Pelican (ship, 1934)

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The Pelikan was a German reefer ship that was requisitioned by the Navy in 1940 and used as a torpedo clearing ship during World War II . After the end of the war, it operated as a reefer ship under the British flag until 1959 .

Construction and technical data

The ship was on 12 November 1934 with the hull number 712 at the Bremer Vulkan shipbuilding and machine factory in Vegesack from the stack and was on 14 January 1935, the Hamburg shipping company F. Laeisz delivered. It was 107.5 m long and 13.6 m wide, had a 7.3 m draft and was measured with 3264 GRT and 1932 NRT . The total size of the cold rooms was 3,700 m³, the load-bearing capacity was 2793 tdw . A 5-cylinder, 2- stroke diesel engine from Bremer Vulkan developed 3050 hp and allowed a speed of 15.0 kn . The crew consisted of 34 men; up to 12 passengers could be taken.

history

Banana truck

The Pelikan ( callsign DJNP) was used with home port Hamburg for the African Fruit Compagnie (AFC), a subsidiary of the shipping company F. Laeisz, in the fruit trade between Hamburg and ports in West Africa . This mostly involved the transport of bananas loaded in Tiko from the AFC plantations in Cameroon , which were landed green in Hamburg and then brought to maturity by the AFC in its own ripening facilities and sold in its own fruit shops. However, some of the cargo also consisted of dried bananas, which were sold in Germany as so-called fig bananas.

Navy

On August 13, 1939, shortly before the start of the Second World War , the Pelikan was back in Tiko, but she managed to return home. On August 30, she arrived in Hamburg, where she was initially arrested. On March 20, 1940 - in the course of preparations for the occupation of Denmark and Norway ( Operation Weser Exercise ) - she was recorded by the Navy Service in Hamburg and assigned to the torpedo attempt command in Kiel as a so-called torpedo clearing ship. On April 20, 1940, she ran, together with the Palime and secured by the 1st Schnellbootflotilla, with a load of guns for the army troops that had landed in Norway from Cuxhaven to Stavanger , where she arrived the following day. On April 24th, the two ships ran back to Hamburg, and on April 28th they sailed again with military supplies from Cuxhaven to Stavanger, this time accompanied by four boats of the 2nd Schnellbootflotilla. A third supply transport of the two ships to Stavanger followed on 7–9. May, the march back on 13-14. May. Thereafter, the Pelikan was handed over to HAPAG on June 6, 1940 for technical support, but continued to serve with the torpedo attempt command, both in Kiel and in Gotenhafen . On April 23, 1941, it was renamed Pelikan II to avoid confusion with the anti-aircraft ship Pelikan , which was in service with the port protection flotilla Brest .

Post-war years

In early May 1945 the ship was damaged in an air raid in Brunsbüttelkoog ; there it became British spoils of war. After repairs in Lübeck , it was delivered to Great Britain on March 11, 1946 in Hamburg and handed over to the Ministry of War Transport . It was the fleet of the empire ship allocated in Empire Alde renamed first the railroad company Southern Railway , but soon assigned to the shipping company Kaye, Son & Co. for ship management. Towards the end of 1946, the ship was sold to the British reefer shipping company Elder & Fyffes , which first renamed it Pelikan , then in 1947 Pacuare .

The Pacuare drove until 1959. Then it was sold to the British Iron & Steel Co. for scrapping. On September 22, 1959, she arrived in Troon at the West of Scotland Shipbreaking Co. for demolition, which began on September 25 and was completed on April 5, 1960.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Kaye, Son and Co., at The Ships List
  2. ^ Elders & Fyffes Shipping, at The Ships List

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