Condor (ship, 1926)
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The condor was a torpedo boat of the Raptor class (Torpedo Boat 1923). In service with the Reichsmarine since 1927 , the boat was used in World War II . The no longer operational torpedo boat was blown up on June 28, 1944 in Le Havre by the crew after 127 trips.
history
The condor was on 17 November 1925 at the Imperial Naval Shipyard Wilhelmshaven , together with the sister boat Falcon to put Kiel , both of which ran on 22 September 1926 by the stack. It was put into service with the Reichsmarine on July 15, 1927. The unprotected cruiser Condor of the Imperial Navy was named after the South American bird from 1892 to 1914 .
Mission history
The Kondor was completed as the fifth torpedo boat of the type in 1923 and put into service on July 15, 1928. Like its sister boat Albatros , it had its propulsion system from the Schichau works in Elbing . After test drives under Oberleutnant zur See (OLzS) Schöne, the new boat came into service on October 5, 1928 with the 4th Torpedo Boat Half Flotilla, where OLzS Hagen took command of the boat. The semi-flotilla usually consisted of four birds of prey class boats. In April / May 1929 the Kondor took part in the fleet's trip abroad. The battleships Schleswig-Holstein , Silesia , Hesse and Alsace were on their journey in Spanish waters next to the condor of the torpedo boats Wolf (Flottillenführerboot II.T flotilla, Lieutenant Commander (KK) Otto Schniewind ) and gripping and seagull and Albatros accompanied. The Kondor visited with the ships of the line and the Greif Caramiñal at the Arosa Bay and with the Greif Seville . After returning from the trip abroad in mid-May and doing normal training, the boat was decommissioned on October 15, 1930 and replaced by the sister boat Seeadler .
On September 21, 1931 the Kondor was again put into service under Kapitänleutnant (KL) Hagen with the 4th Torpedo Boat Half Flotilla and replaced her sister boat Greif there . In June 1932, the Kondor belonged to the Association of the Commander of the Reconnaissance Forces (BdA), Rear Admiral Conrad Albrecht , who with the light cruiser Königsberg and the torpedo boats Albatros , Falke , Möwe and Seeadler the German Reich in Stockholm at the celebrations for the engagement of the Swedish Prince Gustav Adolf represented with the German Princess Sibylla of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha . In 1933 the condor still visited Kristiansand and Malmö . On October 1, 1935, the semi-flotilla became the 4th torpedo boat flotilla in Wilhelmshaven, which in addition to the Kondor also included the sister boats Greif , Möwe and Falke . The first in command was Corvette Captain Hans Henning (1895–1948).
From August 1936 to March 1938, the boat was used three times as part of the so-called neutrality patrols off the Spanish coasts. The first use took place from August 11 to September 15, 1936 together with the seagull . The condor and the seagull were replaced by the tiger and the polecat of the 3rd flotilla. The condor was deployed again in Spain together with the seagull as well as the griffin and the falcon and the light cruiser Nuremberg and at times with the ironclad Admiral Graf Spee only from June 17 to August 6, 1937 after the attack by Spanish aircraft on the Ironclad Germany lying in front of Ibiza . The German ships now served in their surveillance section on the southern Spanish east coast in the Mediterranean. The third use of the boat began in October 1937 with the 4th Flotilla ( Greif , Möwe und Falke ). On this mission, the boat visited Gaeta in Italy together with the Greif in November and spent Christmas and the New Year in Naples . During this time, the flagship of the German association off Spain was predominantly the ironclad Germany . It was not until March 14, 1938 that the Kondor returned from this mission to Wilhelmshaven. The boats were recalled one day before the German invasion of Austria (March 12). On July 1, 1938, the boat was taken out of service.
On April 4, 1939, the Kondor returned to service for the 5th Torpedo Boat Flotilla under Corvette Captain Rudolf Heyke (1898–1940). When war broke out in 1939, five boats of the bird of prey class belonged to this flotilla deployed in the North Sea; only the sea eagle belonged to the 6th flotilla.
War missions
The first task of the Kondor and its sister boats of the 5th torpedo boat flotilla after the start of the war was to secure the laying of defensive German mine barriers in the North Sea together with destroyers . The former seaside resort ships Cobra , Kaiser and Roland as well as destroyers were used as mine layers . Later the boats of the flotilla secured the various missions of the fleet in the North Sea.
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During the German attack on Norway ( Operation Weser Exercise ) in April 1940, the Kondor with its sister boats Albatros and Möwe was part of the warship group 5 led by Rear Admiral Oskar Kummetz with the heavy cruisers Blücher and Lützow (ex Germany ), the light cruiser Emden , the eight boats the 1st clearing boat flotilla and two converted whalers . This group was supposed to occupy the Norwegian capital Oslo . This did not succeed as planned because the Norwegians sank the Blücher in the Dröback-Enge and damaged the Lützow considerably. The Albatros and the Condor were to occupy the Norwegian naval base in Horten with two clearing boats . The Norwegian miner Olav Tryggvason and minesweeper Rauma opened fire on the German attackers. They damaged the Albatros and sank the R17 clearing boat . The Olav Trygvason , which suffered only minor damage, later scored another hit on the Emden coming to support . The Rauma was badly damaged by the Germans. The base surrendered when the Germans threatened air strikes that would have claimed considerable casualties among the civilian population living close to the base.
On 29./30. April 1940 the torpedo boats Kondor , Leopard , Wolf and Möwe as well as the destroyers Richard Beitzen and Bruno Heinemann secured the miners Roland , Cobra , Kaiser and Prussia when deploying mine barrier 17 north of the Great Fisherman's Bank to extend the Siegfried Line barriers in the North Sea. When approaching the throwing position in the Skagerrak, the Leopard was rammed by the former East Prussia ferry Prussia after a row failure and sank after the Wolf had taken over its crew. The son Gernot of the fleet chief Wilhelm Marschall died in the collision .
From June 20 to 23, 1940, the Kondor secured the transfer of the Scharnhorst from Drontheim to Kiel, damaged by a torpedo hit by the Acasta , with the Greif and the destroyers Hans Lody , Erich Steinbrinck and Hermann Schoemann . Two British air strikes on the convoy were repulsed and two Fairey Swordfish were shot down.
From July 25 to 28, 1940, the condor with the polecat , the jaguar , the lynx and the T 5 belonged to the security of the battleship Gneisenau, which was damaged by a torpedo hit by the Clyde . The light cruiser Nuremberg and the destroyers Hans Lody , Paul Jacobi , Friedrich Ihn and Karl Galster also belonged to the security association . On July 26th, the British submarine Thames sank the torpedo boat Luchs , which was securing the torpedo boat , southwest of Bergen , which ran into the line of fire to Gneisenau and went down with more than 100 men.
When the mine ships Roland , Cobra and Brummer (ex Olav Tryggvason ) on 7./8. When the "SW 1" mine barrier with approx. 600 mines was laid in the southwestern North Sea on August 1st, 1940, they were secured by the 5th torpedo boat flotilla under Corvette Captain Henne with the falcon , condor , jaguar , T 2 , T 7 and T 8 . The British destroyer Express and the Esk and Ivanhoe who came to help ran on this barrier on November 1st . The Esk sank, the Kelvin was able to tow the Express out of the minefield, attempts to tow the damaged Ivanhoe failed and the Kelvin then sank the flotilla leader with a torpedo.
Before this success, the mine ships Tannenberg , Roland and Cobra and the destroyers Paul Jacobi and Karl Galster had another mine barrier with approx. 600 mines on the 14th and 15th. Laid in the southwestern North Sea on August 1st, 1940, secured again by the 5th T-Flotilla with the Greif , the Condor , the Falcon , the Polecat , the Jaguar as well as the T 2 and T 3 .
On 6./7. September 1940 secured the 1st torpedo boat flotilla with the Kondor , T 1 , T 2 and T 3 as well as the destroyer Karl Galster another mining company north of Terschelling , in which over 1400 explosives from the 5th T flotilla with the Greif , the Falcon , the polecat and the jaguar and the mine ships Togo and Kaiser were brought out. After the suspension was thrown, the entire association returned to Den Helder .
Use in the west
The 5th T-Flotilla was then stationed on the French Channel coast and laid mines off Dover on the night of October 1, 1940 with the condor , the falcon , the griffin and the sea eagle . On 8./9. October 1940 the flotilla with the griffin , the sea eagle , the condor , the falcon , the wolf and the jaguar advanced into the sea area around the Isle of Wight . A second advance on 11/12. with the griffin , the condor , the falcon , the sea eagle and the wolf led to skirmishes with light British armed forces, in which the free-French submarine hunters Ch 6 and Ch 7 as well as the trawlers Listrac (778 GRT) and Warwick Deeping (445 GRT) were sunk. On the march back, the flotilla evaded a battle with the British destroyers Jackal , Jaguar , Jupiter , Kelvin and Kipling .
On the night of October 18, 1940, the leader of the destroyers (FdZ), Captain Erich Bey , planned with the five destroyers now stationed in Brest an advance against the western exit of the Bristol Canal in order to attack the Allied merchant shipping. Discovered early by the British aerial reconnaissance, the destroyers were provided by two cruisers and five destroyers. A long-range battle yielded no results, as the German destroyers broke off their advance and the British did not pursue them due to technical problems. Air attacks by both sides on the retreating units were unsuccessful. The 5th T-Flotilla , which was in the sea as a support group for the German destroyers with the Kondor as well as the Greif , the Sea Eagle , the Falcon , the Wolf and the Jaguar , was not discovered and ran back without contact with the enemy.
On November 8, the condor and the falcon collided in Quiberon Bay. Because of the considerable damage, the Kondor had to go to the shipyard. From January 28 to 30, 1941, the destroyer Richard Beitzen moved with the torpedo boats Kondor , Iltis and Seeadler from Rotterdam to Brest. When the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper left Brest on February 1, 1941 for his second Atlantic expedition, Richard Beitzen , the condor and sea eagle , gave him escort in the Bay of Biscay . When the cruiser returned on February 15, it was taken back to sea by the same boats and escorted to Brest.
Overhaul and further use
From the end of February to May 1941, the Kondor was overhauled in Rotterdam, as were the sister boats Seeadler , Greif and Falke . From mid-May 1941, the six still existing torpedo boats of the bird of prey and predator class were retracted into the Baltic Sea again, except for the seagull that was being converted. The flotilla was then used primarily for security services between Denmark and Norway. The Kondor secured the march of Theodor Riedel to Northern Norway from August 9th to 12th with T 2 , which ended after a serious grounding in Bergen on the 12th, where an emergency repair of the destroyer began, which then returned to Germany . On August 22, the boat with the Greif secured the return march of the Emden from Norwegian waters to the Baltic Sea. On August 25, 1941, the Marine Group Command North released the flotilla from active service and the boats were assigned to various training tasks with different units. The condor served as a school boat for the torpedo school and as a torpedo catch boat for various submarine training flotillas.
Again use in the west
In January 1942, the 5th torpedo boat flotilla was brought together again in Rotterdam to take over security tasks when the heavy units were to break through the canal. On 12 and 13 February 1942, was Kondor in the fifth T flotilla with the Eagle , the Jaguar , the polecat and the falcon from Cap Gris Nez on firm Cerberus involved, as the battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the heavy cruiser Prince Eugene of Brest were relocated to Germany through the canal. On 13./14. March 1942, the German auxiliary cruiser Michel under the protection of the 5th Flotilla under Frigate Captain Schmidt passed the canal on the sea eagle with the polecat , the jaguar , the falcon and the condor as well as nine mine sweepers. The destroyers Walpole and Fernie were damaged in fierce battles with British motor torpedo and motor cannon boats and destroyers . The auxiliary cruiser reached Le Havre on the 14th, St. Malo on the 15th and La Pallice on the 17th , from where it left for the Atlantic on March 20th.
On March 28, the 5th T-Flotilla tried to intercept the light units used in the British raid against the Normandy dock in St. Nazaire (see Operation Chariot ). The Jaguar briefly managed to tow MGB 74 . When the flotilla encountered the British destroyer escorts Atherstone and Tynedale , there was a battle at long range and the Jaguar cut the tow to the hijacked MGB. The German boats withdrew because they did not recognize that they were facing only two destroyer escorts. These remained at the agreed meeting point for the attack boats and could still take four boats. They took over the commandos that had escaped, sank the boats and ran back to England. Three small boats that did not find the meeting point reached England on their own.
From 8 to 12 May 1942 the 5th T-Flotilla moved with the falcon , the polecat , the condor and the sea eagle from Brest to Hoek van Holland to escort the auxiliary cruiser Stier through the canal from there. Already on the 12th, the first day of the return march of the boats with the auxiliary cruiser, the association was attacked by British speedboats. The sea eagle was able to destroy an attacking speedboat. In the early morning of May 13, shortly after 4 a.m., the British speedboats sank the polecat (115 dead) and the white-tailed eagle (85 dead) near Boulogne within five minutes . The auxiliary cruiser reached Royan on May 19 and broke out into the Atlantic on the night of May 20-21.
At the beginning of June 1942, the Kondor and the Falke fought a battle with light British naval forces in the canal, in which the German boats sank one motor cannon boat (MGB) and seriously damaged another. The Kondor then went to Wilhelmshaven to lay at the shipyard and returned to the western region in November when she moved from Kiel to La Pallice with the T 23 fleet torpedo boat from November 12 to 21 . On the 14th off Texel there was a battle between the two boats and British speedboats. During the further transfer, the two torpedo boats and the accompanying minesweeper M 85 mistakenly attacked the German motor patrol boats FK01 and FK02 near the Channel Islands , on which seven men died and several were seriously wounded.
From November 29 to December 1, 1942, the Kondor was part of the security of the Italian blockade breaker Cortellazzo (5,292 GRT), which set out from Bordeaux through the Bay of Biscay to East Asia, alongside the Falcon , T 23 and T 22 . After the torpedo boats had left the blockade breaker, he was discovered by a Short Sunderland and on December 1, detained by the destroyers Quickmatch and Redoubt, which had been withdrawn from a convoy protection. After the crew had left the Cortellazzo , the ship was sunk by the Redoubt with a torpedo.
Further missions in 1943
On the night of March 28 and April 10, 1943, the Kondor stationed in Brest was involved in securing two attempts to break out of an Italian blockade breaker. The Himalaya (6,240 GRT) tried to get through the Bay of Biscay into the open Atlantic , protected by the destroyers Z 24 , Z 23 and Z 32 and the other torpedo boats T 2 , T 5 , T 22 and T 23 . The British aerial reconnaissance, which had been forewarned by Ultra, discovered both times the unit, which was attacked by Beaufort Torpdo bombers on the second attempt . Five machines were shot down by the destroyers, on Z 24 five men died from aerial fire and another 31 were wounded. The German federation and the blockade breaker broke off the company and returned to Gironde on April 11th .
At the beginning of June, on the 4th and 6th , the Kondor took part in two mining operations of the 5th T-Flotilla with the Seagull , the Falcon , the Greif and the T22 . From June 12th, the condor deployed a total of two to four destroyers or torpedo boats to pick up U-tankers or damaged submarines in the Bay of Biscay. On July 4, 1943, the Condor was bombed in La Pallice; one man of the crew died and five others were seriously injured. In September, three more mining companies with the 5th T-Flotilla took place in the canal, some of which also used the T 19 , T 25 , T 26 , T 27 , the Möwe and the Greif . The mine-laying boats were secured by speedboats.
The condor's last missions in 1944
In March 1944, the Kondor with the 5th T-Flotilla under Korvettenkapitän Hoffmann was in the canal on the 21st and 22nd together with T 29 , T 27 , the Möwe , the Greif and the Jaguar at two mining companies north-west of Le Havre and north used by Fécamp, in which the boats laid defensive barriers with 180 EMC mines each. On the nights of the 25th and 26th, another 180 mines were laid each. The boats off Barfleur were attacked by British speedboats, in which MTB 352 sank. On the night of the 28th, the boats then deployed anti-explosive materials to make it more difficult to clear the mine barriers that had been thrown up until then. On March 30th, the torpedo boats moved from Le Havre via Cherbourg to Brest.
From April 17th to 19th, the 5th T-Flotilla with T 27 , T 29 , the Möwe , the Greif and the Condor secured a convoy with the tanker Mexphalte from Brest to Cherbourg, the flotilla's new port of operation. From there, further missions were made to complete and secure the defensive minefields on the Channel coast by the condor , the seagull and the griffin . On the 24th there was another battle with MTBs near Barfleur, in which MTB 671 was sunk. On the night of April 28, the boats were attacked by British fighter bombers while laying another mine barrier north of Cherbourg and got into a British minefield during the evasive maneuvers. The condor was hit by a mine but was brought into Cherbourg damaged and used again on May 1st.
On May 23, 1944, the Jaguar came from Brest to Cherbourg, from there to Le Havre on the night of the 24th with the condor , the griffin , the falcon , the seagull and the 6th minesweeping flotilla. During the march, the German association was attacked several times by British aircraft. An Albacore torpedo bomber sank the Griffin in the Bay of the Seine; The Kondor and M 84 reached Le Havre despite heavy hits from the bottom mine. On June 14, 1944, the unclear condor was again badly damaged in an air raid on Le Havre. The boat, which was officially decommissioned on June 28 after 127 trips , was blown up during the evacuation of the French port at 49 ° 28 ' N , 0 ° 9' E.
technical description
The boat was one of the series boats of the type 1923. These had a type displacement of 924 ts and a construction displacement of 998 t . In use they displaced 1290 t. The bunker capacity was 321 m³ of oil for a range of 2000 nautical miles at 20 knots . The drive power of the geared turbine system from Schichau was 23,000 PSw , which allowed a top speed of 33 knots. The length was 88.5 meters above all and 85.7 meters in the waterline. The width was 8.3 meters and the mean draft 3.65 meters.
When commissioned, the armament consisted of three 10.5 cm guns and six torpedo tubes . Later two 2 cm flak were added and the caliber of the torpedo tubes was changed.
Commanders
| July 15 to October 1928 | OLzS Werner Schöne | 1899-1937 | last: OTL of the Air Force |
| October 1928 to October 15, 1930 September 21, 1931 to September 1932 |
OLzS / KL Winfried Hagen | 1898– | KzS |
| September 1932 to February 1934 | OLzS / KL Heinz Bonatz | 1897-1981 | KzS |
| February to September 1934 | KL Alfred Schemmel | 1900–1942 † | KzS |
| September 24, 1934 to September 27, 1936 | KL Conrad Engelhardt | 1898-1973 | Rear admiral |
| September 1936 to March 1938 | KL Edward Wegener | 1904-1981 | Vice Admiral of the German Navy |
| March 1st to July 1st 1938 | KL Werner Pfeiffer | 1906– | KzS |
| April 4, 1939 to October 1940 | KL Hans Wilcke | 1909-1942 | FK |
| October / November 1940 | KL Karl Kassbaum | 1909- | KK |
| November 1940 to June 1941 | KL Wilhelm-Nikolaus Frh. Lyncker | 1911-1979 | KK |
| June 1941 to June 1942 | KL Franz Burkart | 1909- | KK |
| April / May 1942 | i. V. OLzS Hermann Holzapfel | 1917- | |
| June to September 1942 | i. V. OLzS Heinz-Jürgen Sonnenburg | 1918-1944 | |
| September 1942 - December 1943 | KL Heinrich Peter-Pirkham | 1916– | |
| December 1943 to April 1944 | OLzS Peter Herrmann | 1919– | |
| April 1944 | i. V. OLzS Horst Frh. Liettwitz | 1917-1944 | |
| April to June 1944 | OLzS August Wilhelm Rönnau | 1919– |
literature
- Harald Fock: Z-before! International development and war missions of destroyers and torpedo boats , Volume 1: 1914 to 1939 , Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg, 2001, ISBN 3-7822-0762-9
- Hans H. Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships , Mundus Verlag, Ratingen
- Jürgen Rohwer, Klaus Hümmelchen: Chronicle of the Naval War 1939-1945 , Manfred Pawlal VerlagsGmbH, Herrsching, 1968, ISBN 3-88199-0097
- MJ Whitley: Destroyers in World War II , Motorbuch Verlag, 1995, ISBN 3-613-01426-2
Web links
- Rohwer, Hümmelchen: Chronicle of the Naval War 1939-1945
- Historical marine archive
- List of commanders of the Condor on the private website german-navy.de
- "1923" type torpedo boats (1926-1928)
Footnotes
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Hildebrand u. a .: The German Warships , Vol. 4, p. 51.
- ^ Whitley: Destroyers in World War II , p. 29.
- ↑ Hildebrand et al. a., Vol. 5, p. 88.
- ↑ Hildebrand et al.
- ↑ May 9–19, 1942 Kanal Ausmarsch the auxiliary cruiser Schiff 23 / Stier
- ↑ a b c d e Hildebrand u. a., Vol. 4, p. 52.
- ↑ Jib: Z-forward! , Vol. 1, page 83.
- ↑ Harald Fock, Vol. I, p. 274.
- ↑ Hildebrand, register of persons in volumes 1 to 7.
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