Isar (ship, 1930)
The Isar was a former fruit steamer called Puma , which was converted into a submarine support ship by the German Navy and used as such during World War II .
prehistory
The 2171 BRT large reefer Puma the African Fruit Company (AFC) ( F. Laeisz ) expired on October 23, 1930 at the Bremer Vulkan from the stack . The ship was 97.6 m long and 13.8 m wide and had a draft of 5.5 m . Its top speed was 12.5 knots . It brought bananas from Cameroon to Hamburg.
Since the submarine tenders or submarine escort ships required for the rapid construction of the submarine weapon and ordered as new constructions were not available quickly enough, the Navy bought several suitable merchant ships and had them converted accordingly. In this way, she put the submarine escort ships Donau , Erwin Waßner , Lech and Isar into service in 1938 and 1939 .
modification
The Navy bought the ship on August 3, 1938 and had it converted into a submarine support ship by F. Schichau on August 29 . On July 25, 1939, it was put into service under the new name Isar (name decree of August 29, 1938). The ship was now 103.5 m long and 13.8 m wide, had a maximum draft of 5.87 m and displaced 3850 t . The regular crew consisted of 198 men, the maximum speed was 14 knots. The ship was armed with an 8.8 cm Flak L / 45, four 3.7 cm Flak and sixteen 2 cm Flak.
use
The ship was initially assigned to the 6th U-Flotilla in Kiel , then from January 1940 to the 2nd U-Flotilla in Wilhelmshaven . In April 1941 the 27th U-Flotilla , a training unit, took place in Gotenhafen . On June 15, 1943, the Isar moved to Pillau and set up the 20th U-Flotilla there, also a training unit whose only permanently assigned ship was the Isar itself and to which it belonged until March 1945. Then the ship came to the 25th U-Flotilla , a training unit in Travemünde, until the end of the war .
Whereabouts
After the war ended, the ship was spoiled by Soviet war and delivered on February 19, 1946. In the Soviet Navy it was then used under the name Niemen (Russian: Немен). Nothing is known about his later whereabouts.
Commanders
- July 1939 - March 1940: Lieutenant Captain Oswald Neumann
- March 1940 - July 1940: Oberleutnant zur See d. R. Bugs
- July 1940 - July 1941: Oberleutnant zur See zV Schapler
- July 1941 - December 1943: Corvette Captain Kaack
- December 1943 - May 1945: Lieutenant Captain Lindke
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, 1986, ISBN 978-3-7637-4803-7 .