Kjøbenhavn (ship, 1918)
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The Kjøbenhavn was a 1918 passenger ship of the Danish shipping company Det Forenede Dampskibs-Selskab (DFDS), which acted as a ferry in Danish coastal waters and connected Copenhagen , Aarhus and Aalborg . On June 11, 1948, the Kjøbenhavn ran in the Kattegat with over 400 people on board on a sea mine from the Second World War and sank within ten minutes. 48 passengers and crew members were killed.
The ship
The 1670 BRT large passenger steamer Kjøbenhavn was on 26 June 1915 when, shipyard Helsingor Skibsværft in Helsingor ordered, laid down on 30 September 1916 and launched in October 20, 1917th The steel- built steamship had a chimney, a propeller and two masts . The triple expansion steam engine developed 2300 PSi and helped the ship to a maximum cruising speed of 15 knots . On December 16, 1918, the Kjøbenhavn took her test drives and the following day she was handed over to her owner, Det Forenede Dampskibs-Selskab (DFDS), a shipping company founded in Copenhagen in 1866.
The Kjøbenhavn shuttled between Copenhagen and Aarhus until 1928 , after which it was put on the route from Copenhagen to Aalborg . After it was temporarily laid up from August 1941 to May 1942, the ship was temporarily in operation under the name Regina during the Second World War , when Denmark was occupied by Nazi Germany , and sailed between Gedser and Warnemünde . In April 1945 the ship was sunk in Copenhagen, but shortly afterwards it was lifted and repaired by Burmeister & Wain .
In the spring of 1947, the system switched from coal to oil firing. On June 22, 1947, the Kjøbenhavn collided with the cargo ship Mette Skou (1,909 GRT, 1906), which sank as a result, but was later lifted.
Downfall
On Friday morning, June 11, 1948, the Kjøbenhavn was with 52 crew members and 350 passengers on another crossing from Copenhagen to Aalborg. Shortly before 5 a.m. the ship ran into a sea mine in the bay of Aalborg, about 16 miles east of the town of Hals and near the sandbar Hals Barre , which the ship hit about amidships on the starboard side . The Kjøbenhavn immediately took a heavy list of what the waters of the lifeboats hampered massive. Only two boats could be made clear before the steamer sank ten minutes after the explosion. The current blackout on board also hindered the evacuation.
The freighter Frigga (1,095 GRT, 1922), which belonged to the same shipping company, received the emergency signal from Kjøbenhavn and picked up the survivors at the scene of the accident. Six crew members and 42 passengers were killed in the sinking. Among the fatalities were Holger Bache († 78), retired professor at Denmark's Technical University and Frederik Graae († 73), former head of the Danish Ministry of Education ( Undervisningsministeriet ) and his wife Christiane (née Winkel) († 68). The route that Kjøbenhavn had taken regularly was considered mine-free, as there had been extensive demining work after the end of the war.
The wreck of the Kjøbenhavn was later salvaged and scrapped.