Pollux (ship, 1943)

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The Pollux was an icebreaker of the German Navy during World War II . It was sunk in February 1945 by a mine hit in the Baltic Sea .

Construction and technical data

The ship was in 1939 on behalf of the Soviet Union in the Machinefabriek en Scheepswerf van P. Smit Jr. in Rotterdam set to Kiel . When the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg were attacked in May 1940, the shipyard and with it the unfinished ship fell into German hands. The Navy, which had the icebreaker Castor in its final equipment at the Schichau Works and had planned the construction of a sister ship there called Pollux , decided instead to take over and continue the already advanced construction in Rotterdam. After its preliminary completion, the ship was relocated to Kiel , where it was completed by Deutsche Werke Kiel AG (DWK) and received its armament, a gun on the bow and two twin flaks aft . The Pollux was put into service on December 18, 1943 and received her registration as an icebreaker by Germanischer Lloyd on January 10, 1944. She was 78.45 m long and 19.03 m wide and had a draft of 6.80 m and a water displacement of approx. 4500 t.

Navy

The Pollux served mainly in the Baltic Sea as an icebreaker, tugboat and escort boat . Among other things, she was involved in the relocation of the unfinished heavy cruiser Seydlitz from Kiel to Königsberg from March 30 to April 2, 1944 . Most recently in 1945 she took part in the evacuation of German refugees from East Prussia and Pomerania . The ship ran on February 8, 1945 about 3.5 nautical miles northwest of Pillau , abeam of the Neuhäuser settlement, on a mine probably laid by the Soviet submarine L-3 on February 2, and was relatively shallow by its crew Water set on the ground. A rescue attempt by the Navy on February 9 failed and the ship was abandoned.

The wreck was found and identified in 2009 by the project WreckHunter ( проект WreckHunter ), members of the diving club at the "Museum of the World Ocean" in Kaliningrad . It lies on a level keel at a depth of about 13 m, with washouts of up to 17 m below the bow and stern, and the superstructure has been destroyed. An 18-minute video was released in early 2011.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Today as Metschnikowo a district of Baltijsk .
  2. ↑ L-3, Submarine of the L (Leninec) class
  3. ↑ Video on the discovery and identification of the wreck , in Russian with English subtitles

Web links

literature

  • S. Breyer: Marine-Arsenal, special issue Volume 20: "The historical side: Little known ship units of the Navy: icebreaker Pollux." Podzun-Pallas, Wölfersheim, 2000, ISBN 3-7909-0711-1