Seagull (ship, 1926)
 4 boats of the raptor class in Naples,
on the left seagull with the rounded stern |
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The Möwe was a torpedo boat of the German Reichsmarine and later the Kriegsmarine and the type ship of the torpedo boats in 1923 . It came into service as the first newly built torpedo boat for the Reichsmarine in 1926 and was used during World War II. A torpedo hit by a British submarine put the boat out of action from May 1940 to spring 1942. On June 6, 1944, the seagull was one of the few units of the Kriegsmarine that could penetrate as far as the invasion forces during the Allied landing in Normandy. With the T 28 and the Jaguar , she was able to sink the Norwegian destroyer Svenner . During a heavy air raid on the light German naval forces concentrated in Le Havre on May 14th / 15th. In June 1944 the seagull was sunk there with the torpedo boats Falke , Kondor and Jaguar .
history
Construction and commissioning
The keel of the seagull intended as a type ship for further torpedo boat construction was laid on May 2, 1925 at the Reichsmarinewerft Wilhelmshaven . The financing took place in the budget year 1924, the design work had already started in 1923, with the designers based on the last boats of the Imperial Navy . Launch was on 24 March 1926 to the putting into place on 1 October 1926. With commissioning of the seagull was with T 157 on 23 September 1926, the first old torpedo boat (built in 1908) will be taken out from before the First World War. The test drives, which showed a stability problem, lasted until September 1927. To get rid of it, the seagull had to go back to the shipyard for some modifications, as did the Greif , the white-tailed eagle and the falcon , which were delivered without the necessary repairs. The Möwe was taken out of service for these repairs on May 15, 1928 and was replaced by the sister boat Albatros in the 4th Torpedo Boat Half Flotilla .
As early as October 1, 1928, the boat came back into service with the 4th half-flotilla and in April / May 1929 took part in the fleet's international voyage to Spanish waters. While leaving Wilhelmshaven, the seagull collided with the albatross . After necessary repairs, both boats followed the fleet after four days. The ships of the line Schleswig-Holstein , Silesia , Hesse and Alsace , the flotilla leader boat II.T-Flotilla, Wolf (Korvettenkapitän (KK) Schniewind ) and the sister boats Greif and Kondor took part in this trip . The seagull visited Arosa Bay and La Coruña on the trip . On August 22, 1929, the seagull was decommissioned and the crew climbed onto the sister boat Seeadler .
From August 30, 1930, the seagull was again in active service for the Wolf and also took over the task of the flotilla leader boat for a short time. In mid-October 1930 she joined the 4th Half Flotilla of the II Torpedo Boat Flotilla, with which she visited Libau in the summer of 1931 and took part in the fleet trip to Norway. In 1932, in addition to the seagull , the semi- flotilla also included the albatross , the condor and the falcon . The semi-flotilla visited Stockholm in July on the light cruiser Königsberg under the command of the reconnaissance forces (BdA), Rear Admiral Conrad Albrecht . As part of the training trips, visits to Norwegian ports followed again in 1933 and to Norwegian and Swedish ports in 1934. On October 1, 1935, the previous 4th half flotilla was renamed the 4th torpedo boat flotilla in Wilhelmshaven, which, in addition to the seagull, also included the sister boats Greif , Kondor and Falke .
From August 1936 to March 1938, the boat was used three times as part of the so-called neutrality patrols off the Spanish coasts. The first deployment took place from August 11 to September 15, 1936 together with the Kondor after the first four boats of the 2nd flotilla ( sea eagle , albatross , lynx , leopard ) with the light cruiser Cologne and the armored ships Deutschland and Admiral Scheer zur northern Spanish coast, where the ports of both civil war parties were called and German and other refugees were evacuated to France. The warships not only took over refugees, but also secured the many merchant ships chartered by the Reich for the repatriation of Germans. The condor and the seagull were replaced by the tiger and the polecat of the 3rd flotilla.
The seagull was deployed a second time in Spain together with the three other boats of the 4th T-Flotilla and the light cruiser Nuremberg in the surveillance section assigned to the Germans on the southern Spanish east coast in the Mediterranean.
The third use of the boat began again in October 1937 with the 4th Flotilla ( Greif , Kondor and Falke ). During this time, the flagship of the German association off Spain was predominantly the ironclad Germany . The recall of the boats took place one day before the German invasion of Austria (March 12th), because it was feared that the Western powers might fix the boats as bargaining chip. On March 29, 1938, the boat was then taken out of service.
On November 1, 1938, the seagull returned to service. Together with the Albatros and the Greif, it formed the 5th torpedo boat flotilla under Corvette Captain Rudolf Heyke (1898–1940), to which the falcon and condor joined in the spring of 1939 , so that at the start of the war all boats of the raptor class except the sea eagle joined this Flotilla belonged.
Second World War
At the beginning of the war , the seagull was part of the 5th torpedo boat flotilla with the other boats of its class . This was among other things involved in securing the laying of defensive mine barriers in the North Sea .
At the Weser Exercise Company in April 1940, the boat was part of Warship Group 5 that was to occupy Oslo . The planned process failed due to the sinking of the heavy cruiser Blücher in the Dröbak-Enge .
On 18 April 1940, the secured seagull with the wolf and the eagle the mine ships Hanseatic City of Gdansk and emperor during the laying of the first two reverse ranks of "Paternoster" lock against submarines of 250 mines in the Kattegat between Skagen and the Swedish Lighthouse Pater Noster . In the evening, the mine ships Roland , Cobra , Prussia and Queen Luise threw four more barred rows of 250 mines each under the protection of the torpedo boats. On April 29 and 30, the seagull was again involved in a mining company. The mine ships Roland , Cobra , Emperor and Prussia brought the "minefield 17" north of the Great Fisherman's Bank with more than 1,500 mines to extend the Western Wall locks normally and were by the Seagull and the destroyer Richard Beitzen , Bruno Heinemann and torpedo boats Leopard , Wolf and condor secured. On the march to the discharge position, the rammed Prussia the Leopard because of a rudder failure of the torpedo boat that sank immediately. The wolf succeeded in rescuing the Leopard's crew , with the exception of one man: the son Gernot of the fleet chief Marschall was killed immediately in the collision.
During the escort of the motor ships Palime (1937, 2863 BRT) and Pelikan (1934, 3264 BRT) loaded with supplies for the army on the march from Cuxhaven to Stavanger , the seagull was hit by a torpedo from the British submarine HMS on May 8, 1940 Taku at position 56 ° 45 ′ N , 6 ° 12 ′ E north-west of Esbjerg was badly damaged, but was brought in by the sister boat Kondor . Due to the hit in the stern, she had lost screws and oars. The torpedo boat was decommissioned on May 28, 1940 in the Kriegsmarinewerft Wilhelmshaven.
Re-use after repairs and modifications
After extensive repairs and the rebuilding of the stern, the boat was put back into service in Königsberg in April 1942 and joined the school flotilla. The seagull was formally reassigned to the 5th T-Flotilla in the summer and performed various tasks from the new station in Wilhelmshaven. Due to various deficiencies, further visits to the shipyard were necessary and the boat was not fully operational again until spring 1943. The boat remained with the 5th T-Flotilla, whose operating room was in the North Sea and in the western area.
At the beginning of May 1943, the boat was subordinate to the leader of the mine ships and secured the mine ships Brummer and Ostmark with the Jaguar and the Greif as well as ten minesweepers , which deployed the locks "Samuel" and "Quersprung" to reinforce the "Westwall" lock. Operations with the 5th T-Flotilla under Korvettenkapitän Rudolf Koppenhagen then took place together with the Falke , the Greif , the Condor and the T 22 fleet torpedo boat in mining operations in the English Channel on June 4 and 6, 1943. The boat then moved with the flotilla Brest . The flotilla primarily performed escort duties. Two to four boats (including other flotillas) secured sub-tankers and damaged submarines returning to the German bases on the Bay of Biscay . The old boats with their weak anti-aircraft armament were only suitable to a limited extent against the defense of the main threat from the air, so that the boats were increasingly used at night to lay mines, as in early September 1943 when the 5th T-Flotilla with T 19 , T 25 , T 26 , T 27 , Möwe und Greif moved the barriers "Taube" and "Parthuhn" on September 3rd and 9th. Victims of these lockdowns could not be identified. The mine-laying boats were mostly secured by speedboats .
Deployments in 1944
On 19./20. In March 1944, the seagull took part with the sister boat Greif in an advance of the destroyers Z 23 and ZH 1 as well as the fleet torpedo boats T 27 and T 29 into the northern Biscay, which was supposed to pull the British air surveillance from German sea transports. There was no contact with the enemy. After that, the Möwe was deployed with the 5th T-Flotilla, now led by Corvette Captain Hoffmann , in the English Channel on March 21st and 22nd, together with T 29 , T 27 , Kondor , Greif and Jaguar at two mining companies northwest of Le Havre and north of Fécamp , in which the boats laid defensive barriers with 180 EMC mines each. On the nights of March 25th and 26th, another 180 mines were laid by the same units. The boats off Barfleur were attacked by British speed boats (MTBs), in which MTB 352 sank. On the night of March 28, the boats then deployed anti-explosive devices to make it difficult to clear the mine barriers that had been thrown up until then. On March 30th the torpedo boats moved from Le Havre via Cherbourg back to Brest.
From April 17th to 19th, the 5th T-Flotilla with T 27 , T 29 , Möwe , Greif and Kondor secured a convoy with the tanker Mexphalte from Brest to Cherbourg, the flotilla's new port of operation. From there, further missions were made to complete and secure the defensive minefields on the Channel coast by the condor , the seagull and the griffin . On the 24th there was another battle with MTBs near Barfleur, in which MTB 671 was sunk. On the night of April 28th, the boats were attacked by British fighter bombers while laying another mine barrier north of Cherbourg and got into a British minefield during the evasive maneuvers. Only the condor was hit by a mine, but it was brought into Cherbourg damaged. On April 30, the 5th T-Flotilla with the Möwe and the Greif led two and on May 1 another defensive mining operation (locks "Blitz 38", "Blitz 38A" and "Blitz 39") in the channel with 260 LMB mines by.
On May 23, 1944, the Jaguar came from Brest to Cherbourg, from there to Le Havre on the night of the 24th with the condor , the griffin , the falcon , the seagull and the 6th minesweeping flotilla. During the march, the German association was attacked several times by British aircraft. An Albacore torpedo bomber sank the Griffin in the Bay of the Seine; The Kondor and M 84 reached Le Havre despite heavy hits from the bottom mine.
Last missions and loss of the seagull
On June 6, 1944, the seagull from Le Havre ran out against the Allied invasion fleet together with the operational boats of the 5th T-Flotilla, T 28 and Jaguar . The group encountered British Force S ships belonging to the Eastern Naval Task Force off the Sword Beach landing strip . The three boats fired 16 torpedoes and were able to sink the Norwegian destroyer Svenner . Further attacks against the invasion fleet in the following nights were unsuccessful.
On the night of June 14-15, Lancaster bombers of the Royal Air Force Bomber Command attacked the port of Le Havre and the light German naval forces concentrated there, including the seagull at 49 ° 28 ' N , 0 ° 9 ' O , the falcon that has just been repaired and its already badly damaged sister boat Kondor as well as the jaguar were destroyed by bomb hits. The last of the torpedo boats of the bird of prey and predator classes built by the Reichsmarine were lost.
Commanders
| October 1, 1926 to May 15, 1928 | KL Ernst Fischer | 1894-1967 | last: KzS |
| October 1, 1928 to August 22, 1929 | OLzS Fritz Berger | 1900-1973 | KzS |
| August 30 to September 1930 | KL Hans-Joachim Gadow | 1898-1988 | Rear admiral |
| September 1930 to September 1932 | OLzS / KL Werner Schöne | 1899-1937 | Air Force OTL |
| September 1932 to September 1934 | OLzS / KL Hermann Jordan | 1900-1945 | KzS, Colonel in the Air Force |
| September 1934 to September 1936 | KL Hansjürgen Reinicke | 1902-1978 | KzS |
| September 1936 to March 29, 1938 | KL Werner Pfeiffer | 1906– | KzS |
| November 1, 1938 to March 1940 | KL Konrad Edler von Rennenkampf | 1906-1942 | KK |
| March 28th to May 28th 1940 | KL Helmut Neuss | 1908-2009 | Rear Admiral of the German Navy |
| April to June 1942 | KL Paul Koch | 1901– | KK |
| June to August 1942 | KL Konrad Loerke | 1909-1975 | KzS |
| i. V. August 1942 | iV KL Weinlig | 1917– | |
| i. V. August to December 1942 i. V. January / February 1943 |
iV LzS Fritz Löhrl | 1919– | FK |
| December 1942 - January 1943 i. V. September 1943 |
KL Walter Lüdde-Neurath | 1914-1990 | KK |
| February to September 1943 October 1943 to June 1944 |
KL Helmut Bastian | 1916– | KL |
technical description
As a prototype, the seagull had different technical specifications compared to the later series. The overall length was only 87.0 m compared to 88.5 m of the other boats, the length in the waterline was 84.7 m instead of 85.7 m with a width of 8.30 m and an average draft of 3.65 m . The displacement values were 798 t type, 976 t construction and 1213 t operational displacement. Officially, the boat was specified with a displacement of 800 t. The fuselage was made in a transverse rib longitudinal band construction with 13 watertight compartments and a partial double floor. In contrast to the boats of the 1923 type, the stern was round and not designed as a transom.
After a torpedo hit in the aft ship in early May 1940, the severely damaged boat was taken out of service at the end of the month and repaired in the Kriegsmarine shipyard in Wilhelmshaven and from spring 1941 at Schichau in Königsberg until April 1942. The lost Seagull their previous cruiser stern and received a new transom as the eleven other boats Raptor - and predator class . But it was still about a meter shorter than the series boats.
The attainable speed of 32 knots with the propulsion system of a 18,5- atü -Marineöl- and two marine oil double boiler and Blohm - & - Voss - geared turbines was a nodule smaller than in the later Serienbauten, since the drive system with 22,000 PSW less Performance provided. The bunker capacity was 321 m³ of oil for a range of 2000 nautical miles at 20 knots.
When commissioned, the armament consisted of three 10.5 cm L / 45 cannons, two machine guns and six 50 cm torpedo tubes in two sets of triple. The latter were later replaced by 53.3 cm diameter ones. In 1936, 2 cm machine guns of the C 30 type replaced machine guns. At the beginning of the war, the seagull and its sister boats had depth charges and the ability to carry up to 30 mines. The anti-aircraft armament was increased during the war to three 2 cm single guns Type 38 and a 2 cm quadruplet ; also came Radio metering devices on board.
The crew initially consisted of four officers and 116 men. It was strengthened somewhat during the war.
literature
- Harald Fock: Z-before! International development and war missions of destroyers and torpedo boats , Volume 1 1914 to 1939 , Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-7822-0762-9
- Hans H.Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German Warships , Mundus Verlag (Ratingen), seven volumes.
- Volkmar Kühn: Torpedo boats and destroyers in action 1939–1945. Motorbuchverlag, Stuttgart, 4th edition, 1983
- Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronicle of the naval war 1939-1945 , Manfred Pawlak Verlags GmbH, Herrsching, 1968, ISBN 3-88199-0097
Web links
- Rohwer, Hümmelchen: Chronicle of the Naval War 1939–1945, accessed December 16, 2015
- Marine Historical Archive accessed December 16, 2015
- Condor called December 16, 2015
- "1923" type torpedo boats (1926–1928) accessed December 16, 2015
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Harald Fock: Z-before! International development and war missions of destroyers and torpedo boats, vol. 1. 1914 to 1939. , p. 83
- ↑ a b c d e f g Hildebrand u. a .: The German Warships , Vol. 4, p. 131.
- ↑ Jürgen Rohwer : Chronik des Seekrieges , April 1940, accessed on December 18, 2015
- ↑ Hildebrand et al. a., Vol. 4, p. 80
- ↑ naval warfare, the third-07/05/1943 North Sea accessed on December 18, 2015
- ↑ naval warfare, 4.- 12/06/1943 channel accessed on December 18, 2015
- ↑ naval warfare, 1st 09/05/1943 channel accessed on December 18, 2015
- ↑ a b Sea War, March 16-20, 1944 Biscay, accessed on December 18, 2015
- ↑ a b c Sea War, April 12 - May 1, 1944 Canal accessed on December 18, 2015
- ↑ a b Jürgen Rohwer, Gerhard Hümmelchen: Chronik des Maritime War , June 1944, viewed on July 18, 2009
- ↑ Hildebrand et al. a., Vol. 4, p. 130
- ↑ Hildebrand, register of persons in volumes 1 to 7
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