Asuncion (ship, 1895)
than Brazilian campos
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The Asuncion of the Hamburg-South American Steamship Company (HSDG) was the type ship of the class of eleven steamers named after it, which the Hamburg shipping company procured for its South America services from 1895 to 1899. The ships were built by Blohm & Voss and the Reiherstieg shipyard in Hamburg.
In the late summer of 1914, the Asuncion became the auxiliary ship of the small cruiser SMS Karlsruhe . After capturing a passenger steamer, she was released with the prisoners to Belém (Pará) , where she was confiscated by the Brazilian government in 1917.
As Campos she sailed under the Brazilian flag until October 23, 1943, when she was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U 170 in the mid-Atlantic off the Brazilian coast .
History of construction and use
From 1895 Hamburg-Süd acquired new and larger mail steamers that had better and larger passenger facilities. Since the coal prices were high in South America and the need for coal for the return journey was bunkered in Europe , an enlargement of the ships was necessary because of the extension of the main line beyond Santos to the Río de la Plata . In the period that followed, the HSDG procured a total of eleven Asuncion- class ships by 1899 . At the beginning of 1895, the shipping company had 25 ocean-going vessels that had come into service between 1877 and 1894 and were up to 3834 GRT in 1982. Of this fleet, 15 ships had been sold by the end of 1899 and one was lost. These 16 departures were compared to 18 newbuildings in the same period, 11 of them from the new mail steamer class. The period was therefore not one of expansion, but of the rapid qualitative improvement of the Hamburg-Süd fleet.
The type ship Asuncion was launched on September 4, 1895 at Blohm & Voss in Hamburg and began its maiden voyage from Hamburg to Santos on October 31, 1895. The Asuncion had two masts, a chimney and space for 24 first class passengers and 440 between deck passengers. The service speed was 10.5 kn. At 4663 GRT, it was 800 GRT larger than the last ships delivered, which could only carry 12 first class passengers to 144 tween deck passengers.
In 1895, the Tucuman, also supplied by Blohm & Voss, came into service with Hamburg-Süd in November and the Cordoba , which was supplied by the Reiherstieg shipyard in December . In 1896 there was another new building and in 1897 another four, which now offered 28 first class cabin seats. In 1898, the Reiherstieg shipyard then delivered the Bahia, the first ship of the class with hull number 400, with a significantly enlarged deckhouse and space for 40 first class passengers. This led to a downgrading of the cabin seats on the old ships in front of the Asuncion class, for whose 12 cabin seats Hamburg-Süd now offered a cheaper 2nd class passage. 1899 were then with Santos , the fifth ship of the class of the Reiherstieg shipyard, and the sixth Blohm & Voss ship Tijuca these delivered the last two mail steamer until then the largest class of the Hamburg-Süd, which then in 1900 the express steamer Cap-class followed .
When the First World War broke out, the Asuncion was in Santos. Of the sister ships, the Cordoba , Sao Paulo and Pernambuco were three at home. The other seven ships were spread over the trading area. The San Nicolas , Santos and Tijuca were also in a Brazilian port in Pernambuco , the Belgrano had called at La Coruña , the Petropolis Funchal , the Bahia Montevideo and the Tucuman , who had been in the Patagonia service since 1909 , sought refuge in Punta Arenas, Chile .
Auxiliary ship of SMS Karlsruhe
In August 1914, the Asuncion, equipped with radio, was equipped as an auxiliary ship for the small cruiser SMS Karlsruhe from the stage in Brazil . She loaded 1200 tons of coal, fresh provisions, spare parts and other supplies in Santos and on August 31, 1914 met the cruiser escorted by the Hapag steamer Patagonia (3016 GRT) on the Lavandeira reef on the north coast of Brazil behind its western tip. At the same time, the NDL steamer Crefeld (3829 BRT) arrived from Rio de Janeiro . The Rio Negro (4556 BRT, from Belém (Pará) ) of the HSDG joined the association at the beginning of September . The operating to close auxiliary cruiser SMS Kronprinz Wilhelm continues to run Asuncion formed with the cruiser and the Rio Negro in early September a reconnaissance strip on September 3 for applying the Maple branch led by the cruiser. The Asuncion found the auxiliary cruiser on the same day and supplied it.
In addition to the German suppliers, the Karlsruhe used prizes with coal cargo at least temporarily as auxiliary ships. In general, they searched the waterways with an auxiliary ship shifted from each side to the Enlightenment strip to zoom in and brought another nine ships on Sun in September five and in October, with the Asuncion on September 22 at the hijacking of Rio Iguassu was involved . The Asuncion also replenished its supplies from the booty ships, in particular from the Strathroy , known as the coal steamer KD 1 , which was brought up on August 31 and which it finally emptied on October 26 before it was sunk.
The captured crews and passengers were transported to neutral ports on released supply ships. So that was Patagonia released in early September to Brazil, which on October 13 Crefeld followed with 419 prisoners with whom they the Spanish October 22, Santa Cruz de Tenerife reached. After they left the Karlsruhe train , the Asuncion took over the prisoners of the following prizes.
On October 26, 1914, the Karlsruhe was the last ship to sink the passenger steamer Vandy (c) k (10,328 GRT, 1911, 15 knots) from the Lamport & Holt Line, which had 210 passengers on board. The crews still remaining with the association (except for a few Chinese on board the remaining prizes of Farn and Indrani ) and the passengers of the captured ships were then released to Belém on October 27th on the Asuncion .
Under the Brazilian flag
On November 2, 1914, the Asuncion entered Belém with 461 prisoners and was interned by the Brazilian authorities. On June 1, 1917, like 44 other German merchant ships, she was confiscated in Brazilian ports by government decree and put back into service under the Brazilian flag as Campos .
In 1922 the ship was transferred to Lloyd Brasileiros, who used it as Campos in mixed coastal service until its end . With the Campos Salles (ex San Nicolas ), the Santos (as with the HSDG) and the Baependy (ex Tijuca ), the Brazilian shipping company owned four ships of this type. The state shipping company took over about 40 of the German ships and organized liner services with them to the USA and Europe.
The fall of the Campos
The ship was on 23 October 1943 with 63 people, including six passengers, on board on the voyage from Rio de Janeiro to Rio Grande (Rio Grande do Sul) in ballast, when it was at the position 24 ° 42 ′ 0 ″ S , 45 ° 45 ′ 0 ″ W torpedoed by U 170 under Lieutenant Günther Pfeffer. Since the engine was not switched off, the steamer ran in circles and destroyed two lifeboats, killing 7 men. The other two lifeboats reached the mainland with 51 survivors. A total of ten crew members and two passengers died in the sinking of the Campos , the last sinking of a Brazilian merchant ship in World War II.
Fate of the sister ships | |||||
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Surname | Shipyard | GRT | Launch | in service | further fate |
Tucuman | Blohm & Voss building no. 110 |
4702 | October 17, 1895 | December 1, 1895 | Confiscated in Punta Arenas in September 1918, crew destroyed machine, towed to Hamburg in 1919, formally delivered in 1921, repurchase by HSDG, demolition from 1927 |
Cordoba | Reiherstieg BauNr. 396 |
4889 | October 28, 1895 | December 21, 1895 | with the Imperial Navy in 1914 as a canal sinking steamer in Brunsbüttel , later delivered to the Technical Commission as a test ship, March 28, 1919, service with the Orient Line , May 22, 1920 on a journey from Rangoon to Istanbul near Socotra caught fire and given up |
Sao Paulo | Blohm & Voss building no. 117 |
4724 | October 3, 1896 | December 6, 1896 | 1914 as Sperrbrecher 8 for the Imperial Navy, 14 January 1915 ran west of Amrum on a mine and sank, 3 dead |
Petropolis | Reiherstieg BauNr. 398 |
4792 | April 10, 1897 | July 2, 1896 | Confiscated by Portugal in Funchal in 1914, February 1916: Madeira torpedoed by UB 105 off San Pietro on October 7, 1918 |
Pernambuco | Blohm & Voss building no. 122 |
4788 | May 13, 1897 | July 15, 1897 | 18 October 1915 torpedoed off Oxelösund with ore cargo by British submarine E 9 |
Belgrano | Reiherstieg BauNr. 399 |
4792 | 07.1897 | October 22, 1897 | 1914 in La Coruña, hotel ship, delivered to France on June 5, 1919, used as a troop transport in the Mediterranean in 1922/23, scrapped in 1932 |
San Nicolas | Blohm & Voss building no. 124 |
4739 | September 25, 1897 | November 21, 1897 | 1914 Pernambuco, confiscated by Brazil in June 1917: Alfenas , 1923 Campos Salles , scrapped in 1962 |
Bahia | Reiherstieg BauNr. 400 |
4817 | March 19, 1898 | June 30, 1898 | Confiscated by Uruguay in 1914 in Montevideo, September 1917: Paysandu , scrapped in 1927 |
Santos | Reiherstieg BauNr. 402 |
4855 | December 7, 1898 | March 16, 1899 | 1914 in Pernambuco, confiscated by Brazil in June 1917, scrapped in 1961 |
Tijuca | Blohm & Voss building no. 135 |
4801 | July 5, 1899 | August 5, 1899 | 1914 Pernambuco, confiscated by Brazil in June 1917: Baependy , 16 August 1942 torpedoed northeast Bahia by U 507 |
From 1937 the shipping company owned an Asuncion again when it renamed Niederwald , which was taken over by HAPAG and which was lost in 1942 off Norway due to a mine hit.
literature
- Arnold Kludas : The ships of Hamburg-Süd 1871 to 1951 . Gerhard Stalling Verlag, Oldenburg 1976, ISBN 3-7979-1875-5 .
- Arnold Kludas: The History of German Passenger Shipping. Volume 2: Expansion in all seas 1890 to 1900. Ernst Kabel Verlag, Hamburg 1988, ISBN 3-8225-0039-9 . ( Writings of the German Maritime Museum 19)
- Hans Georg Prager : Blohm & Voss. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft , Herford 1977, ISBN 3-7822-0127-2 .
Web links
- HSDG ship list on "theshipslist.com"
- Sinking the Campos on "uboat.net"
- Sinkings of British merchant ships in 1914 to naval-history.net (Engl.)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Kludas: The ships of Hamburg-Süd 1871–1951. P. 40.
- ↑ a b c d e Kludas: The history of the German passenger shipping. Vol. II, pp. 136f.
- ↑ Kludas, Passenger Shipping, Vol. II, pp. 142f.
- ^ Herbert: Kriegsfahrten German merchant ships , p. 18.
- ↑ a b Herbert: Kriegsfahrten Deutscher Handelsschiffe , p. 19.
- ^ Herbert: Kriegsfahrten Deutscher Handelsschiffe , p. 152.