Lorraine (ship, 1940)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Lorraine was a French passenger ferry , which was taken unfinished by the Navy during the German occupation of France and was initially used as a target ship , later as a mine ship. After the war it was used as a ferry again .

Construction and technical data

The ship was in the 1939 shipyard Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée in Le Havre to put Kiel . Under the name Dieppe, it was to serve the passenger ferry service across the English Channel on the Dieppe - Newhaven line for the SNCF . During the occupation of France in June 1940, the unfinished ship fell into German hands at the shipyard. The Navy seized it and had it built as a mine ship. The ship, now known as Lorraine , was launched on December 19, 1940.

The Lorraine was 94.5 m long and 12.10 m wide, had a 3.15 m draft and was measured with 2,434 GRT . The engine system produced 22,000 hp and a speed of 24 knots . The ship was armed with two 8.8 cm cannons, two 3.7 cm anti-aircraft guns and three 20 mm anti -aircraft machine guns. (The Fla -Bewaffnung six 20-mm anti-aircraft gun was later extended to four 3.7-cm Flak and amplified.) The ship has 200 mines to record.

Kriegsmarine mine ship

Completion was delayed and the Lorraine was not put into service until 1942 . She initially served as a target ship for submarines . It was only activated as a mine ship in June 1944 and manned by the crew of the Skagerrak mine ship, which was sunk off Egersund ( Norway ) on January 20, 1944 . However, it was not until November 18, 1944, before the ship was really ready for action and was then used for mine-laying in the Skagerrak area . At the beginning of January 1945 the Lorraine was in Sønderborg . On January 18, she moved from there to the Oslofjord to load mines there, but gave them back on January 23 and marched on 24/25. January with the light cruiser Nürnberg and the mine ship Linz to Copenhagen . From there she took on February 15 and then a second time on 16-17. February participated in the unsuccessful attempts to lay the mine barrier "Titus II" in the western Skagerrak. On 6./7. March the Lorraine ran with the Ostmark , the destroyer Richard Beitzen and the torpedo boats T 17 and T 20 to Kristiansand. From there it threw in association with the Ostmark , the Linz , the destroyer Karl Galster and the torpedo boats T 17 and T 20 on 8/9. March finally the mine barrier "Titus II".

On the night of March 17-18, the Lorraine , Ostmark and Linz rivers , secured by the destroyer Karl Galster and the torpedo boats T 17 , T 19 and T 20 , laid the mine barrier "Augustus" in the western Skagerrak. The Lorraine suffered a rudder failure and the ship crossed the line of mines that had just been thrown by the Ostmark . A mine that had not yet gone down streamed along the side of the Lorraine and then detonated about 100 m behind the ship without causing any damage.

The ship was then sent to Pillau and used to evacuate refugees from the eastern parts of the empire to the west until the end of the war.

Post-war years

The Lorraine was returned on 17 November 1945, France and the SNCF. She was converted back to a ferry with space for 1450 passengers and renamed Londres . It then drove, together with the Arromanches , on the Dieppe-Newhaven line until 1963. In 1964 she was sold to the Typaldos Bros. shipping company in Piraeus in Greece and renamed Ionion II . The shipping company went bankrupt shortly afterwards , and the ship was sold to Aegean SN Co., for whom it provided passenger ferry services between Piraeus and Heraklion ( Crete ) under the name Sofoclis Venizelos . On April 14, 1966, the ship sank in the port of Piraeus after a fire broke out on board.

Web links

literature

  • Karl von Kutzleben, Wilhelm Schroeder, Jochen Brennecke : Mine ships 1939–1945. The mysterious missions of the “midnight squadron”. Köhler, Herford 1974, ISBN 3-7822-0098-5 .
  • Peter Holberg, Henrik Holleufer: Mineskibene Elsass og Ostmark. Fra Færge til Forlis. HHH Neptun, Fredericia 2002, ISBN 8-7912-4900-7 (Danish).

Footnotes

  1. ↑ The mine ships Ostmark , Linz and Lothringen as well as the destroyer Friedrich Ihn and the torpedo boats T 17 and T 20 were involved .
  2. ↑ http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/45-03.htm