Muansa (ship)
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The Muansa was a small steamship on Lake Victoria during the German colonial times in Tanzania .
history
The Muansa - named after the place Muansa on Lake Victoria - was built in Hamburg in 1910 and transferred to Lake Victoria in German East Africa . She drove for the "Njansa-Schiffahrtsgesellschaft mbH" and was the company's largest ship. The Muansa was a 90 t steamer and operated between the German ports on the lake and the British port of Kisumu , the terminus of the Uganda Railway .
When the First World War broke out in August 1914, the Muansa was armed with a 3.7 cm field gun. On August 10 and 14, 1914, the 7th field company of the German Schutztruppe stationed in Residentur Bukoba on the west bank of the lake was relocated from the Muansa of Bukoba and Njemirembe to Muansa in the Muansa district at the southern end of the lake with some barges in tow.
On the morning of September 11, 1914, the Muansa landed again with barges in tow, parts of the 7th Field Company of the Schutztruppe in Kisii in British East Africa . With other parts of the company on board, she secured the landing from the sea against British counter-landings. A British counter-landing from the steamer Winifred in Karunga on British territory in mid-September 1914, in order to get into the rear of the German troops marching back from Kisii, was thwarted by German field guards on land and the Muansa forced the Winifred to retreat.
When the British steamer Sybil hit a reef near Majita on November 5, 1914 and was abandoned, German troops dismantled all usable parts from the stranded ship for the Muansa on November 10 . Then they destroyed the Sybil by blowing it up and burned the wreck.
On March 6, 1915, the Muansa was under her commandant Obertorpedomaat von Seydlitz in front of Nasoro on the Speke Gulf to load wood for her steam engine, as the ship of the Winifred , which was now carrying a 10 cm gun and so the armament of the Muansa was superior, was surprised. After the 10 cm gun hit, the Muansa was sunk on the bank. The attempt by the British to tow the Muansa was prevented by German fire from the bank. As early as March 7th, the German side was able to make the Muansa buoyant and was brought to Muansa for a two-month repair on the night of March 14th to 15th.
In June 1916, Belgian and British troops began to advance into the German area of Lake Victoria with superior forces and also to land with ships on the German seaside. On the evening of July 15, 1916, when a British steamer approached Neu-Hanerau, where the now unarmed Muansa was lying, her bottom valves were opened and the steamer sunk. The two pinnaces Heinrich Otto and Schwaben were also sunk there in the same way.
In 1918 the British lifted the ship and put it back into service as Mwanza . The whereabouts of the steamer is unclear.
literature
- RK Lochner: Kampf im Rufiji Delta , Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 1990, pp. 261–264, 267, 271, 284.
- Heinrich Schnee : German East Africa in World Wars , Verlag Quelle & Meyer, Leipzig 1920, p. 101.
- Erich Gröner , Dieter Jung, Martin Maass: The German Warships 1815–1945, Volume 7: Landing Associations II: Landing vehicles in the narrow sense (Part 2), landing ferries, landing support vehicles, transporters; Ships and boats of the army, ships and boats of the Seeflieger / Luftwaffe, colonial vehicles , Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Koblenz 1990, ISBN 3-7637-4807-5 , p. 222.
Individual evidence
- ^ Albert Röhr: German marine chronicle. Verlag Gerhard Stalling, Oldenburg / Hamburg 1974, ISBN 3-7979-1845-3 , p. 197.