Lofjord

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Lofjord
Waters European Arctic Ocean
Land mass Scandinavian peninsula
Geographical location 63 ° 35 '24 "  N , 10 ° 54' 18"  E Coordinates: 63 ° 35 '24 "  N , 10 ° 54' 18"  E
Lofjord (Trøndelag)
Lofjord
Greatest water depth 53 m

The Lofjord ( Norwegian Lofjorden ) in the Norwegian province of Trøndelag is an eastern branch of the Åsenfjord , which in turn represents a section of the Trondheimfjord in its southeast area. It is named after the small hamlet Lo above its east bank. The Lofjord played an important role in occupied Norway during World War II , and the German Navy named a houseboat it captured in Norway after it, the former Black Prince .

geography

The Lofjord is located northeast of Trondheim between Frosta and Åsen ( Levanger municipality ) and forms a bay that is open to the northwest between the Lauvtangen and Langøya peninsulas and surrounded by high mountains in the south and east . The east-west extension is about 1.5 km, that from northeast to southwest at the widest point about 1.2 km. The entrance between Lauvtangen and Langøya is only about 500 m wide.

history

During the First World War , the German passenger ship Berlin , which had been converted into an auxiliary cruiser, was interned in the Hommelvika Bay near Hommelvik on the southern edge of the Stjørdalsfjord , an eastern branch of the Trondheimfjord, and later interned in the Lofjord after it had to call at Trondheim in neutral Norway on November 17, 1914 due to lack of fuel .

During the Second World War , the German navy maintained an important base in the Lofjord , where their ships - especially large surface vessels - could be serviced and repaired. The workshop ship Huascaran played a central role in this.

  • The battleship Scharnhorst was emergency repaired after a torpedo hit by the British destroyer Acasta from 9 to 20 June 1940 in the Lofjord by the technicians of the Huascaran and the salvage ship Parat , before it could then be relocated back to Kiel .
  • On June 20, 1940, the battleship Gneisenau was badly damaged by a torpedo hit by the British submarine Clyde and had to be provisionally repaired in the Lofjord by the Huascaran's technicians before it could go to the shipyard in Kiel on July 25.
Admiral Scheer and Prinz Eugen (back) in the Lofjord in 1942; the workshop ship Huascaran lies alongside the Prinz Eugen
  • The heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen and Admiral Scheer left on 23 February 1942 accompanied by five destroyers and two torpedo boats , mountains with destination Narvik . The Prinz Eugen was badly damaged during the night by a torpedo hit by the British submarine Trident off Trondheim and then lay in the Lofjord from February 25 to May 16, 1942, where she was makeshiftly repaired with the help of the Huascaran and with a manually operated emergency rudder was equipped.
  • The Admiral Scheer also remained in Lofjord until May 10, 1942 and only then moved to the bow bay near Narvik.
  • The heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper was stationed in the Lofjord from March 21 to September 10, 1942 with brief, operational interruptions. From there he ran out on July 2 with the battleship Tirpitz and some destroyers for "Operation Rösselsprung" , a planned attack on the Northern Sea Convoy PQ-17 . After the operation was canceled on the evening of July 5th, the Admiral Hipper initially ran back to the bow bay near Narvik and then moved again to the Lofjord until September 10th. From 13 September the cruiser was then in the Altafjord .
  • The heavy cruiser Lützow was relocated to Norway in May 1942, where it lay in the Lofjord from May 26 to early June, and then moved to the bow bay. At “Operation Rösselsprung” the cruiser ran aground on July 3rd and had to go back to the Lofjord for emergency repairs before it could go to the shipyard in Kiel in August.
  • The Tirpitz , which had been in the Fættenfjord not far south of the Lofjord from January 16 to July 2, 1942 and then went to Bogenbucht after the Rösselsprung operation on July 8, moved to the Lofjord on October 23, 1942, to be overtaken there to become. The work was completed on January 23, 1943, and the ship remained in Lofjord or Fættenfjord until March 11, to carry out intensive test and training trips in Trondheimfjord. Only then did it move north again to the bow bay and then to the Altafjord .

The Lofjord was also used as a submarine base by the Navy.

  • At the beginning of June 1941, before the start of the German attack on the Soviet Union , the 24th and 25th U-Flotilla moved from Memel and Danzig to the Lofjord in order to be able to pursue their training activities there undisturbed by the fighting on the Eastern Front . They did not return to the Baltic Sea until September 1941 .
  • In August 1941, the submarine U 67 , which was the first German submarine to be equipped with a coating of rubber plates to protect against ASDIC location, carried the test ship Strahl of the intelligence test command (NVK) in the Lofjord Test attempts.
  • From June 1943, the time it was set up, and until the end of the war, the 13th U-Flotilla was stationed in Trondheim and in the Lofjord.

After the capitulation of the Wehrmacht in May 1945, the British interned Royal Navy , a number of German ships in Lofjord, including the Aviso Grille , the two floating workshops Huascaran and Cameroon and the barge Stella Polaris .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Interrupted only for the “Operation Sportpalast” from March 6th to 13th.
  2. The 24th U-Flotilla was responsible for the torpedo shooting training of the submarine commanders, the 25th (without its own boats) for the several weeks of torpedo shooting training for the crews of newly commissioned boats.
  3. Joachim Beckh: Blitz & Anker. Information technology, history & background . tape 2 . Books on Demand , Norderstedt 2005, ISBN 3-8334-2997-6 , pp. 99 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed December 28, 2016]).