ORP Warta

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ORP Warta
The ORP Warta (1924–1928)
The ORP Warta (1924–1928)
Ship data
flag FranceFrance (national flag of the sea) France Poland Hungary Panama
PolandPoland (naval war flag) 
HungaryHungary (trade flag) 
PanamaPanama 
other ship names

PLM 5 (1916)
Turul (1935)

Ship type Cargo ship
Shipyard Great Lake Engineering Works , Ecorse / Michigan
Launch 1916
Whereabouts Wrecked in 1954
Ship dimensions and crew
length
77.1 m ( Lüa )
width 13.2 m
Draft Max. 7.7 m
displacement 6100  t
measurement 2480 GRT
 
crew 4 to 6 officers, 30 men
Machine system
machine 1 × 3-cylinder triple expansion machine
Machine
performance 		1,450 hp
Top
speed 		10 kn (19 km / h)
propeller 1
Armament

2 × 47 mm guns

The ORP Warta was a cargo ship that the Polish Navy used as a transport from 1924 to 1927. Built in the USA in 1916, it initially ran under the French flag as the PLM 5 and continued to carry the Polish trade flag as the Warta from 1927 to 1934 . After the sale it was named Turul in 1935 and was initially registered in Hungary, from 1940 until it was dismantled in 1954 in Panama. The ship was named after the river Warta ( Polish: Warta ), a tributary of the Oder in Poland.

Construction and technical data

In 1916, the French railway company Compagnie des chemins de fer de Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée (PLM), or Compagnie Paris-Lyon-Méditerranée for short, based in Paris , was looking for shipping space to supply its locomotives with coal from England and bought the ship that had already been planned at the Great Lake Engineering Works shipyard in Ecorse / Michigan . The ship was laid down at the shipyard in 1916 under construction number 163 and was launched in the same year. The ship, simply named PLM 5, was delivered to the shipping company in October 1916.

Her length was 77.1 meters, she was 13.2 meters wide, had a draft of 7.3 meters and was measured with 2480 GRT or 6100 tons. The drive consisted of a 3-cylinder triple expansion machine with coal-fired boilers, which achieved 1,450 hp and acted on one screw . With that she reached a top speed of 10 knots . During her time in the Polish Navy, the manning was 4 to 6 officers and 30 men.

history

French coal ship PLM 5

During the First World War , the French railway company Compagnie Paris-Lyon-Méditerranée (short for Compagnie des chemins de fer de Paris à Lyon et à la Méditerranée, or PLM for short) looked for ways to reliably meet its coal needs, regardless of the threat from German warships and mines or to secure requisitions of shipping space by Allied governments. To this end, the PLM acquired a fleet of initially ten coal transporters in 1916 and 1917. She only found suitable ships in the USA , where the shipping market was somewhat more relaxed than in Great Britain and Europe.

At the shipyard Great Lake Engineering Works , Ecorse / Michigan , she was able to find and lay there in a roundabout way the first five ships. The ship was originally laid down for the Clinchfield Navigation Company from New York and was taken over by the Oriental Navigation Corporation (New York) during construction. In the shipping press of the time it was reported openly that this company only served as a buyer for the French customer. The Compagnie Paris-Lyon-Méditerranée founded its own shipping company, the Société nationale d'Affrètement, for the newly acquired ships . The names of the ships were simply the abbreviation PLM and a consecutive number.

After the ship was received in October 1916, there is little information about the use of the PLM 5 . During the First World War, the ships loaded coal in British ports in south Wales or on the northeast coast, sometimes in Dunkirk, and unloaded it in Marseille . At the same time, information is available about the transport of unspecified war material, which may well have been coal. Even after the First World War, the Compagnie Paris-Lyon-Méditerranée continued to transport coal with its fleet. The reasons why the shipping company sold the PLM 5 in spring 1924 is unclear, however.

ORP Warta around 1924

Polish ORP Warta of the Navy and SS Warta of the Merchant Navy

The Polish Navy bought the ship in France as early as January 1924. After the Polish-Soviet War of 1919–1921, the army needed its own transport capacities to bring military goods into the country, which could only be transported by sea due to the tensions with neighboring countries. The ship was first adapted to the needs of the Polish Navy and slightly rebuilt at the Cherbourg shipyard from March 3rd to June 3rd.

It received the name Warta - the Polish name of the Warta , a tributary of the Oder. The handover and commissioning took place on June 3, 1924, also in Cherbourg. The first commander of the ORP Warta was Cdr. Mieczyslaw Burchardt, who then took over the naval freighter and training ship ORP Wilia in 1925 . It remains unclear exactly when the armament of two 47 mm guns was installed.

The main task of the ship was the transport of military goods - especially from France to Poland. The ship took on this task from the start: on June 28, 1924, she was already transporting material bought in France for the Polish army to Gdansk . On one of the next voyages, she was the first Polish ship to cross the Strait of Gibraltar on the way to Genoa . She returned to Poland in mid-November 1924.

Since the Polish Navy bought the ORP Wilia , which was roughly half the size, in 1925 and not only transported military goods with it, but also used the newly acquired transporter as a training ship , information about the Warta has been decreasing immediately. In 1926 the ship moved to Gdansk for repairs. After about three years, the Navy deleted the ship from their list on April 20, 1927 and transferred it to the Ministry of Industry and Trade with registration in Gdynia . This was in turn passed on to the Society for Navigation, also in Gdynia, in 1932. From 1933 until its sale in 1935, it stayed there launched .

Cargo ship Turul flying the flags of Hungary and Panama

The information in the literature about the first sale in 1935 differs: One Polish line of tradition reports on the sale as early as September 1933, another not until 1935 to Orazio Resini in Genoa and the registration in Budapest, Hungary . The ship was initially still in use as a Warta and is said to have been launched in 1935.

In 1935 it was sold to Bernhard Burger, the Hungarian consul in Genoa, for Finagra SA. It received the name Turul after the mythological bird from the time of the Árpáden , a Hungarian ruling dynasty from 1001 to 1301. The Turul is said to have been used in local traffic in the Malay waters during this time. Another change of ownership took place in 1938: The owner now became the Geneva-based “Société Anonyme Maritime Commerciale” of the “Anglo-Swiss-Maritime Company Ltd.” from London. The ship remained registered in Budapest. The "Société Anonyme Maritime Commerciale" deleted the ship from the Hungarian shipping register in the summer of 1940 and registered it in Panama.

From March 1940 until April 1945, the Turul was in British convoys as a cargo ship. The main routes covered were between Liverpool, Wales, Belfast and Scotland and to Gibraltar and Reykjavík in Iceland . The following journeys are known:

  • Convoy HG 23: March 20, 1940 Gibraltar - March 30, 1940 Liverpool
  • Convoy OB 140: May 3, 1940 Milford Haven - Liverpool -?
  • Convoy OG 28:? formed at sea - May 10, 1940 Gibraltar
  • Convoy HG 33: June 8, 1940 Gibraltar - June 18, 1940 Liverpool
  • Convoy OB 178: July 3, 1940 Clyde - Liverpool - convoy disbanded
  • Convoy OB 224: October 5, 1940 Milford Haven - Liverpool - Convoy disbanded
  • Convoy BB 36: Holyhead June 20, 1941 - Belfast Lough - June 21, 1941 Milford Haven - Barry
  • Convoy QB 347: July 16, 1941 Liverpool - July 31, 1941 disbanded off target Reykjavík
  • Convoy BB 62: Aug 16, 1941laden Lough - Aug 18, 1941 Milford Haven - Barry
  • Convoy BB 70: Holyhead August 31, 1941 - Belfast Llough - September 2, 1941 Milford Haven - Barry
  • Convoy ON 19: 20 September 1941 Liverpool - Milford Haven -? Convoy disbanded
  • Convoy RU 3: Reykjavík January 1, 1942 - January 6, 1942 Loch Ewe - Belfast Lough
  • Convoy BB 121: Jan 7, 1942 Belfast Lough - Jan 8, 1942 Milford Haven - Barry
  • Convoy BB 158: Holyhead April 5, 1942 - Belfast Lough - April 8, 1942 Milford Haven - Swansea
  • Convoy WN 284:? Loch Ewe - May 19, 1942 Methil
  • Convoy EN 238 : June 4, 1943 Methil - June 6, 1943 Loch Ewe
  • Convoy UR 78:? Loch Ewe - June 12, 1943 Reykjavík
  • Convoy RU 78: June 17, 1943 Reykjavík - June 22, 1943 Loch Ewe - Belfast Lough
  • Convoy UR 82:? Loch Ewe - July 14, 1943 Reykjavík
  • Convoy RU 83: July 26, 1943 Reykjavík - July 30, 1943 Loch Ewe
  • Convoy EN 365: March 31, 1944 Methil - April 2, 1944 Loch Ewe
  • Convoy UR 115:? Loch Ewe - April 7, 1944 Reykjavík
  • Convoy RU 116: April 19, 1944 Reykjavík - April 22, 1944 Loch Ewe
  • Convoy UR 119:? Loch Ewe - May 10, 1944 Reykjavík
  • Convoy RU 120: May 21, 1944 Reykjavík - May 24, 1944 Reykjavík
  • Convoy UR 125:? Loch Ewe - June 27, 1944 Reykjavík
  • Convoy RU 126: July 7, 1944 Reykjavík - July 11, 1944 Loch Ewe
  • Convoy UR 130:? Loch Ewe - August 6, 1944 Reykjavík
  • Convoy RU 131: August 17, 1944 - August 20, 1944 Loch Ewe
  • Convoy UR 135:? Loch Ewe - September 15, 1944 Reykjavík
  • Convoy RU 139: October 19, 1944 Reykjavík - October 23, 1944 Loch Ewe
  • Convoy UR 143:? Loch Ewe - November 18, 1944 Reykjavík
  • Convoy RU 144: November 29, 1944 Reykjavík - December 4, 1944 Loch Ewe
  • Convoy EN 475: February 13, 1945 Methil - February 15, 1945 Loch Ewe
  • Convoy UR 155:? Belfast Lough - March 1, 1945 Reykjavík
  • Convoy UR 157:? Loch Ewe - March 20, 1945 Reykjavík
  • Convoy RU 158: April 2, 1945 Reykjavík - April 7, 1945 Loch Ewe

After the Second World War, the ship remained in the possession of the shipping company without any notable incidents. In August 1952 it was laid up on the Bristol Channel in Barry Harbor, Wales , until it was sold for scrapping. On her last voyage, the Turul reached Milford Haven in Wales on December 19, 1954 and was employed by TW Ward Ltd. scrapped.

literature

  • Skip Meier, Wayne Garrett: The Great Lakes Engineering Works. The shipyard and its vessels. The Marine Historical Society of Detroit, Inc. 2008.
  • Roy Fenton: The PLM Colliers 1 to 10. In: "Ships in Focus". Record 17, London 2001, pp. 10-15, ISBN 1-901703-14-2 .
  • Maciej Neumann: Flota II Rzeczypospolitej i jej okręty [The fleet of the Second Republic and its ships]. Wydawnictwo LTW, Łomianki 2013, ISBN 978-83-7565-309-0 .
  • Stanisław M. Piaskowski: Okręty Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej 1920–1946 [The Ships of the Republic of Poland 1920-1946]. Album Planów, Warsaw 1996, ISBN 83-900217-2-2 .
  • Daniel Duda: Okręt Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej "Wilia". In: “Nautologia” No. 149 (2012), Polskie Towarzystwo Nautologiczne, pp. 80–85.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ ORP is the abbreviation for "Okręt Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej" and the name prefix of Polish ships. ORP means "Warship of the Republic of Poland".
  2. ↑ Fenton, 10f., P. 14
  3. ^ Piaskowski, p. 26, Neumann, p. 209
  4. ↑ Fenton, 10f., P. 14, for the further history of the shipping company see also the second part of the article in Ships in Focus. Record 18 , https://flagspot.net/flags/fr~hfsna.html
  5. ↑ Fenton, 10f., P. 14, Piaskowski, p. 26
  6. ↑ http://warsailors.com/forum/read.php?1,13690,13723#msg-13723
  7. ↑ Duda, pp. 80f., Piaskowski, p. 26; Neumann, p. 209
  8. ^ Neuman, p. 208, Duda, p. 80
  9. ↑ Neuman, p. 208, http://greatlakes.bgsu.edu/vessel/view/006146 , http://warsailors.com/forum/read.php?1,13690,13722#msg-13722
  10. ↑ on the year 1933: Marek Twardowski in: http://warsailors.com/forum/read.php?1,13690,13723#msg-13723 , cf. Neumann, p. 208; for the year 1935: Fenton, p. 14, http://warsailors.com/forum/read.php?1,13690,13722#msg-13722
  11. ↑ http://warsailors.com/forum/read.php?1,13690,13724#msg-13724
  12. ↑ Fenton, p. 14, http://warsailors.com/forum/read.php?1,13690,13722#msg-13722 , http://warsailors.com/forum/read.php?1,13690,13724 # msg-13724
  13. ↑ http://www.convoyweb.org.uk/ports/index.html?search.php?vessel=TURUL~armain
  14. ↑ http://greatlakes.bgsu.edu/vessel/view/006146 , Marek Twardowski in: http://warsailors.com/forum/read.php?1,13690,13723#msg-13723
  15. ↑ http://warsailors.com/forum/read.php?1,13690,13722#msg-13722