Housatonic (ship, 1890)
 The ship as Georgia der Hapag
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
.svg){kind=small}
The Housatonic was an American freighter. Its sinking on February 3, 1917 by a German submarine further heated the mood for the USA to enter the war, especially since it was initially falsely reported that it had been sunk without warning.
The Housatonic was originally built in Great Britain for German accounts. As a pick-up hub , it was the largest ship of the Hamburger Dampfschiffs-Rhederei Hansa , a tramp shipping company that also operated a liner service to Canada in the summer months. This shipping company, which should not be confused with Bremer DDG Hansa , was taken over in 1892 by the Hamburg-American Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft (Hapag). In 1895 the ship was named Georgia . It was used on various lines and remained in the USA in 1914, where it was sold to American owners in 1915 and renamed Housatonic .
history
The steamship shipping company Hansa was founded in Hamburg in 1881. One of the founders was the shipowner Carl Laeisz , who also became chairman of the board. Four newbuildings of less than 2000 GRT had been ordered by 1884 and the ten-year-old Vandalia (2810 GRT) was bought by Hapag as the largest ship and put back into service as a sweep . In August 1883 the shipping company started a liner service from Hamburg via Antwerp to Quebec , which from 1884 also called Halifax and Boston . In 1889/1890, the Hansa shipping company procured six more newbuildings from 2404 to 3143 GRT and had a total of nine steamers. The Pickhuben was the largest of these ships and the only one that the Glaswegian shipyard Barclay, Curle & Co. built for the shipping company.
Its maiden voyage from Hamburg to Quebec and Montreal began Pickhuben on April 15, 1891. In the summer of 1891 were from the shipping company 20 trips to Quebec and Montreal to perform. At the end of the season, the Pickhuben was chartered by the related German-Australian Steamship Company and started on October 17, 1891 with 4400 tons and 98 passengers to Australia. On January 9, 1892, she began her return journey to Hamburg with a load of wool in Sydney. In March 1892 she became a Hapag ship by taking over the shipping company and on April 17, 1892 she sailed for the first time on the main line to New York, but the main area of operation remained the route to Montreal.
As a replacement vehicle for the Erlangen , the pick lifts were used again for the DADG to Australia from September 14, 1894. From November 11, she returned to Hamburg via Melbourne.
Another service for Hapag
In Hamburg the ship was renamed Georgia on February 2, 1895 and made her first voyage under the new name on April 24, 1895 from Stettin via Helsingborg , Gothenburg and Kristiansand to New York, where the ship arrived with 546 passengers. This number was never even remotely reached on the following twelve trips. Swedish and Norwegian emigrants were only transported on the four trips in the first year. Her last journey on this route began on November 11, 1897.
On April 2, 1900, the Georgia was first used on the route from Genoa and Naples to New York, on which it began its last voyage on March 2, 1902. In this service, the Sicilia (ex Stubbenhuk ) and Scotia (ex Grimm ) were used alongside her .
Thereafter, from May 7, 1902 , the Georgia carried out seven round trips on the new route from Odessa via Constantinople , Smyrna and Piraeus to New York, the last of which began on March 13, 1904. In addition to the Georgia , the Sicilia (ex Stubbenhuk ) was used again on this line operated together with the DLL , which completed nine round trips from April 1902. When the line was discontinued in 1904, the ships of both companies had made a total of 27 tours.
The Georgia set up by an even wider steerage equipment from the end of 1904 as emigrant ship from the Mediterranean to New York. The first trip started in Trieste with 720 passengers. Another seven trips took place in 1905 and another four in 1906. After that, the ship was only used as a freighter. Since the Sicilia was sold in 1913, she was the only remaining former Hansa ship in service with Hapag. In 1914, when the war broke out , the Georgia visited the United States and stayed there.
On April 16, 1915, Hapag sold the lay-up ship to the newly formed Housatonic Steamship Company in New York, which renamed the ship Housatonic . Like other sales, this one aroused the suspicion that it served the covert supply of German warships or the transport of goods to Germany under the American flag.
The end of the Housatonic
On January 31, 1917, the German government informed the United States, among others, that it would resume unlimited submarine warfare on February 1 . In response, the US government broke off diplomatic relations with the German Reich and expelled the German ambassador, Count Bernstorff , on February 3, 1917 .
On the same day, the Housatonic was sunk as the first American and neutral ship in the declared war zone. First reports that the ship had been sunk without warning turned out to be false. The ship was chartered by the British firm Brown, Jenkinson & Company en route from Galveston, Texas to London with a cargo of 144,000 bushels of wheat when it was about 10:30 a.m. south of the Scilly Isles by the German submarine SM U 53 was stopped under Kapitänleutnant Hans Rose with two warning shots. The Germans boarded the ship and, after checking the ship's papers, explained to Captain Thomas A. Ensor of the Housatonic that the neutral ship was underway on behalf of the British and that the delivery of food also supported the war effort and that the ship would therefore have to be sunk. The 37 crew members of the ship were ordered to go into two lifeboats and the Housatonic was torpedoed at 12:30 p.m. at 49 ° 35 ′ 0 ″ N , 6 ° 8 ′ 0 ″ W sunk. Then the submarine towed the lifeboats towards the English coast. After 90 minutes a guard boat came into view, which was alerted to the lifeboats by a shot from the deck cannon before U 53 sailed.
On the same day U 45 sank under Lieutenant Erich Sittenfeld the freighter Eavestone , which was attacked without warning and was also shot at when the crew was already entering the lifeboats, killing five men, including an American.
The first coverage of both incidents excited the American public and supported the US entry into the war on April 6, 1917, which was also justified as a reaction to the unrestricted submarine war.
Fate of the ships of the steamship shipping company Hansa
| Launched in service |
Surname | tonnage | shipyard | fate |
| 06/17/1881 08/13/1881 |
Baumall (I) | 1629 BRT 4260 tdw |
FSG BauN ° 33 |
Sold to de Freitas in February 1889: Lusitania (1890), sunk in the canal after a collision on August 25, 1901 |
| 28.09.1881 22.11.1881 |
Wall cream (I) | 1629 GRT | FSG BauN ° 42 |
Sold to de Freitas in 1890 : Venezia , sold to Italy in 1910, stranded in 1913 |
| November 19, 1881 February 14, 1882 |
Advance | 1714 BRT 2453 dw |
Blohm & Voss BauN ° 15 |
lost in February 1885 while leaving the North Atlantic; 40 dead |
| 04/28/1882 01/06/1882 |
Grasbrook | 1935 BRT 2350 dw |
Reiherstieg shipyard BauN ° 339 |
1892 to Hapag: Dalecarlia (1894), 1898 to Rob. M. Sloman , Hamburg, sold: Barcelona , 1900 Licata , March 16, 1905, sunk in the Bay of Biscay |
| 04/22/1871 05/15/1883 |
Return | 2805 GRT |
Caird & Co. BauN ° 162 |
Purchase of Vandalia from Hapag, returned to Hapag in 1894: Polonia (1895), demolished in 1897 |
| August 3, 1871 April 17, 1887 |
Cremon | 2132 GRT 2500 tdw |
Laing BauN ° 177 |
Purchase of Bahia from Hamburg Süd , new machine, 1892 to Hapag: Dalmatia (1894), 1897 sold to D. Fuhrmann, 1900 to Italy, 1916 demolition |
| 16.03.1889 12.05.1889 |
Steinhöft | 2479 BRT 3614 dw |
Reiherstieg shipyard BauN ° 371 |
1892 to Hapag: Canadia (1894), 1905 sold to Russia: Revel (returned), 1909 sold to Greece: Myrtoon , 1914 to France, 1924 demolition |
| .09.1881 6.1890 |
Cassius | 2449 GRT |
North German shipbuilding company BauN ° 5 |
1890 from C. Anderson, Hamburg, chartered for three trips to Canada, sold to Japan in 1905, sunk on October 8, 1920 |
| May 20, 1890 July 19, 1890 |
Grim | 2637 BRT 3700 dw |
Connell BauN ° 167 |
1892 to Hapag: Scotia (1894), 1910 to E. Retzlaff, Stettin, sold, 1922 North Sea , 1924 Denise / B, 1925 demolition |
| August 13, 1890 October 19, 1890 |
Stubbenhuk | 3016 BRT 4140 tdw |
Connell BauN ° 168 |
1892 to Hapag: Sicilia (1894), sold to Japan in 1913: Komegata Maru , 1925 Heian Maru , stranded in 1926 |
| August 28, 1890 December 3, 1890 |
Baumall (II) | 2889 BRT 4260 tdw |
Blohm & Voss BauN ° 74 |
1892 to Hapag: Christiania (1894), sold in 1910 to E. Retzlaff, Stettin, sunk on February 14, 1913 after a collision off Borkum |
| 11/1/1890 02/25/1891 |
Wall frame (II) | 2678 BRT 3610 dw |
Tecklenborg BuildingN ° 104 |
1892 to Hapag: Hispania (1894), 1910 to E. Retzlaff, Stettin, sold: Kreta , Tebea , Bosporus , sold in Turkey in 1925, demolished in 1965 |
literature
- Arnold Kludas : The History of German Passenger Shipping. Kabel, Hamburg. Vol. I The Pioneering Years from 1850 to 1890. 1986, ISBN 3-8225-0037-2 (Writings of the German Maritime Museum, Volume 18)
- Arnold Kludas: The History of German Passenger Shipping Vol. II Expansion on All Seas 1890 to 1900 , Writings of the German Shipping Museum, Volume 19
- Arnold Kludas: The History of the German Passenger Shipping Vol. III Rapid Growth 1900 to 1914 , Writings of the German Shipping Museum, Volume 20
Web links
- List of ships of the steamship shipping company Hansa
- Construction data of the pick lifts
- Travel of the pick lifts
- Travel the Georgia
- Georgia passengers in Ellis Island
- Sinking the Housatonic
- The first sinking of neutral ships
- Compensation process (PDF; 115 kB)
- The Attacks on US Shipping that Precipitated American Entry into World War I (PDF; 295 kB)
- THE SINKING OF THE HOUSATONIC New Zealand newspaper article dated February 6, 1917
- Captain says U 53 sank Housatonic New York Times, February 21, 1917
- 1917 February 3 President Woodrow Wilson breaks off all diplomatic relations with Germany .... citing Germany's renewed submarine warfare as reason enough to intervene. That same day the American steamship Housatonic is sunk without warning. Example of the wrong representation found on the net
Individual evidence
- ↑ With the Benares, the shipyard delivered a similar ship to the Hamburg-Calcutta Line, which was confiscated in Cuba as Constantia in 1917 and was also used in the US
- ^ The Pickhuben The Sydney Morning Herald, December 16, 1891
- ^ The German-Australian line The Sydney Morning Herald, November 24, 1894
- ↑ Kludas, Vol. III, p. 15
- ↑ chartered since February 23, 1916 "for the duration of the present war"
- ^ Fall of the Lusitania
- ^ Fall of the Licata