Kaiser Wilhelm II (ship, 1903)
 The Kaiser Wilhelm II in the harbor
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The express steamer Kaiser Wilhelm II was a passenger ship that was named after Wilhelm II , the former German Kaiser .
Construction and equipment
The ship was built at the AG Vulcan Stettin shipyard in Stettin-Bredow for the North German Lloyd in Bremen . The christening of the ship and the subsequent launch of the hull took place with great pomp on August 12, 1902 in the presence of the namesake Kaiser Wilhelm II and Lloyd general director Heinrich Wiegand on the slipway of the Vulcan shipyard. Wiegand's daughter Elsa performed the baptism . The delivery took place in March 1903.
The lavish furnishings, which reflected stylistic elements from the Baroque and Empire , came from the then most famous Bremen architect, Johann Georg Poppe (1837–1915), who had been successfully responsible for the “disguise” of new Lloyd ships for many years. The aim of this art was to give the passengers the feeling of being well looked after in one of the best luxury hotels , while largely forgetting about the crossing (Atlantic crossing) with all its possible dangers.
technology
Technical features
The engines of the ship were a type in themselves. It was driven by a total of four quadruple expansion steam engines ( compound steam engines ); two machines each acted on a propeller shaft . Each of the two crankshafts has a total of six cranks. The sequence of the cylinders that powered these cranks, starting from the back, is as follows: low-pressure cylinder, second medium-pressure cylinder, first medium-pressure cylinder and high-pressure cylinder arranged one above the other. Then again the first medium-pressure cylinder and high-pressure cylinder arranged one above the other, second medium-pressure cylinder and finally low-pressure cylinder. Thus, the three rear and the three front cranks are each set in motion by a quadruple expansion machine. A watertight bulkhead separated the rear from the front three-crank machine. Both engines port and starboard together made about 40,000 hp with an admission tension of about 15 bar overpressure and 80 revolutions per minute . In order to keep the required machine output constant, around 700 tons of coal had to be burned per day. Technically, however, this was already a step forward to the older sister ship, the Crown Prince Wilhelm , launched in 1901 , as his steam engine only made 33,000 hp with the same amount of coal.
The blue ribbon
In the years before the First World War, the passenger ship was used in transatlantic traffic between Germany and New York. Designed for high speeds, the vehicle was to take part in the competition for the Blue Ribbon for the fastest Atlantic crossing. Captain Dietrich Högemann achieved this as early as 1904.
Sunk in the harbor
In July 1907 the ship sank in the port of Bremerhaven . The Kaiser Wilhelm II was lying on the quay and paid 5000 tons of coal. The ship sat down on the land side on a sandbank. When the port locks were opened again when the tide came in, the water in the port rose, but only the water-facing side of the ship rose and finally the ship turned on the sandbank to the land side and took over through the open coal gates and the open windows of the tween deck enormous amounts of water until the ship sank onto the harbor basin. A worker was killed in the coal bunker. Immediately after the sinking, all the underwater openings were sealed and the ship was emptied with powerful pumps, which floated up again after two days. After a further three days of day and night work, the lounges and cabins of the passenger ship were cleaned and the ship was able to leave for New York with its passengers.
The First World War
On August 3, 1914, Kaiser Wilhelm II received news of Germany's entry into the war. At that time the steamer was at the Lloyd's berth in Hoboken . His return journey to Bremerhaven was scheduled for August 11th. The ship and crew could therefore be interned by the USA. The Kaiser Wilhelm II remained idle in the harbor for two and a half years . With the US declaration of war on April 6, 1917 against Imperial Germany, the ship was confiscated .
During the renovation work, the ship also served as a residential ship for the US Navy. This work was completed in late August, and with her new deployment as a troop transport to Europe, the name was changed to Agamemnon in October 1917 . At the end of October, the Agamemnon set off for her first voyage towards Europe as a theater of war. During the crossing on November 9, 1917, there was a collision with the equally formerly German ship Von Steuben (formerly Crown Prince Wilhelm ). Despite the damage, the American troops were able to reach mainland Europe unharmed. The Agamemnon returned to the USA and was repaired there. Subsequently, from January 1918, the ship carried out regular Atlantic crossings without any problems, despite the occasional enemy submarine sightings. In the autumn of 1918 there was a violent outbreak of Spanish flu among the military on board.
post war period
In mid-December 1918, about a month after the end of the war, the repatriation of American troops began. By August 1919, the former passenger ship transported over 42,000 soldiers back home on a total of nine voyages. At the end of August the Agamemnon went into reserve and was decommissioned. However, it should be kept operational. In 1927 the ship was renamed Monticello again , but was then deleted from the list of uses. Various attempts to reactivate the still attractive ocean liner for the short-lived United States Mail Line failed. Moored next to each other, the ex- Kaiser Wilhelm II and the sister ship, the former Crown Princess Caecilie (now called Mount Vernon ) , rusted away at her berth in the Chesapeake Bay near Baltimore until 1939 . With the outbreak of World War II, the USA offered the British both ships as troop transports, but this offer was rejected. As a result, both express steamers were scrapped in Baltimore at the end of 1940, where Crown Prince Wilhelm had already been scrapped in 1924 .
The Schnelldampfer class (Kaiserklasse) of the North German Lloyd before 1914
All four steamers in this class had four chimneys with a corresponding propulsion power.
- Kaiser Wilhelm the Great (1897 to 1914; 22.35 kn maximum speed, blue ribbon winner)
- Crown Prince Wilhelm (1901 to 1923; sister ship of the Kaiser Wilhelm the Great; 23.51 kn maximum speed, blue ribbon winner)
- Kaiser Wilhelm II. (1902 to 1940; 23.58 kn maximum speed, blue ribbon winner)
- Crown Princess Cecilie (1907 to 1940; 23.6 kn maximum speed)
literature
- Robert D. Ballard , Ken Marschall : Lost Liners - From the Titanic to Andrea Doria - the glory and decline of the great luxury liners . Wilhelm Heyne Verlag GmbH & Co., Munich 1997, ISBN 3-453-12905-9 (English: Lost Liners: From the Titanic to the Andrea Doria. The ocean floor reveals its greatest lost ships. Translated by Helmut Gerstberger).
- G. Bauer : Calculation and construction of ship machines and boilers. A handbook for use by designers, marine engineers and students. 3rd increased and improved edition. Verlag R. Oldenbourg, Munich u. a. 1908.
- Eberhard Mertens (Ed.): The Lloyd Schnelldampfer. Kaiser Wilhelm the Great, Crown Prince Wilhelm, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Crown Princess Cecilie. Olms Press, Hildesheim u. a. 1975, ISBN 3-487-08110-5 .
- Tony Gibson: The world of ships. From the beginning to the present. Over 1500 civil and military ship types. Bassermann Verlag, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-8094-2186-3 .
Web links
- Images from Agamemnon , Naval History and Heritage Command, U.S. Navy, accessed July 7, 2016.
- Agamemnon (Id. No. 3004) , Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships, Naval History and Heritage Command, US Navy, accessed July 7, 2016.
- Film recording of Kaiser Wilhelm II in Southampton , ca.1910 , on britishpathe.com
Footnotes
- ↑ a b Eberhard Mertens (Ed.): The Lloyd Schnelldampfer. Kaiser Wilhelm the Great, Crown Prince Wilhelm, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Crown Princess Cecilie. Olms Presse, Hildesheim 1975, ISBN 3-487-08110-5 . P. 12.
- ↑ Eberhard Mertens (ed.): The Lloyd Schnelldampfer. Kaiser Wilhelm the Great, Crown Prince Wilhelm, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Crown Princess Cecilie. Olms Presse, Hildesheim 1975, ISBN 3-487-08110-5 , pp. 12 / 20-23.
- ↑ Eberhard Mertens (ed.): The Lloyd Schnelldampfer. Kaiser Wilhelm the Great, Crown Prince Wilhelm, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Crown Princess Cecilie. Olms Presse, Hildesheim 1975, ISBN 3-487-08110-5 , p. 8.
- ↑ William Lowell Putnam: The Emperor's merchant ships in World War I . McFarland Publishers, Jefferson 2001, ISBN 0-7864-0923-1 , p. 71 (English).
- ↑ Eberhard Mertens (ed.): The Lloyd Schnelldampfer. Kaiser Wilhelm the Great, Crown Prince Wilhelm, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Crown Princess Cecilie. Olms Presse, Hildesheim 1975, ISBN 3-487-08110-5 , p. 10.
- ^ Otfrid von Hanstein: Vom Segelschiffsjungen zum Lloydkapitän , Verlag Wilhelm Köhler, Minden without the year, edition 11-27 . Tausend, around 1933, pages 170-172
- ↑ Eberhard Mertens (ed.): The Lloyd Schnelldampfer. Kaiser Wilhelm the Great, Crown Prince Wilhelm, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Crown Princess Cecilie. Olms Presse, Hildesheim 1975, ISBN 3-487-08110-5 , pp. 65/79.
- ↑ Eberhard Mertens (ed.): The Lloyd Schnelldampfer. Kaiser Wilhelm the Great, Crown Prince Wilhelm, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Crown Princess Cecilie. Olms Presse, Hildesheim 1975, ISBN 3-487-08110-5 . P. 79.
- ^ The New York Times , May 4, 1924, p. 10.