Leopard (ship, 1928)
 The Leopard 1934
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The Leopard was a torpedo boat of the Reich and Kriegsmarine and belonged to the predator class . The ship drove missions in the context of the Spanish Civil War . During the Second World War , the Leopard took part in mine-laying operations in the North Sea and was entrusted with escort and security tasks. During the Weser Exercise operation , the torpedo boat was part of Group 3 that attacked Bergen .
The Leopard sank at a mining company in Skagerrak after colliding with the mine ship Prussia on April 30, 1940.
history
construction
The torpedo boat was under the hull number 114, together with the later Jaguar on May 4, 1927 at the Navy shipyard in Wilhelmshaven placed on Kiel . Both boats as well as its sister ships Tiger and Lynx expired on 15 March 1928 from the stack . Here held Vice Admiral Ivan Oldekop the baptismal for all four torpedo boats. Marion von Laffert , whose father, Korvettenkapitän Hans von Laffert , had died in 1917 as commandant of the auxiliary cruiser SMS Leopard when it was sunk, took over the christening of the Leopard . The completion and equipping of the torpedo boat dragged on until the summer of 1929.
In service from 1929 to 1932
The Leopard was first put into service on August 15, 1929 and placed under the 3rd Torpedo Boat Half Flotilla. Until the beginning of October she carried out various test drives. During a simulated breakthrough exercise on October 29, 1929, the Leopard collided with the Schleswig-Holstein liner . Nobody was injured, but the Luchs had to haul in her sister ship to Kiel . From there the Leopard ran to Wilhelmshaven on November 3rd, where the damage was repaired. From April 2 to June 18, 1930, the Leopard took part in the fleet's Mediterranean voyage. On October 1, 1932, the boat was decommissioned and replaced by the polecat .
In service from 1933 to 1937
The Leopard was put back into service on July 29, 1933 and replaced the Seeadler , whose crew switched to the Leopard . The boat belonged to the 2nd torpedo boat semi-flotilla and acted as their guide boat. In October 1933, the flotilla was placed under the command of the Torpedo Boats (FdT). The Leopard served as its leader until May 1, 1937, when the destroyer Leberecht Maass took over this function. This new office was first taken over by Corvette Captain Kurt Fricke .
In July 1936, the Leopard set sail with white-tailed eagles , albatross and lynx towards Spain , where the boats were used as part of the international sea blockade . The Leopard's primary task was initially to support refugees. The ship was later deployed off Seville and was involved in the liberation of the German consul in Málaga . The torpedo boat returned home on August 20. The Leopard was again in action off Spain in October and November 1936 and in May and June 1937. Among other things, the 2nd torpedo boat flotilla secured the Admiral Scheer during the bombardment of Almería . The flotilla took a beach battery under fire. The Leopard was temporarily last used in Spanish waters from July to October 1937. On October 28, 1937, the boat was decommissioned again.
In service from 1938 to 1940
The third and last commissioning of the Leopard took place on March 29, 1938. After the assignment to the 4th torpedo boat flotilla under the command of the later Rear Admiral Georg Waue , the ship was again used in Spanish waters from June to August 1938. The torpedo boat returned to Germany in mid-August 1938. In March 1939 it was part of the armed forces that were used to reintegrate the Memelland into the German Reich . Here, the torpedo boat brought Adolf Hitler from the front Memel past Germany in the city's harbor. From April 1939 the Leopard was under the control of the 6th torpedo boat flotilla.
Before the outbreak of the Second World War, the boat monitored sea areas in the western and eastern Baltic Sea . After the beginning of the war, the Leopard took part in mining operations until the end of March 1940, took part in the trade war and was assigned to security and escort tasks. Among other things, she secured the light cruisers Nuremberg and Cologne on November 13, 1939 and the Nuremberg and Leipzig on November 17 . On March 31, 1940, the Leopard accompanied the auxiliary cruiser Atlantis , which left for the trade war, during its voyage through the German Bight . During the Weser Exercise operation , the Leopard was part of Warship Group 3 with the aim of Bergen . From there, the ship left again on April 9, 1940 together with the Wolf and the Köln and arrived in Wilhelmshaven on April 11.
Whereabouts
On April 29, 1940, the Leopard ran out to a mining operation together with the mine ship Prussia in the Skagerrak. Here the rudder of the torpedo boat failed , which then ran the mine ship directly in front of the bow . Both ships collided at 0.38 a.m. on the night of April 30th. The Prussians hit the leopard while at the aft starboard side , so that the departments III and IV of the torpedo boat ran full of water. The side of the Leopard was torn open from Division II to the middle of the ship. The son of the fleet chief Wilhelm Marschall , Gernot Marschall, died in the collision . The remaining crew of the torpedo boat was taken over by the Prussians . The Leopard broke to 1:55 in the height of the section II by and dropped to position 57 ° 27 ' N , 5 ° 31' O .
Commanders
| Rank | Surname | date |
|---|---|---|
| Lieutenant captain | Gerhard Wagner | August 15 to September 30, 1929 |
| Lieutenant captain | Friedrich Traugott Schmidt | October 1, 1929 to September 29, 1931 |
| First lieutenant at sea | Hans-Joachim Gloeckner | September 30, 1931 to October 1, 1932 |
| Lieutenant captain | Alfred Schulze-Hinrichs | July 20 to September 1933 |
| Lieutenant captain | Rudolf Heyke | September 1933 to October 1935 |
| Lieutenant captain | Heinz von Davidson | October 1935 to October 28, 1937 |
| Lieutenant captain | Wolf hen | March 29 to April 1938 |
| Lieutenant captain | Karl Kassbaum | April 1938 to October 1939 |
| Lieutenant captain | Hans Trummer | October 1939 to April 30, 1940 |
Known crew members
- Robert Gysae (1911–1989), was from 1967 to 1970 as Flotilla Admiral in command of the North Sea Marine Division
literature
- Erich Gröner , Dieter Jung, Martin Maass: The German warships 1815-1945 . tape 2 : torpedo boats, destroyers, speedboats, minesweepers, mine clearance boats . Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Bonn 1999, ISBN 3-7637-4801-6 , pp. 80-83 .
- Hans H. Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships . Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present . tape 5 : Ship biographies from Kaiser to Lütjens . Mundus Verlag, Ratingen, S. 221–223 (Approved licensed edition by Koehler's Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg, approx. 1990).
Web links
Footnotes
- ↑ a b Hildebrand / Röhr / Steinmetz: The German warships. Volume 5, p. 221.
- ↑ a b c Hildebrand / Röhr / Steinmetz: The German warships. Volume 5, p. 222.
- ↑ a b Gröner / Jung / Maass: The German warships. Volume 2, p. 83.
- ↑ a b c d Hildebrand / Röhr / Steinmetz: The German warships. Volume 5, p. 223.
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