Kattenturm (ship, 1944)
 The Kattenturm shortly before completion
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The Kattenturm of the German Steamship Company "Hansa" (DDG "Hansa"), completed in 1944, was a standard cargo ship of the Hansa-A type .
According to a plan from mid-1944, the Bremer Reederei was to receive 16 newbuildings as part of the Hansa program, seven of which were type A ships. In fact, five small ships for DDG "Hansa" had been completed by the end of the war.
The second Kattenturm came into service as the shipping company's first standard cargo ship on March 16, 1944 and was confiscated by the British in Brunsbüttel at the end of the war in 1945 . As Empire Eden , Lowland and Mary Enid , the ship remained under the British flag until 1963.
In 1963 it became Stelianos under the Greek flag , in 1964 Marynik under the Liberian flag and in 1967 Eurypides under the Panamanian flag, before the former Kattenturm was scrapped in Hong Kong in 1969 .
History of the ship
During the Second World War , the DDG "Hansa" was one of the eight shipping companies that founded the "Schiffahrt Treuhand GmbH" on June 23, 1942 with the aim of developing the contractual and financial framework for a program for the series production of standard cargo ship types that would prevent the war losses of the Germans Shipowners should compensate.
As part of the Hansa building program , three types of ships (Hansa type A, type B, type C) were developed, which were primarily designed for the accessible navigation areas of the North and Baltic Seas. For each type, a so-called "front-end shipyard" was determined, according to whose design the series structures were to be built. These were the German shipyard in Hamburg for the small type A. The ships were to be built in German and shipyards in Germany-occupied countries. In July 1944, seven type A ships, four of the type B and five of the large type C were planned for the Bremer Reederei.
At the time of this planning, the second Kattenturm had already been delivered as the shipping company's first standard cargo ship. She was measured as a small type Hansa A ship with 1923 GRT and had a deadweight of 3800 dwt. She was 91.85 m long, 13.56 m wide and had a draft of up to 6.18 m. A 4-cylinder double-compound steam engine of the type LES 9 developed by Rheinmetall-Borsig in Berlin had an output of 1200 PSi, acted on one screw and gave the ship a speed of 10 knots (kn). The loading gear consisted of a 30 t and 10 t loading boom as well as ten 5 t loading booms on the two masts and four loading boom / fan posts next to each other in front of the bridge house and the deckhouse on the poop . Like all Type A ships, it was built with an anti-aircraft platform on the foredeck and two smaller platforms on the bridge house. The under construction no. 425 ships manufactured by Deutsche Werft AG in Hamburg were laid down on October 2, 1943 on behalf of Schiffahrt Treuhand GmbH and launched as a Kattenturm on January 18, 1944 .
On March 16, 1944, it was delivered to the German Steamship Company "Hansa" in Bremen. Unlike the first Kattenturm , which remained a single ship , the second ship with the name of a former fortress in Bremen was the first of nine similar ships that were in service with the shipping company between 1944/45 and 1952 to 1969.
Of the six other buildings for the shipping company, four were delivered to DDG "Hansa". The other two were only completed for the victorious powers after the end of the war.
Operation history of the Kattenturm
The Kattenturm was used by the DDG "Hansa" on behalf of the Navy for transport tasks. At the end of the war the ship was in Brunsbüttel and was confiscated by the British. In the meantime transferred to Great Britain, the Kattenturm was renamed Empire Eden in June 1945 . From 1946 the Scottish Currie Line operated the ship, which finally bought it in 1947 and renamed it Lowland . The shipping company, which mainly used its ships on the North Sea, operated the ship until 1959, and then sold it to "Poseidon Shipping", also based in Leith , which used it under the name Mary Enid .
In 1963 the ship was resold to "Delphic Shipping", based in Piraeus , which renamed it Stelianos . In 1964 the ship changed hands again: the shipping company "Marynik Cia" in Monrovia renamed it Marynik . In May 1967 the ship was put on the chain because of existing claims to the shipowner in Hong Kong . It is unclear whether the sale of the ship in autumn via an intermediate owner to "Eurypides Shipping" in Panama brought the ship back on the road under its new name Eurypides . The former Kattenturm was demolished as Eurypides in 1969 in Hong Kong.
Use of "Hansa A" ships by the DDG "Hansa"
Of the seven "Hansa A" ships under construction for DDG "Hansa", five were delivered to the Bremen shipping company before the end of the war, of which only the Arsterturm , which was delivered in October 1944, was lost in February 1945 as a result of the war. The others, like the two unfinished, came into the possession of the victorious powers and never returned to the service of the Bremen shipping company. The Warturm, completed in Belgium in 1947, was the last of these ships to be demolished in 1977.
In addition to these seven ships, two similar ships, the Brunneck and Roseneck, were ordered for DDG “Hansa” in Sweden at the end of 1941. At the end of 1944 the Swedish government banned the export of ships that never came into the service of the Bremen shipping company.
In 1952, the DDG "Hansa" bought the wreck of the unfinished Marienburg of the type "Hansa A" in Hamburg and, after completion and conversion to oil firing at the shipyard of Norddeutscher Lloyd, put it into operation in October 1952 as a steel corner. This ship was renamed the Kattenturm in October 1956 after the DDG "Hansa" bought three more of the "Hansa A" type in Great Britain and Norway in 1956 and used them again with the -tower -name after conversion . They were used on the shipping company's classic route to the Persian Gulf. The four ships were sold again between 1962 and 1969 and the last one was abandoned in 1981.
DDG "Hansa" -ships of the type "Hansa A"
| Surname | Shipyard | GRT tdw |
Launched in service |
further fate |
|
Kattenturm (2) |
German shipyard building number 425 |
1923 3800 |
January 18, 1944 March 10, 1944 |
1945 Great Britain: Empire Eden , Lowlands , Mary Enid , 1963 Greece: Stelianos , 1964 Liberia: Marynik , 1967 Panama: Euripides , 1969 demolition; |
|
Adam's Tower (2) |
German shipyard construction number 433 |
1923 3240 |
06/16/1944 08/29/1944 |
1945: Great Britain: Empire Ganymed , Baltanglia , Baltic Pine , 1954 Greece: Germania , collision, from stern 1956 in Germany: Auriga , 1965 demolition; |
|
Arsterturm (2) |
German shipyard construction number 447 |
1923 3240 |
13.09.1944 31.10.1944 |
sunk by bombs and torpedoes from British planes off Ballaatskjaerne near Kristiansand on February 26, 1945 while traveling from Swinoujscie to Tromsø ; |
|
Catch tower (2) |
German shipyard BauNr.4 ?? |
1942 3240 |
October 23, 1944 December 29, 1944 |
1945 Great Britain: Empire Gallop , Baltonia , Baltic Oak , 1957 Germany: Palmyra , on March 27, 1962 on a journey from Hamburg to Istanbul with a cargo of general cargo about 18 nautical miles west of Ushant beacon after a collision with the British motor tanker British Mariner (1948, 8576 GRT) sunk; |
|
Bee Tower (2) |
Ablasserdam / NL Flensburg |
1923 3800 |
2.03.1944 27.02.1945 |
1945 Great Britain: Empire Gantry , 1946 Soviet Union Feodosia , 1947 Poland Olsztyn , 1972 demolished; |
|
Page Tower (2) |
Ablasserdam / NL Flensburg |
1927 3100 |
September 7, 1944 1945 |
1945 Great Britain: Empire Nairn , Kamuning , 1956 India Jalatarang , 1964 demolished; |
|
Warturm (2) |
German shipyard construction number 451 |
1798 3074 |
January 15, 1945 August 23, 1947 |
completed as a Belgian Kindu , 1951 to Sweden: Titan , 1967 to Greece, 1977 demolition; |
|
Mariaeck (2) Adamsturm (3) |
Helsingsborgs Varfs Sweden S, building number 64 |
1600 2900 |
May 25, 1944 1948 |
1946 to France: Oasis , Bokor , October 1955 buyback a. Reconstruction: Adamsturm (2744 BRT / 3672 tdw), October 1961 Sale to Italy: Betty , Massimoemme , Pontina , stranded near Paros in 1967 , demolished in 1968; |
|
Brunneck (1) |
Gävle Varvs / S construction number 65 |
2752 4045 |
08/28/1944 1946 |
1945 to Norway: Produce , Dana , 1968 Somalia: Heaven Dragon , Ocean Star , severely damaged by fire in 1971, demolished in 1973; |
|
Roseneck (1) |
Gävle Varvs / S construction number 66 |
2722 4045 |
1945 1946 |
1945 to Norway: Bris , 1949 Hong Kong: Chung Sang , Negobla , 1958 again Norway, 1969 Somalia: River Dragon , On Ping , 1971 demolition; |
|
Stahleck (4) Kattenturm (3) |
Sliedrecht / NL Hamburg |
1985 3239 |
June 1, 1944 October 14, 1952 |
von Stapel as Marienburg , sunk unfinished in an air raid in 1945, wreck purchased in April 1952 and sold as Stahleck at the NDL shipyard prefabricated building as Stahleck , October 4, 1956 renamed Kattenturm , March 1962: Mateo / Panama, 1977 demolished; |
|
Arsterturm (3) |
German shipyard construction number 450 |
1764 3138 |
January 15, 1945 February 28, 1945 |
delivered as Betzdorf to Friedrich Krupp AG, 1945 Great Britain: Empire Gaffer , Baltrader , Baltic Fir , June 24, 1956 after reconstruction as Arsterturm in service, 1969 sold to India: Unigoolnar , Sudersan Shakti , 1981 demolished; |
|
Catch tower (3) |
Krimpen / NL construction number 726 |
2742 3582 |
20.10.1943 31.05.1944 |
delivered as Brunhilde at Hamburg-Süd , 1945 Great Britain: Empire Game , Canford , 1956 after renovation as Fangturm sold into service November 1961: Panaghia Lourion / Lebanon, 1967 Aghia Thalassini / Greece, Cyprus 1970, 1974 demolition; |
|
Page Tower (3) |
German shipyard construction number 446 |
1942 3800 |
20.06.1944 09.29.1944 |
delivered as Schauenburg to Flensburger DC H. Schuldt, 1945 Great Britain: Empire Galway , 1946 to Belgium Kinshasa , 1951 Norway Anne Reed , September 28, 1956 after conversion as a page tower in service, 1964 demolished; |
Web links
- The second Kattenturm on ddghansa
- The first Kattenturm
- The third Kattenturm ex Stahleck (4)
- OSA 212 The "off shore" supplier Kattenturm (4)
- The ordered in Sweden Mariaeck that as the third Adam storm still in the service of the DDG Hansa came
- The Brunneck ordered in Sweden
literature
- Hans Georg Prager: DDG Hansa - from liner service to special shipping , Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford 1976, ISBN 3-7822-0105-1