the Soviet Union as spoils of war and on November 5, 1945 it was added to the inventory of the Soviet Navy . The takeover took place on December 25, 1945, the Soviet flag was hoisted for the first time on January 20, 1946, on March 29, 1946 the ship was incorporated into the Soviet Baltic Fleet and on May 13, 1946 under the name Angara (Russian: Ангара) in Service provided.
Initially, the ship served the port captain of Leningrad, today's Saint Petersburg , three years later it was placed under the Black Sea Fleet and stationed in Sevastopol , Crimea . From June 22, 1957 to March 13, 1958, it was used as the official government yacht of the Soviet Union due to its luxurious furnishings, which were still from the Kriegsmarine, including very large wood-paneled cabins and dining rooms. Many well-known personalities and high-ranking politicians were guests on the ship at the invitation of the Soviet government, including the Finnish President, the Indian Prime Minister, the King of Afghanistan, the Defense Ministers of China, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland and Romania, and the naval chiefs of the GDR, from Bulgaria, Poland and Romania. On March 13, 1958, the ship was returned to the Black Sea Navy Command. There it served as the command ship of the regional naval commander until 1992. In 1992 the Hela was probably the last still active larger surface ship of the former German Navy, albeit under a foreign flag. The armament, such as the two 10.5 cm guns on the foredeck and aft deck, however, had already been expanded.
On February 26, 1995, a fire broke out in the engine room , which the crew could not extinguish and which caused severe damage. Since the ship was no longer maneuverable under its own power, it was reclassified as a residential ship PKZ-14 in January 1996 and then no longer used as a command ship or government yacht. In the period that followed, until 2006, the ship was hardly serviced and rusted to the ground.
Further whereabouts
The ship was already for sale for a rumored USD 1.2 million in 2000 and was offered by a British shipbroker in later years. In 2007, following the mediation of influential Russian businessmen, the Russian Navy sold it to the Italian Antonio Crispino (with Ellici Trasporti srl as a contractual partner), who wanted to convert it into a sea-going luxury yacht. The final selling price has not been published. On April 29, 2011, the planning and development work, entrusted to the Italian companies Navirex by Mario Grasso and the Francesco Rogantin Studio for "Naval Architecture and Engineering", began with Mr. Fausto Corradini as coordinating project manager. After the hull had been derusted and re-preserved in a dry dock and the screws and oars removed, the ship was towed to the pier of a shipyard in Sevastopol. First the crane and by mid-2012 all the superstructures and the chimney were removed.
A yacht that was to be chartered out was planned with ten large cabins, the individual design of which was to be modeled on the "Carlton Hotel" in Cannes , and a saloon measuring 25 m × 10 m, as well as large open stairs and elevators. The ship was to be diesel-electric, with a planned cruising speed of 15 knots and a maximum speed of 20 knots, which would have been the performance of the former Hela . With an economical driving style of 12 knots, the range should be 5,000 nautical miles. With an average of twelve passengers, the crew would have consisted of 20 people.
In the 4th quarter of 2019, the ship was scrapped at the Inkerman demolition yard.
Individual evidence
- ↑ http://forum.sevastopol.info/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=25603&p=11677921#p11677921
- ↑ Photo, May 2012
- ^ Image from the demolition, November 4, 2019
Web links
- http://www.navypedia.org/ships/germany/ger_oth_hela.htm
- http://www.german-navy.de/kriegsmarine/ships/fleettender/hela/history.html
- The Angara in Sevastopol, Sept. 2006
- Angara (ex Hela), at theyachtphoto.com with photos from 2005 and 2011
- The Angara ( Hela ) at German Navy Forum; with photos of the Angara from 2006 in Sevastopol
- The "Angara" ("Hela") in pictures, since 2007 - until today, for restoration in 2012
literature
- Erich Gröner: The German warships 1815-1945 . Volume II, Lehmanns, Munich