Levante (ship, 1939)
 The Levant
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The Levant of the Atlas Levante Line (ALL) came in 1939 from the Nordseewerke in Emden as the third new build in the fleet of the shipping company, which was re-established in 1935. However, the ship was used for state tasks: initially as a troop transport to East Prussia, then from October for the resettlement of Baltic Germans .
In 1940 the Levant was one of the seven ships of the "export relay" for the company Weserübungen and was the only transporter that brought its cargo to the planned location.
Until the end of the war, the ship was used as a transport on the Norwegian coast. In autumn 1945 the Levant was delivered to Great Britain and renamed Empire Kent . From 1947 to 1967 she was then as Oakmore for lines of Furness, Withy & Co. used.
History of the ship
The Levante was launched on April 21, 1939 as the third new building for the Atlas Levante Line, founded in 1935, at the Nordseewerke in Emden and was delivered to the client on July 5, 1939. She was a sister ship of the two previous newbuildings of the shipping company, which came into service in 1936 as Cairo (4778 GRT) from the Kiel Germania shipyard and in 1937 as Ankara (4768 GRT) from the North Sea Works. These were the first modern ships of the shipping company, which was founded in September 1935 with eleven ships from the stocks of the North German Lloyd (NDL), which were built between 1901 ( Alimnia 3727 BRT) and 1927 ( Amsel 1756 BRT, Star 1724 BRT) and all but four were less than 1850 GRT.
The Levant was 133.20 m long and 17.26 m wide. The ship was measured with 4969 GRT with a load capacity of 7344 dwt. The drive was via a diesel engine of 4000 PSe, which enabled her to operate at a speed of 14 knots . The ship intended for Mediterranean service was to have a crew of 41 and had space for twelve cabin passengers. It largely corresponded to the two previously delivered new buildings.
Use in World War II
The Levant was delivered to the Bremen shipping company on July 5, 1939, shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War . However, the Navy immediately seized the new building in order to use it as a troop transport to East Prussia as part of the preparation for the attack on Poland .
The ship remained in the Baltic Sea and was used from October by the Reich Ministry of Transport as part of the resettlement of Baltic Germans. The ship carried out its first transport with 1,255 emigrants between Riga and Danzig at the beginning of October . At the beginning of January 1940, the Levant was released from this task.
In March 1940, the Levant was used as a transporter for Operation Weser Exercise , the German occupation of Norway. She was assigned to the "export squadron " that was supposed to transport the heavy equipment of the first landing units. With the other two transporters Main (7624 BRT) and Sao Paulo (4977 BRT) intended for Trondheim, it was supposed to include eight Czech 10 cm howitzers for two motorized artillery batteries, eight 8.8 cm anti-aircraft guns for two batteries and 18 2 -cm anti-aircraft guns for a motorized unit as well as an airfield company and other military goods.
In the early morning of April 5th, the Main and Levant left Brunsbüttel to reach their destination in time. The two ships soon separated and tried to reach their destination alone. The Main was sunk on the morning of April 9 near Haugesund by the old Norwegian destroyer Draug . Sao Paulo , which leaked earlier, ran into a Norwegian mine lock near Bergen and sank shortly after midnight. The Levant was the only ship in the export squadron to reach its port of destination Trondheim on the morning of the 12th, where it unloaded aviation fuel and lubricating oil in barrels.
It was used as a transport by the German units until the summer, with occasional disagreements between the various parts of the armed forces. In July she transported army soldiers and equipment to the accessible Narvik and brought naval personnel from the destroyers lost there to the south.
In the second half of the year, the Levante as the A 17 was also one of the transporters provided for the Seelöwe company. In the spring of 1941 the ship returned to Norway to handle transports along the coast for the Wehrmacht. In August 1941 she was attacked by the British submarine Trident with its on-board gun and suffered damage. Six Norwegians serving on board were killed.
On November 25, 1942, the Levant collided with the minesweeper M 101 off Namsos , which sank. Over ten men were killed. The Levant's cutter used to rescue shipwrecked people was temporarily lost, but could be found again with its crew, so that the transporter suffered no losses. The Levante had at the time of the accident, nearly 1,000 men army troops on board.
The ship remained in service in Norway until the end of the war and was in Oslo at the end.
In October 1946 the Levant was delivered to Great Britain and was launched as the Empire Kent . From 1947 she was then used as Oakmore for lines from Furness, Withy & Co. between Liverpool and North America. In 1967 the ship was demolished in Avilés , Spain.
Individual evidence
- ^ Kludas: Seeschiffe des NDL, Vol. 2, p. 62
- ^ Kludas: Ships of Hamburg-Süd, p. 110
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. P. 153.
Web links
- Use of the Levant
- TK Derry: THE CAMPAIGN IN NORWAY
- NAVAL EVENTS, APRIL1940 (Part 2 of 4)
- Equipment Transport Echelon ( Memento from November 10, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
literature
- Arnold Kludas : The ships of Hamburg-Süd 1871–1951. Verlag Gerhard Stalling, Oldenburg 1976, ISBN 3-7979-1875-5 .
- Arnold Kludas: The ships of the North German Lloyd 1920-1970. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford 1992, ISBN 3-7822-0534-0 .
- Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronicle of the naval war 1939-1945. Manfred Pawlak VerlagsGmbH, Herrsching 1968, ISBN 3-88199-0097 .
- Reinhardt Schmelzkopf: German merchant shipping 1919–1939. Verlag Gerhard Stalling, Oldenburg, ISBN 3 7979 1847 X .
- Trygve Sandvik: Krigen i Norge 1940 - Operasjonene til lands i Nord-Norge 1940. 2 volumes, Forsvarets Krigshistoriske Avdeling / Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, Oslo 1965.
- Erik Anker Steen: Norge sjøkrig 1940–1945 - Sjøforsvarets kamper og virke i Nord-Norge 1940. Forsvarets Krigshistoriske Avdeling / Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, Oslo 1958.