Night fighter guide ship

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Nachtjagdleitschiff was in the German Navy the name for an armed and specially equipped ship that was used for the early detection and warning of Allied air raids and for the approaching of night fighter planes of the German air force .

Night fighter guide ship Togo

The only ship designated as a night fighter ship and put into service as such was the Togo , which was used in the Baltic Sea to guide and support the night fighter squadrons against attacks by enemy bombers . The ship was a former general cargo carrier , which was first used by the Navy as a mine ship ( Schiff 14 ), then as an auxiliary cruiser under the name Coronel and was converted into a night fighter ship in 1943.

In addition to flak and searchlight batteries , the Togo was equipped with special tracking and fire control devices:

  • Radio location device type Freya FuMG 321-328 , which was developed in 1934. Freya worked as an early warning system with a range of 120 to approx. 150 km. The grid antenna used could record the distance and course, but not the height of approaching aircraft.
  • Radar apparatus and fire control radar device Würzburg , a radar of the type FuMG 39 or 62 FuMG the German Air Force . Würzburg devices have been part of the standard equipment of the German Navy since 1941 and, in addition to the Freya early warning systems, also reported the height of the aircraft. The antenna was a swiveling parabolic mirror 3 m in diameter.

Hunter guide ship Crete

In the Mediterranean , the Navy briefly had a similarly equipped ship in service, the Jägerleitschiff Kreta . This was the French mail and passenger ship Ile de Beauté , which was taken into possession in 1943 and equipped with a Freya AN radio measuring device and a Würzburg 39T fire control radar as well as very strong anti-aircraft armament, but already in September 1943, a few weeks after commissioning, by a British submarine - Torpedo was sunk.

literature

  • Fritz Trenkle : The German radio control procedures until 1945 , Dr. Alfred Hüthig Verlag, Heidelberg, 1987, ISBN 3-7785-1647-7
  • Gebhard Aders : History of the German night hunt , Motorbuch Verlag, 1977, ISBN 3-87943-509-X
  • Dieter Jung. Berndt Wenzel, Arno Abendroth: The ships and boats of the German sea pilots 1912-1976. Motor Buch Verlag, Stuttgart, 1995, ISBN 3-87943-469-7 , 978-3-8794-3469-5
  • Conway's All the world's fighting ships, 1922-1946. Conway Maritime Press, London, 1980, ISBN 0-85177-146-7 , 9-780851-771465 (p. 254)
  • Kurt Petsch: Togo night hunting guide ship. 1943-45. The history of the ship and its crew, based on official and private diaries, memories and photographs . Preussischer Militär-Verlag, Reutlingen, 1988, ISBN 3-927292-00-1