Otra (ship, 1939)

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The Otra in November 1939
The Otra on test drives, December 1939

The Otra was a Norwegian minesweeper that was captured by the German Navy and was used as a security boat and mine- layer from 1940 to 1945 under the name Togo .

Construction and technical data

With the threat of war looming, the Norwegian Navy began to strengthen its mine warfare capabilities . For this purpose, six of their older 2nd class gunboats were converted into mine-layers and mine-clearing boats , but two new minesweepers were also commissioned from Nylands mekaniske Verksted in Oslo . Both ships, the Otra and the Rauma , were completed and put into service before the German invasion of Norway .

The Otra , named after the river Otra , ran on August 5, 1939 six weeks before her sister ship , the stack and was put into service in January 1940. She was 52.1 m long (51.0 m in the waterline ) and 7.05 m wide, had a 1.90 m draft , and displaced 355 tons . The drive consisted of two 900 HP triple expansion steam engines and two screws . The maximum speed was 15 knots , the range 1400 nautical miles at 9 knots cruising speed. The ship was equipped with a 7.6-cm-L / 28- Bofors -Kanone and two MG type Madsen armed. The crew numbered 25 men.

Weser exercise company

The two mine sweepers stationed in Horten , Otra and Rauma, were supposed to clear three minefields recently laid by the Royal Navy on the Norwegian west coast on April 9, 1940 . Before they could set sail for this company, however, the arrival of foreign warships was reported. The Otra was sent out to investigate and reported at 4:10 a.m. that the ships were German. Since the return march to Horten was blocked by the German warship group 5 with the heavy cruiser Blücher , she anchored in Filtvet about 20 km further north, where she was captured by the torpedo boat Möwe on the following day .

Navy

The Otra was immediately put into service by the Navy under the name Togo . She was initially used, with the tactical number NO 02 , as a harbor protection boat in the Oslo harbor protection flotilla , but then converted into a mine-layer. It was now armed with two 7.5 cm SK C / 34 rapid fire guns and two 2 cm Flak 30 C / 30 and could hold up to 60 mines . The Togo served the entire remaining war years in Norway, with the 59th outpost flotilla, the port protection flotilla Tromsø , the port protection flotilla Hammerfest and the outpost flotilla 65. From March 25, 1941 she was as V 5908 with the 59th outpost flotilla at the Admiral Arctic Coast, where she was port protection -, escort and security tasks. During her membership in the Tromsø harbor protection flotilla (as harbor protection boat NT 05), she and a convoy secured by her survived the first attack by Soviet speedboats ( TKA-11 and TKA-12 ) off the Petsamofjord in the North Sea on the night of September 12, 1941 a German convoy. On September 21, the boat collided north of Hammerfest with the mine clearing boat R 158 , which was badly damaged and had to be set aground; the R-boat sank while attempting to tow it on November 5th. In May 1944, the Togo joined the 65th outpost flotilla as V 6512 , which emerged from the Hammerfest harbor protection flotilla.

Post-war years

At the time of the German surrender , the Togo ( V 6512 ) belonged to the 65th outpost flotilla in Undereidet on the Badderfjord northeast of Tromsø. She then served briefly with the 65th outpost flotilla in the 4th mine clearing division of the German Mine Clearance Service , which removed mines in Norwegian coastal waters, but was returned to the Norwegian Navy on January 18, 1946 in Bogen near Narvik . On October 30, 1946, she was put back into service with her old name Otra ( identifier N 34). In 1949, like her sister ship Rauma , she was converted into a miner training ship.

On August 21, 1959, the two ships were decommissioned and laid up in Horten . In April 1963 they were sold for scrapping and then scrapped.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/40-04.htm
  2. ↑ The Rauma of April 9 was already in the morning in German hands, surrendered as the Norwegian Armed Forces in Horten.
  3. ↑ Torpedny Kater = torpedo cutter
  4. ↑ a b http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/41-09.htm
  5. ↑ http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/km/vboote/vfl63-68.htm
  6. ^ German naval vessels in Norway at the time of the capitulation May 9, 1945 ( Memento from November 29, 2012 in the Internet Archive )

Web links

literature

  • Frank Abelsen: Norwegian naval ships 1939–1945. Sem & Stenersen, Oslo, 1986, ISBN 82-7046-050-8 (Norwegian & English)
  • Ole F. Berg: I skjærgården og på havet - Marinens krig April 8, 1940 - May 8, 1945. Marinens Krigsveteranforening, Oslo, 1997, ISBN 82-993545-2-8 (norw.)
  • John H. Østby: Blücher. Documentation in pictures. Wera Forlag, 2009, ISBN 978-82-92867-03-7