Kehrwieder (ship, 1943)
The Kehrwieder was a mine ship of the German Navy in World War II with an eventful fate. The ship began its career as a minesweeper M 120 of the Imperial Navy , served in the Italian Navy from 1921 to 1943 and was then confiscated by the Navy and put into service. It was sunk in 1944, raised again in 1947 and put back into service by the Italian Navy. From 1951 to 1975 it finally served as a school ship for a school for boys who got into trouble.
Imperial Navy
The minesweeper M 120 , a boat of the type minesweeper in 1916 , was born on March 9, 1917 in the joint-stock company "Neptun" shipyard and machine factory in Rostock on down Kiel and ran there on 24 July 1918 from the stack . It was 59.3 m long and 7.3 m wide, had a 2.15 m draft and displaced 590 t (standard) and 670 t (maximum). Two triple expansion steam engines with a total of 1800 hp and two propellers gave a top speed of 16.5 knots . With the bunker supply of 115 t of coal, an action radius of 2000 nautical miles was given at a cruising speed of 14 knots. The armament consisted of two 8.8 cm rapid fire guns . Up to 30 mines could be carried. The crew consisted of about 50 men.
The boat was put into service on September 20, 1918, but saw no more enemy operations during the war.
Italian Navy
The boat was decommissioned on March 9, 1921 and handed over to the Italian Navy as a war repair on December 15, 1921 and put into service by them under the name Alabastro . In 1925 it was renamed Cotrone and reclassified as a mine- layer after appropriate conversion . In 1931 it was renamed again, Crotone . After Italy entered the Second World War , the ship was used as a training ship and for laying numerous mine barriers in the Gulf of Genoa and Elba .
Navy
On September 9, 1943, the Crotone was confiscated by the German Navy in La Spezia and put back into service as a mine ship on October 2 under the name Kehrwieder . The ship was assigned to the Mining Ship Group West Italy; this in turn belonged to the 3rd escort flotilla, which carried out escort duties in the Tyrrhenian Sea , around Sicily and to North Africa. The Kehrwieder received the tactical number G 702 and was used both for escort protection and for laying mines. Their last mine operation took place in the period from April 3rd to 8th 1944, when the Mining Ship Group Westitalien with the Oldenburg , the Dietrich von Bern and the Kehrwieder southwest of La Spezia the locks "Herz Dame", "Herz König" and "Herz Jack “put. On May 19, 1944, the Kehrwieder was sunk by aerial bombs during an air raid on La Spezia .
Post-war years
In March 1947 the wreck was lifted and repaired and put into service by the Italian Marina Militare .
In 1951 the ship was decommissioned and the Istituto Redenzione Garaventa in Genoa passed, a company founded in 1883 private foundation , the orphans and loans with the law in conflict boy under 16 years through a combination of school and Marine training sought to give a new grip. After renovation, the ship was renamed Garaventa , after Nicolò Garaventa (* 1848 in Uscio , † 1917 in Genoa), the founder of the institute. Permanently moored in the port of Genoa, it served as a training ship for the training and social rehabilitation of young people until 1975. The institute closed in December 1977 and the ship was scrapped in 1978,
Notes and individual references
- ↑ http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/40-06.htm
- ↑ The Mining Ship Group West Italy also included the Oldenburg from November 1943 and the Lower Saxony from December 1943 ( http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/km/mittelmeer/geleit-mm.htm )
- ↑ http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/44-04.htm
- ↑ http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/44-05.htm
- ^ Nave “Redenzione” Garaventa, with photo of the ship as a training ship