Pomerania (ship, 1939)
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The Pommern was a former French refrigerated ship that was confiscated by the German Navy in December 1942 and then used first as a so-called " fast escort boat ", then from April 1943 until its sinking in October 1943 as a mine ship.
Reefer ship Belain d'Esnambuc
The ship ran in 1939 on the shipyard Framnäs Mekaniske Værksted in Sandefjord ( Norway ) with the hull number 124 and the name Jasmine for Jasmin Operating Co. of the Norwegian shipowner Anders years from the stack . It was 102.7 m long (96.5 m in the waterline ) and 14.1 m wide, had a draft of 4.9 m and was measured at 2956 GRT . 6-cylinder diesel engine of Sulzer with 3650 PS and a screw allowed a maximum speed of 17 knots . The ship was to be used to transport bananas from Panama to Europe.
Because of the outbreak of war in September 1939, the French government, which considered its national merchant fleet inadequate under war conditions, bought the ship while it was still on the slipway . The ship, now renamed Belain d`Esnambuc , was delivered to Le Havre on February 18, 1940 and assigned to the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique to operate . From June 1940 the ship operated between southern France, North Africa and the Caribbean.
Mine ship Pomerania
After the occupation of southern France by the Wehrmacht was Belain d'Esnambuc on 16 December 1942 as part of the Laval-Kaufmann Agreement , in Marseille on the Mediterranean shipping company repossessed and Flora I renamed. However, it was then requisitioned by the Navy, converted into a so-called “fast escort boat” and put into service on February 23, 1943 with the designation SG 7 . Then it was decided to equip it as a mine ship. The renovation took place in La Ciotat . The ship was armed with three 10.5 cm guns, three 3.7 cm anti-aircraft guns , sixteen 20 mm anti-aircraft guns and six depth charges. It could hold up to 195 EMC / EMF mines or 204 UMB mines.
The ship was renamed Pomerania and was used on April 22nd, together with the Brandenburg mine ship, which was also captured and converted in Marseille, to lay mine barriers in the sea area southwest of Sardinia . Commander became lieutenant captain of the reserve E. Heydemann. In the following months the Pomerania was involved , mostly together with the Brandenburg , in numerous mining companies on the coast of Sardinia, in the Gulf of Gaeta , in the Gulf of Salerno and in the Strait of Bonifacio .
On September 9, 1943, the day after the announcement of the Italian armistice , the Pomeranians and Brandenburg met the Italian auxiliary cruiser Piero Foscari and the freighter Valverde near Castiglioncello south of Livorno . They attacked the two ships, which were being shot at by German army artillery from the land side. Both Italian ships had to be put on the beach. The two mine ships drove further north, still supported by army artillery on self-propelled guns , and captured the Italian miner Buffoluto after an artillery duel .
On the morning of October 5, 1943 , on the march to a blocking operation north of Cap Corse , the Pomerania ran with a load of mines on board in the Ligurian Sea southeast of San Remo at position 43 ° 47 ′ 0 ″ N , 7 ° 51 ′ 0 ″ E in an old Italian minefield, apparently unknown to its commander, on a mine and sank. 20 men of their crew were killed.
Individual evidence
- ↑ The ship was named after the French adventurer and privateer Pierre Belain d'Esnambuc (1585-1636), who founded the first permanent French colony of Saint-Pierre on the Caribbean island of Martinique in 1635 .
- ↑ http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/43-04.htm
- ↑ http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/43-05.htm
- ↑ http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/43-07.htm
- ↑ Vincent O'Hara, Enrico Cernuschi: Dark Navy. The Italian Regia Marina and the Armistice of 8 September 1943. Nimble Books LLC, Ann Arbor MI 2009, ISBN 978-1-934840-91-7 , p. 45.
- ↑ http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/43-10.htm
Web links
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 .