Neckar (ship, 1900)
.jpg) The Neckar as USS Antigone
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
.svg){kind=small}
The combined ship Neckar was built by Joh. C. Tecklenborg for the North German Lloyd (NDL) and its combined passenger and freight service to North America. She was the second ship of the NDL with this name and is therefore often referred to as the Neckar (II) .
Her sister ships Rhein and Main were supplied by Blohm & Voss. They were large single chimney ships with four masts.
history
The Neckar was the third ship of the combination ships of the type Rhine on December 8, 1900 in the shipyard Joh. C. Tecklenborg in Geestemünde from the stack . In size and amenities such ships about corresponded to large B-steamers of Hapag .
In the service of the NDL
On May 4, 1901, she was delivered to the NDL as the largest ship to date at this shipyard (9835 GRT) and immediately began her maiden voyage from Bremerhaven to New York . The Neckar is said to have gone on a trip to Australia on October 8, 1901 . On February 15, 1902, the first deployment on the Mediterranean line Naples - New York took place.
In 1905 the passenger facilities on the Neckar were changed in order to better meet the requirements of emigration to the USA . It now had 369 places in II. And 217 in III. Class and 2,865 seats in the lower deck . Like its sister ships, the Neckar was also used primarily for emigrant traffic to the USA, mostly to New York, but in May 1912 also to Philadelphia and Baltimore for the first time .
Like its sister ships, the Rhine and Main , the Neckar was also used for replacement transports for the ship crews and land troops of the German East Asia Squadron: from January 5 to July 8, 1911, it made two round trips from Bremerhaven to Tsingtao for this purpose.
Use from 1914 to 1917
On July 2, 1914, the Neckar left for Baltimore for the last time . It is said to have been equipped in Havana to supply German trade troublemakers and then entered Baltimore again on September 19, where the sister ship Rhine has been moored since the beginning of the war . In July – August 1916, the crew of the commercial submarine Deutschland was living on the Neckar when the submarine was being loaded and unloaded in Baltimore.
Further use under the American flag
When the USA entered the war in April 1917, the Neckar was confiscated and, after being overhauled in Portsmouth (Virginia) on September 5, 1917, it was put into service by the US Navy as the USS Antigone (ID-3007) troop transport . On December 14, 1917, she began her first trip to France with US troops . On eight trips, she brought 16,526 soldiers to France in addition to medical and general supplies. After the armistice of November 1918, over 22,000 soldiers were brought back to the USA with the Antigone . The ship was decommissioned on November 15, 1919.
In 1921 the Antigone , like her sister ship Susquehanna (ex Rhein ), was put into service by the United States Mail Steamship Company , for which she was on March 20, 1921, with 200 cabin passengers and 550 passengers in the III. Great, her first trip to Bremerhaven and Danzig started. It was renamed Potomac on May 5, 1921 , and made two more trips. On August 10, 1921, during the second voyage, the US Mail Steamship Co. gave up the business, and the return voyage from Bremerhaven on September 3 was already in service with the United States Lines . Two more round trips to Bremerhaven followed, the last one began on March 1, 1922 in New York. Then the Potomac was launched again , and in 1928 the former Neckar was scrapped in the Netherlands .
literature
- Bonsor, Noel RP: North Atlantic Seaway , vol. 2, Newton Abbey & Jersey, 1976
- Herbert, Carl: War voyages of German merchant ships. Broschek & Co, Hamburg, 1934
- Arnold Kludas : The History of German Passenger Shipping. Volume 3: Rapid growth 1900 to 1914. Ernst Kabel Verlag, Hamburg 1988, ISBN 3-8225-0039-9 ( writings of the German Maritime Museum 20).
- Arnold Kludas: The ships of the North German Lloyd. Volume 1: 1857 to 1919. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford 1991, ISBN 3-7822-0524-3 .
- Reinke-Kunze, Christine: History of the Reichspostdampfer. Connection between the continents 1886-1914 . Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, 1994, ISBN 3-7822-0618-5 (3782206185)
- Claus Rothe: German ocean passenger ships. 1896 to 1918 . Steiger Verlag, Moers 1986, ISBN 3-921564-80-8 .
Web links
- Operations and pictures for USS Antigone
- Detachment steamer 1911 January 5 to April 1 Garrison transport, April 13 to July 8 crew swap of cruiser squadrons