Ostmark (ship, 1932)

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The Ostmark was a former French canal ferry that was converted into a mineship by the Kriegsmarine after the German occupation of France and put into service.

Cote d'Argent ferry

The ship was on 12 April 1932 on the shipyard Forges et Chantiers de la Méditerranée in Graville , Le Havre , from the stack . It was 99.26 m long and 13.72 m wide, had a 3.65 m draft , displaced 2,636  tonnes (maximum) and was measured with 3,047  GRT and 1050  NRT . The machinery consisted of four Babcock - boilers and two Parsons turbines , which together 14,000  horsepower generated, and two screws. Its maximum speed reached during the test drives was 22.94  knots . The ship had space for 1,400  passengers in first and second class. It made its first official test drive on March 14, 1933, and entered service on April 1, 1933. Under the name Côte d'Argent , it operated the Calais - Dover route across the English Channel for the French shipping company Société Anonyme de Gérance et d'Armement (SAGA). Home port was Le Havre.

The Côte d'Argent , like its sister ship, the Côte d'Azur , was requisitioned by the French government on May 8, 1940, ordered from Calais to Dunkirk and used as an armed troop transport. On May 11th, as part of a convoy , they brought troops to Vlissingen to defend the Dutch areas of Walcheren and Zuid-Beveland . She then took part in the Allied evacuation of Dunkirk , which began on May 26th . Despite the difficulty of finding a suitable place to embark, on May 31st it brought 14,000 men from the enclosed Dunkirk. On June 12, she evacuated troops from Le Havre to Saint-Jean-de-Luz in southern France. On June 20, she went from there to Le Verdon-sur-Mer at the mouth of the Gironde to pick up refugees.

Mine ship Ostmark

After the occupation of France , the ship was confiscated by the Wehrmacht on June 30, 1940 in Bayonne and used by the Navy as a barge. After a fire on board in the spring of 1941, the ship was converted into a mine ship in Nantes . It was enlarged to 103.5 m in length and received two 10.5 cm cannons (one in front and one aft) as well as four 4 cm flak and four 2 cm flak as armament . The ship was put into service on October 5, 1941 under the name Ostmark under Korvettenkapitän dR KF Barthel. Most of the crew came from the mine ship Prussia, which sank on July 9, 1941 near Öland in the Baltic Sea after being hit by a mine .

On February 15, 1942, after finishing the equipment and the test drives, the ship went to Rotterdam . It was attacked by British Spitfires on February 21 near Boulogne , but without suffering major damage. From Rotterdam it marched to Wilhelmshaven , where 180 mines were loaded, and on to Bergen (Norway) , where it arrived on March 26, 1942. After the mines had been relocated in the mine barrier "5e Krefeld", the Ostmark returned to Wesermünde via Bergen , where it arrived on April 19. After repair work, she took over 200 mines in Cuxhaven on May 18 and then went via Kiel to Lødingen in Northern Norway . In June the Ostmark moved with the Ulm from Tromsø in the Varangerfjord , in front of Vardø , the mine barrier "UMB V", in July and August also in the Varangerfjord with the Kaiser the mine barriers "NW 32" or "NW 33" back in August to work in the shipyard in Stettin , where their machinery was converted to oil firing.

In mid-June 1943, the ship went back to Norway, where - like the sister ship Alsace - in the fourth week of June with the mine- layer Brummer and the destroyers Z 27 and Z 30, laying the mine barriers "Archangel", "Wild boar" and " Golden eagle "was involved, with those of the maritime section of the Western Wall was extended -trap north. From July 15 to 17, the Ostmark laid the mine barrier "NW.31 (153 UMB)" in the North Sea near Makkaur (near Båtsfjord ) together with the clearing boats R 54 and R 56 and the minesweepers M 272 , M 346 and M 364 . On July 16, while the mine was being thrown, it survived an attack by five Soviet bombers , whose drops missed their target. On the march back, the unit on the Tanafjord was attacked by the Soviet submarine S-56 . The three on the Ostmark fired torpedoes missed their targets, but two of them met the minesweeper M 346 , which sank thereupon; its crew could be recovered. The Ostmark dropped two depth charges and the submarine disappeared. On the 21.-24. July and 10.-12. August the Ostmark and the emperors laid three mine barriers to protect the Varanger peninsula. The two mine ships and their security ships ( M 272 , M 302 , M 361 , M 364 , UJ 1202 , UJ 1209 and NH 06 ) were attacked by three Soviet torpedo planes and nine fighter planes on July 21, but were able to carry out the attack without major damage survive. In October the mine ships Ostmark and Roland , secured by the minesweepers M 406 , M 426 , M 445 and M 462 and some outpost boats , laid the mine barriers "Lithium", "Sodium" and "Potassium" in the Skagerrak .

On November 3, 1943, the Ostmark and the Roland ran from Copenhagen to Kiel. The Ostmark collided with the KFK 99 , a school boat, which was probably crossing the Ostmark course under sail . The cutter sank at 54 ° 25 '30 "  N , 12 ° 8' 30"  E ; its crew could be saved by the Ostmark , which remained without serious damage.

From December 2nd to 4th, the mine ships Ostmark , Alsace and Brummer together with the destroyers Theodor Riedel , Hans Lody and Z 31 from Stavanger renewed and strengthened mine barriers in the western Skagerrak as part of the companies "16e Wall Cabinet" and "16f Handkoffer" , to block access to Denmark and the Skagerrak again. Thereafter, the Ostmark was from mid-December 1943 to March 7, 1944 for overhaul in the Oderwerke Stettin . On March 8th it was again restricted and on March 26th it was fully ready for war.

From April 2 to 7, 1944, the mine ships Ostmark , Alsace and Kaiser , together with the destroyers Erich Steinbrinck and Hans Lody and the minesweepers M 301 , M 381 , M 406 and M 462 , laid the new Westwall sections west of the Skagerrak “ Katzbach A "and" Katzbach B "and on 15./16. April the Skagerraksperre "XXI Leipzig". After that, the three mine ships took new mines on board in Kiel on April 19 and then laid from Frederikshavn on 25/26. April the Skagerraks lock "XXIV Ligny". After relocation to Kristiansand , the Ostmark , the Alsace and the Kaiser threw together with the minesweepers M 15 and M 29 on 7/8. May the mine barrier "XXII Waterloo" west of the Skagerrak and then ran to Copenhagen on May 9th . There, the Ostmark was made available on May 25th to secure shipping between Frederikshavn and Fredrikstad , moved to Frederikshavn on May 31st and placed under the 8th Security Division on June 3rd . On 5th / 6th June the ship went to Aarhus and then gave on 15-17. June a convoy from Aarhus to Oslo anti-aircraft defense .

On June 18, the Ostmark was subordinated to MOK Norway . It ran on 19./20. June to the mine pick-up in Copenhagen, then returned to Norway, and on July 5th put the mine barrier "NW 107 A Munich" to protect the escort around Stadlandet . After another mine opening in Świnoujście on July 12, the ship ran to Trondheim and from there on July 20 laid the mine barrier "NW 107 B". Then it drove on 22-27. July to Frederikshavn, placed on 3-4. August the mine barrier "XXVII Kalahari" and on 5./6. August the lock "XXV Zambezi" and ran afterwards to Copenhagen. From there it went to Stettin, where from August 17th the Stettiner Oderwerke went to the shipyard for overhaul. During British air raids, it suffered slight damage on August 17th from incendiary hits and on August 30th from air pressure from bombs . However, the severe damage to the shipyard facilities and the failure of significant parts of the workforce caused long delays in the shipyard work, and the ship was no longer used in 1944.

On 15-17 In February 1945 the Ostmark took part in a mining company again when it tried twice in vain to lay the "Titus II" mine barrier in Skagerrak together with the mine ships Lothringen and Linz , the destroyer Friedrich Ihn and the torpedo boats T 17 and T 20 . On 6./7. March the ship ran with the destroyer Z 4 Richard Beitzen , the mine ship Lorraine and the torpedo boats T 20 and T 17 to Kristiansand. From there, in association with the Lorraine , the Linz , the destroyer Karl Galster and the T 17 and T 20 torpedo boats, it finally threw the "Titus II" mine barrier. On 17./18. March, the Ostmark , the Lorraine and the Linz , secured by the destroyer Karl Galster and the torpedo boats T 17 , T 19 and T 20 , laid the mine barrier "Augustus" in the western Skagerrak. The Lorraine suffered a rudder failure and the ship crossed the line of mines that had just been thrown by the Ostmark . A mine that had not yet gone down streamed along the side of the Lorraine and then detonated about 100 m behind the Lorraine without causing any damage.

Downfall

On the night of April 20-21, 1945, Ostmark and Lorraine , accompanied by the minesweeper M 293 , were attacked by British planes in the Kattegat on the journey from Frederikshavn to Copenhagen in the early night, in strong winds and heavy seas . The cruising speed was only 7–8 knots. The first attack failed in strong defensive fire, but at 12:30 a.m. the Ostmark was hit by two bombs. One hit the front of the ship, causing the ammunition chamber to explode and tearing the bow away to the bridge ; the second hit the ship between the bridge and the chimney, and the resulting fire caused the riot ammunition to explode amidships. The ship capsized and sank at 1:00 am about two nautical miles southeast of the island of Anholt on 56 ° 38 '0 "  N , 12 ° 16' 0"  O . 109 men of the crew were killed, including the commandant and the leader of the mine ships; 138 were rescued, but seven of them subsequently died from their injuries.

The wreck

The wreck lies in mud at a depth of 41 m. The stern with guns is preserved. A lot of old ammunition is scattered around the wreck site. The ship's bell with the inscription Côte d'Argent was recovered in 1996.

literature

  • Karl von Kutzleben, Wilhelm Schroeder, Jochen Brennecke : Mine ships 1939–1945. The mysterious missions of the “midnight squadron”. Köhler, Herford 1974, ISBN 3-7822-0098-5 .
  • Peter Holberg, Henrik Holleufer: Mineskibene Elsass og Ostmark. Fra Færge til Forlis. HHH Neptun, Fredericia 2002, ISBN 8-7912-4900-7 (Danish).

Web links

Footnotes

  1. ^ A b Soviet submarine losses in the Northern Arctic Ocean. Retrieved April 24, 2019 .
  2. ^ Naval War 1943, June. Retrieved April 24, 2019 .
  3. ↑ http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/43-07.htm , http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/43-08.htm
  4. ↑ Information about the wreck can be found under "Schulboot KFK 99" at www.wrecksite.eu: KFK 99 wreck description at www.wrecksite.eu (Danish, accessed on August 29, 2009)
  5. ↑ http://www.vragguiden.dk/wreck.asp?wreckid=195 (Danish)
  6. ^ Naval War 1943, December. Retrieved April 24, 2019 .
  7. ^ Sea War 1944, April. Retrieved April 24, 2019 .
  8. ↑ Naval War 1944, May. Retrieved April 24, 2019 .
  9. ↑ http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/45-03.htm
  10. ↑ Archive link ( Memento from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  11. ^ SS Ostmark ( Memento from September 1, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (Danish) with a good photo