Lynx (ship, 1928)
 The Lynx LU 1934
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
.svg){kind=small}
The Luchs was a torpedo boat of the Reich and Kriegsmarine and belonged to the predator class . The ship initially served as a training ship, later it was used in the context of the Spanish Civil War . During the Second World War , the Luchs took part in various mine operations in the North Sea and was entrusted with a variety of escort and security tasks.
The Luchs sank on July 26, 1940 by torpedo hits from the British submarine HMS Thames in the North Sea.
history
construction
The torpedo boat was laid down together with the Tiger on April 2, 1927 at the Reichsmarinewerft in Wilhelmshaven under construction number 111 . Both boats were running together with the Jaguar and Leopard on March 15, 1928 from the stack . Vice-Admiral Iwan Oldekop held the baptismal address for the ship . The christening was carried out by the last commander of the gunboat of the same name, SMS Luchs , Captain zur See a. D. Max Thierichens . It took a year to complete the boat.
In service from 1928 to 1932
After its commissioning on April 15, 1929, the Luchs took over the role of the decommissioned large torpedo boat V 3 in the 3rd torpedo boat semi-flotilla. After various test drives in 1929, the Luchs took part in the fleet's Mediterranean voyage from April 2 to June 18, 1930 and in the summer voyage in Norwegian waters in 1931. On October 1, 1932, the Luchs was decommissioned. The crew switched to the Jaguar .
Commissioned from 1933 to 1937
On October 5, 1933, the Luchs was put back into service and placed under the 2nd torpedo boat semi-flotilla. It had previously received three 12.7 cm L / 45 caliber rapid fire guns instead of the original 10.5 cm cannons. In July 1934 the crew of the boat Wiborg ( Finland ) paid a visit. On October 1, 1935, the 2nd torpedo boat semi-flotilla was renamed the 2nd T-Flotilla , without any changes to the subordination of the Luchs . In July / August 1936, the Luchs, together with the Köln and three other torpedo boats, set course for Spanish waters, where the armored ships Admiral Scheer and Germany were already on their way. There the boat was part of the international sea blockade . The mission was repeated in October / November 1936. Afterwards, when she arrived back in Germany, the Luchs was used as a training boat and lay in a shipyard for some time. In May / June and again in July / September 1937, the lynx was again active in Spanish waters. There the boat took over the security of Admiral Scheer during the attack on Almería . The background was the previous bombing of Germany by republican forces. After returning to Germany, the Luchs was decommissioned on September 23, 1937.
In service from 1938 to 1940
The re-commissioning of the Luchs took place on February 16, 1938. The boat served as a replacement for the Albatros in the training department and shortly afterwards joined the 4th T-Flotilla. In June 1938 the torpedo boat was again in Spanish waters for a few weeks. In July 1938 she took part in the naval torpedo shooting in her home country and on August 22 in the naval parade taking place in front of the Hungarian head of state Miklós Horthy and Adolf Hitler on the occasion of the launch of the Prinz Eugen . The boat was also present during the launch of the Bismarck . On April 4, 1939, the 4th and 6th T-Flotilla were merged to form the (new) 6th T-Flotilla. In this association, the Luchs took part in surveillance trips in the Baltic Sea before the outbreak of World War II . After the outbreak of war, the boat was moved to the North Sea , where the Luchs was involved in defensive mining companies and in the trade war. She also performed security and escort duties. During operation weserübung belonged Lynx to ship Group 4 under Captain Frederick Rieve on the Karlsruhe . The boat took part in the bombardment of the Odderoe fortress on the morning of April 9, 1940. The Luchs then entered the port of Kristiansand . There was no longer any resistance. On the same day, the Luchs , the Greif , the Seeadler and the Karlsruhe departed again, accompanied by seven speedboats . On the march back to Kiel, the cruiser Karlsruhe received a torpedo hit by the British submarine HMS Truant , which disabled the entire machinery and bilge pumps . He quickly got flip side , could not be maintained and went 22:50 after two torpedo-catching shots by gripping under. The Luchs took over about 350 crew members and, after the unsuccessful depth charge pursuit of the submarine, continued towards Kiel. On April 11, the Luchs sailed into the sea area off Skagen to cover the cruiser Lützow, which was unable to maneuver as a result of a torpedo hit . In the Great Belt which pinpointed Lutzow a British submarine. The lynx then threw depth charges without success. After reaching Kiel, the boat went to the shipyard to have damage repaired in a collision with Ujäger 2117 on April 12th.
Whereabouts
On July 26, 1940, the Luchs, along with the polecat , jaguar , condor and other torpedo boats, was used to escort the Gneisenau, which ran from Trondheim to Germany . On that day, the German aerial reconnaissance reported an enemy submarine. However, the ship's association ignored this report and did not circumnavigate the endangered sea area. After sighting the unit in the area around 60 ° N 4 ° E , the British submarine Thames shot a torpedo on the Gneisenau , but hit the lynx , which was traveling in the same line of fire, at 3:47 p.m. at the level of their boiler rooms. The lynx exploded and broke in two. The stern sank in a minute with the screws still turning ; the forecastle sank two minutes later. Of the 155 men in the crew, 53 were rescued by polecats and jaguars . The attacking British submarine was also sunk.
Commanders
| April 15 to September 1929 | Lieutenant Günther Schubert |
| September 1929 to September 1931 | Captain Erich Schulte Mönting |
| September 1931 to October 1, 1932 | First Lieutenant Gottfried Pönitz |
| October 5, 1933 to September 1935 | Lieutenant Captain Hans Oels |
| September 1935 to December 1936 | Captain Friedrich Kothe |
| December 1936 to September 23, 1937 | Lieutenant Captain Hans Marks |
| February 16 to March 1938 | Captain Heinrich Wittig |
| March 1938 to October 1939 | Lieutenant Eckart Prölß |
| October 1939 to July 26, 1940 | Lieutenant Captain Karl Kassbaum |
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. 239–241 (Approved licensed edition by Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg, approx. 1990).
Web links
Footnotes
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Hildebrand, Röhr, Steinmetz: The German warships. Volume 5, p. 239.
- ↑ Gröner, Jung, Maass: The German warships. Volume 2, p. 80.
- ↑ a b c Hildebrand, Röhr, Steinmetz: The German warships. Volume 5, p. 240.
- ↑ Hildebrand, Röhr, Steinmetz: The German warships. Volume 5, p. 90.
- ↑ a b Hildebrand, Röhr, Steinmetz: The German warships. Volume 5, p. 241.
- ↑ Gröner, Jung, Maass: The German warships. Volume 2, p. 82.
.svg){kind=small}