Hermann von Wißmann (ship, 1940)
 A957 Kamina
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
.svg){kind=small}
.svg){kind=small}
The Hermann von Wißmann was a refrigerated ship built in Belgium for a Polish shipping company , but not completed . It was confiscated by the German Navy during World War II and converted into a speedboat escort. The ship had an eventful career under different flags and with changing names.
fate
Construction and confiscation
The ship was laid down on December 11, 1939 at the John Cockerill SA shipyard in Hoboken (Antwerp) with hull number 683. It was to sail as a motorized fruit ship under the name Lewant III for the shipping company Zegluga Polska. The unfinished ship, like the sister ship Lewant II , later Gustav Nachtigal , was confiscated by the German Wehrmacht in the shipyard during the occupation of Antwerp in May 1940 . The ship was shortly after the stack left and after Kiel transferred. Mainly because of the lack of copper, the final decision to continue building and using the two ships was made almost two years later, at the end of April 1942.
Kriegsmarine: speedboat escort
The ship has now been converted into an S-boat companion and completed. The holds gave way to accommodation for the crews of S-boats , and workshops and storage rooms were installed for S-boat needs. The ship was 114 m long (above sea level) and 14.7 m wide and had a draft of 6.01 m. The water displacement was 3100 t (standard) and 3700 t (maximum). The armament consisted of three 10.5-cm rapid loading cannons , three 3.7-cm twin flak and five 2-cm twin flak. A 3800 HP diesel engine from Burmeister & Wain and two propellers allowed a top speed of 14.5 knots . 450 tons of diesel could be stored and the range was 10,000 nautical miles at a cruising speed of 11.5 knots. The regular crew numbered around 225 men.
The work dragged on for a long time. It was not until December 16, 1943, that the ship, now named after Hermann von Wißmann (1853-1905), the Africa explorer and first governor of German East Africa , was put into service under the command of Lieutenant Karl Jakobsen . The ship initially served in the S-boat training division. From mid-July 1944, Hermann von Wißmann and the 5th Schnellbootsflotille were stationed in the Gulf of Finland , first in Helsinki , then in Hamina , from September 2nd in Baltischport , and from September 22nd in Windau . When the freighter Moero (5,227 GRT) on the morning of September 21, 1944 during the evacuation of Tallinn with 700 wounded and 573 refugees on board west of Windau of 17 Soviet bombers of the type Douglas A-20 was attacked and sunk by bombs, saved the Hermann von Wißmann , the freighter Lapland , the torpedo boat T 194 and a minesweeper a total of 618 survivors. On October 1st, when the speedboat escort ship Tsingtau entered Windau with the 2nd S-School Flotilla, the newer Hermann von Wißmann was relocated back to Germany because of the increased air threat.
There she was assigned to the 4th Schnellbootsflotille, which had returned from the western front via inland waterways to Swinoujscie , in October and was to be relocated to Norway . The ship, now under Kapitänleutnant dR Vassel, marched with the flotilla via Frederikshavn ( Denmark ) to Kristiansand , where it arrived on November 9, 1944, and went on to Egersund the next day . When the 4th Flotilla was ordered back to the German Bight and from there to Holland on December 17, 1944, one day after the start of the Ardennes offensive , Hermann von Wißmann stayed in Norway, where she continued to supply submarines Did service. In April 1945, Lieutenant Albert Müller took over the ship.
After the war ended, the ship became British spoils of war. The Royal Navy made it afloat again and used it as a residential ship in Kiel under the name Royal Herald .
Belgian Navy : troop transport and training ship Kamina
In 1950, the Belgian Office for Economic Reconstruction (Office Belge de Récupération Economique) became aware of the ship and asked for it back. In October 1950 it was towed to Antwerp, meanwhile in rather bad shape. Since the question arose around this time of how to bring the Belgian volunteer battalion that had been promised to the UN and the Americans for the Korean War to Korea , it was finally decided to repair the ship for this purpose and convert it into a troop transport . The ship was armed with two 76-mm guns, four 40-mm Bofors anti-aircraft guns and five 20-mm Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns. It now had a draft of 4.65 m in the front and 5.52 m in the aft, displaced 3,949 t (empty) and 5,202 t (maximum), and was able to carry 670 troops embarked. The regular crew now consisted of 14 officers and 161 NCOs and men.
The departure of the battalion, which also included a platoon of volunteers from Luxembourg , was to take place on December 18, 1950. In fact, the ship was repaired in good time. It was put into service on December 8, 1950 with the identification AP 907 and under the name Kamina as TNA (Transport Naval Auxiliare = auxiliary navy transporter) under the command of Frigate Captain Robins. It was named after the large Belgian military base of Kamina in the Belgian Congo . On December 9, 1950, the Kamina made its first test drive under the Belgian flag. On December 18, she left Antwerp as planned, accompanied by the minesweeper M 901 Georges Lecointe, with the 670 men of the Belgian-Luxembourg volunteer battalion and brought them to Pusan in Korea. She arrived there on January 31, 1951.
After his return from Korea, the ship was decommissioned on March 26, 1951, so that significant changes could be made to improve the troop accommodation and suitability for the tropics at the Béliard et Crighton shipyard in Ostend . Three of the previously five 20 mm flak were also removed. On December 1, 1952, the Kamina was put back into service with the new identification AP 957 and under the orders of Frigate Captain Böting. It was now used to bring Belgian troops to the Congo and back again. You could carry up to 657 men embarked troops. The first voyage of this kind began on April 15, 1953. In total, the Kamina made 24 such outward and return journeys to the Congo under the commanders Böting, Frigate Captain Lurquin (from August 1955), Korvettenkapitan van Dyck (from July 1957), Korvettenkapitan Pesch ( from 1959) and Korvettenkapitan Vervynck (from April 1960). Occasional other trips abroad were made in between. On November 7, 1954, the Kamina picked up the Belgian volunteers from Korea and returned with them to Oostende on February 9, 1955.
This task ended with the independence of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in July 1960 and the handover of the Kamina military base to the United Nations in October 1960 . In August 1960 the ship evacuated 600 refugees from Boma to Kitona . From September to November 1960, the ship made an unarmed voyage under UN supervision to evacuate troops from the Congo. The last trip to the Congo, again under the Belgian flag, took place in November / December 1960 to bring back the remaining troops.
From February 1 to December 31, 1961, the ship was out of service again to be converted into a cadet training ship and supplier. This also arming has been slightly modified: instead of the previous two 20-mm Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns the ship now received two 12.7-mm Browning - air defense - MG . From February 6, 1962, the Kamina , with the new registration A 957, served as a training ship (with a capacity for 250 cadets) and supply and showed the Belgian flag on long trips abroad under the orders of Frigate Captain Pesch (from 1963), Corvette Captain (from 1965 Frigate Captain Schlim (from July 1964) and Frigate Captain Dumomy (from October 1966). On several occasions she also served as a tender for minesweepers in the North Sea and as a troop transport during NATO maneuvers. In 1965, 1966 and 1967 she undertook a number of old ammunition submerged trips into the English Channel ( Hurd's Deep north of Alderney ). Her last trip abroad was in April 1967 to Montreal (Canada), where she displayed the Belgian flag at the World Expo 67 . In total, she had covered more than 400,000 nautical miles and flown the flag in 71 ports in 42 countries.
The last voyage of the Kamina was on September 6, 1967 from Oostende to Zeebrugge - with all of their former commanders on board. From there the ship was towed to Bruges by the tugs “Burgemeester Vandamme” and “Rolf Gerling” . It was deleted from the list of ships on September 18, 1967. On September 12, 1968, the ship was sold to the Brugse Scheepssloperij company in Bruges for 3,929,000 francs, and from September 26, 1968 it was scrapped.
Individual evidence
- ^ Heinz Schön: Ostsee '45: People, Ships, Fates , 1st edition, Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart, 1983, ISBN 3-87943-856-0 , pp. 33–34
- ↑ On the website of the Belgian Navy it is said that the ship was abandoned by the British in a small Norwegian port and found stranded.
- ↑ The former British Algerine- class HMS Cadmus , bought from the Belgian Navy.
- ↑ http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?6935-Belgian-battalion-in-Korea-(The-forgotten-war)
- ↑ It kept this identifier until December 24, 1960, but carried the identifier AP 954 during a single journey in 1954.
Web links
- http://www.deutsche-kriegsschiffe.de/Schiffe/schnellbootbegleitschiffe/wissmann.htm
- http://www.marinebelge.be/pages2/kamina.html
- http://www.marinebelge.be/photos_nautilus/plan_pdf/plan_kamina.pdf Construction plan of the chimney
literature
- Erich Gröner , Dieter Jung, Martin Maass: The German warships 1815-1945, Volume 4: Auxiliary ships I: workshop ships, tenders and escort ships, tankers and suppliers. Bernard & Graefe, Munich 1986, ISBN 3-7637-4803-2 .
- Volkmar Kühn: Speedboats in use 1939-45 . Motorbuchverlag, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-87943-450-6 .