Kiautschou (ship)
 Already as Princess Alice in Cebu
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The Reichspostdampfer Kiautschou , the last ship of the original Barbarossa class , was used as the second ship for Hapag on the mail steamer line to East Asia. After giving up participation in this service, the Kiautschou was handed over to Norddeutscher Lloyd and remained in the Reichspostdampferdienst as Princess Alice .
From 1917 to 1930, the former Kiautschou was then in American service under the name Princess Matoika , President Arthur and City of Honolulu .
Kiautschou
The Kiautschou was built at Vulcan in Szczecin and was launched in 1900. On her maiden voyage on December 25, 1900, she ran from Hamburg through the Suez Canal to Yokohama . In May 1902 she replaced the Hapag express steamer Germany between Hamburg and New York for a trip . At the end of 1903, Hapag ended its cooperation with Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL) on the East Asia postal route. The sister ship Hamburg remained with Hapag as a single ship, while the Kiautschou was handed over to the NDL for five freighters on February 20, 1904.
Princess Alice
The Princess Alice's first trip for the NDL was to New York on March 22, 1904, and 3 more round trips followed. On August 31, 1904, it then started for the first time to East Asia under the new name. Similar to the Australian ships of this type, she was mostly used on the North Atlantic in summer. On May 27, 1909, she ran aground in the fog near Staten Island on her return journey and had to be brought in and repaired.
From May 1910 the Princess Alice was only used in East Asia. When the war broke out, she was on her way to Hong Kong . The captain Bortfeldt decided to call at the neutral Manila . There he handed over a cargo of gold from India to the German consul. Because of a possible use as an auxiliary cruiser , she ran out of Manila again and met the small cruiser Emden on August 19 at Angaur . The commander of the Emden appeared the ship - because of the bad condition of the boiler and low Kohlenvorates - not suitable. Nor could he have given the ship very little armament. The Reichspostdampfer was therefore dismissed and ran to Cebu / Philippines , where it was launched .
War and post-war use
In 1917, when the USA entered the war , the Princess Alice was confiscated and repaired in Subic Bay . She was relocated to the US West Coast and then the East Coast as Princess Matoika (ID-2290). In April 1918, the former Kiautschou was the last former German passenger ship to be used for transport across the North Atlantic. In six trips she transferred 21,216 soldiers to France. After the armistice, she carried out 8 repatriation trips on which 30,110 soldiers returned to the United States. On these trips she also brought 5,400 prisoners of war from the USA to Rotterdam . On September 19, the Princess Matoika moved from the service of the United States Navy to that of the Army Transport Command , she returned dead people from France to the USA and was called upon to perform various tasks. Among other things, she brought parts of the US Olympic team to Antwerp in 1920. The athletes complained about the conditions on board; the incident moved the American public as the mutiny on the Princess Matoika .
On January 20, 1921, the ship, now in service with the US Mail Steamship Co., ran from New York via Italy (three round trips) and in June for the first time to Bremerhaven (two trips). In the course of 1922, the ship came into service with United States Lines and continued to Bremerhaven. In 1922, the former Kiautschou was renamed President Arthur . In 1923 the ship was launched.
In 1925, President Arthur made three round trips from New York via Naples to Palestine in the service of the American Palestine Line . On these trips the Zionist flag is said to have been carried at sea for the first time and a passenger steamer with female officers is said to have sailed for the first time.
In 1927 the ship was purchased by the Los Angeles Steamship Company , repaired and put into service as the City of Honolulu . Under this name, the company had already put the sister ship Friedrich the Great in service in 1922 , but it caught fire on the first voyage and was a total loss. On June 4, 1927, the former Princess Alice made the first trip with cargo and tourists to Hawaii. On May 25, 1930, the former Kiautschou / Princess Alice burned down in Honolulu and was scrapped in 1933.
literature
- Arnold Kludas : Rapid growth from 1900 to 1914 . In: The history of German passenger shipping , Volume 3 (= writings of the German Maritime Museum ). No. 20 . Ernst Kabel Verlag, Hamburg 1988, ISBN 3-8225-0039-9 .
- Arnold Kludas: The ships of the North German Lloyd Volume 1: 1857 to 1919 . Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford 1991, ISBN 3-7822-0524-3 .
- Christine Reinke-Kunze: History of the Reichs-Post-Steamers. Connection between the continents 1886–1914 . Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford 1994, ISBN 3-7822-0618-5 .
Footnotes
- ^ List of US Mail ships
- ^ Princess Matoika on July 4, 1921 in Bremerhaven
- ↑ History of the Los Angeles Steamship and the use of formerly German ships ( Memento of the original from December 11, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ History of the ship in US services ( Memento of the original from December 11, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Image of the City of Honolulu (II) ( Memento of the original from October 10, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
