RMS Laconia (ship, 1921)
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The RMS Laconia (II) was a 1922 posed in service Transatlantic - passenger ship of the British shipping company Cunard Line , which the passenger - and mail services between the UK and the USA was used. With almost 20,000 GRT it was one of the largest British passenger ships built shortly after the First World War . During the Second World War , the former luxury steamer served as a troop transport for soldiers and prisoners of war.
With 2,741 people on board, including 1809 Italian prisoners of war from North Africa, the Laconia was sunk on September 12, 1942 in the South Atlantic by U 156 , a submarine of the German Navy . The submarine U 156 called in more ships on an open frequency to take in as many castaways as possible. Although it was a rescue operation, the submarine formation was attacked by a US bomber . The Commander of Submarines Karl Doenitz announced, the " Laconia command " out of any assistance towards survivors forbade sunk enemy ships. A total of 1,658 people were killed in the sinking and bombing of the rescue fleet.
Service time as a passenger ship
The Laconia was the successor to the first Laconia (18,099 GRT) put into service in 1911 , which was sunk off the Irish coast by the German U 50 in February 1917 . Her sister ships were the Scythia (II) (19,730 GRT) and the Samaria (II) (19,602 GRT).
The second Laconia was launched on April 9, 1921 at the Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson shipyard in Wallsend . The steamship had a single chimney and two masts . The two propellers were powered by six steam turbines from Wallsend Slipway & Engineering Company , which developed 12,500 shaft horsepower and accelerated the ship to up to 16 knots (29.6 km / h). The ship was designed to carry 350 passengers in the first, 350 in the second and 1,500 in the third class.
On May 25, 1922, the ship ran from Liverpool on its maiden voyage , which led via Queenstown to New York . On June 22, 1922, regular trips began on the Liverpool – Queenstown – Boston – New York line. In January 1923, the Laconia undertook her first circumnavigation of the world , calling at 22 ports in 130 days. On June 26, 1923, the first crossing began on the Hamburg - Southampton - Cherbourg - New York route and from December 1, 1923, it was used again on the original Liverpool - New York route.
From April 1928 there were new passenger classes, the cabin class, tourist class and third class. On September 24, 1934, the Laconia collided in fog with the small cargo steamer Pan Royal of the Pan Atlantic Steamship Company while traveling from Boston to New York . The bow of the passenger ship bored deep into the port side of the freighter. Both ships were able to continue their respective voyages on their own. The Laconia was repaired in New York and resumed operation in 1935. On August 12, 1939, the last journey in peacetime began in Liverpool with the destination New York.
Use in World War II
On September 4, 1939, the Laconia was requested for the services of the Royal Navy and then drove to Portsmouth , where it was converted into an armed auxiliary cruiser for the Royal Navy. It was equipped with eight 152 mm cannons and two 76 mm cannons. After the test drives on the Isle of Wight , gold bars were loaded onto the ship and on January 23, 1940, she set out for a trip to Portland (Maine) and Halifax (Nova Scotia) . In the following months, the Laconia served as escort for ship convoys to Bermuda , where they joined other convoys.
On June 9, 1940, the Laconia ran aground in the Bedford Basin bay off Halifax and was damaged. At the end of July it was completely restored. In October, the passenger quarters were dismantled and partially filled with empty oil drums in order to achieve better floatability in the event of a possible torpedo.
Between June and August 1941, another repair followed in Saint John , after which the Laconia was sent to Great Britain to be used as a troop transport . On September 12, 1941, she moored at Bidstock Dock in Birkenhead Harbor . At the Cammell, Laird & Company shipyard in Birkenhead, the ship was converted into a troop transport in the following months. From October 1, 1941, the ship was officially transferred to the Ministry of War Transport (MoWT). The work was completed in early 1942. From then on, Laconia carried out troop trips to Cape Town and Freetown , often zigzagging and taking other precautionary measures.
Sinking
In September 1942 the Laconia was on a voyage from Suez (Egypt) via Aden (Yemen), Mombasa (Kenya), Durban (South Africa) and Cape Town to Canada. The command was 56-year-old Rudolph Sharp, a bearer of the Order of the British Empire and long-time Cunard captain, who had already stood on the bridge of the RMS Queen Mary and was in command of the Lancastria in June 1940 when it was in a German air raid was sunk. After the last stop in Cape Town on September 1, the Laconia steamed in a north-westerly direction through the South Atlantic . On board were 2,741 people, including the crew , 366 regular passengers; among them many women and children, but also officers and soldiers, 1,809 Italian prisoners of war and 103 members of the Free Polish Army to guard them. There were also 200 tons of cargo on board. On Saturday, September 12, 1942 at 10:07 p.m. the Laconia was discovered about 360 nautical miles northeast of the Atlantic island of Ascension by the German submarine U 156 , which was under the command of Corvette Captain Werner Hartenstein on its fourth patrol .
The ship was on starboard by a torpedo hit and took a heavy list to. The approximately 450 Italian prisoners housed there died in the department that was hit. Captain Sharp ordered the women, children and the injured to be disembarked when a second torpedo struck in hold no. Some of the 32 lifeboats were destroyed by the explosions and the Italian prisoners of war tried to storm the rest. U 156 stayed nearby in order to be able to capture the senior officers of the ship. Upon surfacing, Captain Hartenstein saw hundreds of people on board the ship and in the water fighting for their survival. To 23:23 went Laconia at position 5 ° 5 ' S , 11 ° 38' W below. When Hartenstein realized that there were civilians and prisoners of war among the castaways, he immediately began rescuing survivors. At 1:25 a.m. on September 13, he sent a radio message to the Commander of the U-Boats (BdU) asking for help.
On September 15, the German submarines U 506 (Kapitänleutnant Erich Würdemann ) and U 507 (Korvettenkapitän Harro Schacht ) as well as the Italian submarine Cappellini (commander Marco Revedin) arrived at the site of the sinking. The four submarines took several lifeboats in tow and drove under the flag of the Red Cross to meet warships of the Vichy fleet. They radioed that they were taking part in a rescue operation. On September 16, the liquor was from a US-based maritime patrol aircraft of the type Consolidated PB4Y attacked, that of Wideawake Airfield had taken off at Ascension from. The bombs dropped hit lifeboats and grazed U 156 , so that Hartenstein had the lines to the boats cut. On the night of September 17, U 156 was released from the rescue operation by the BdU and the other U-boats were ordered to submerge.
Captain Sharp, 97 crew members, 133 passengers, 33 Polish guards and 1,394 prisoners of war, a total of 1,658 people, were killed by the sinking of the Laconia and the bombing of the submarines by Americans. Lady Grizel Wolfe-Murray (1913–1942), daughter of the Earl of Glasgow, was also among the fatalities . Between September 17 and 20, 1,083 survivors were picked up from the light cruiser Gloire , the sloop Dumont d'Urville and the mine sweeper Annamite and brought to Dakar . These included 425 Italian prisoners of war, 179 members of the Royal Navy , 104 members of the British Army , 79 members of the Royal Air Force , 186 members of the British Merchant Navy , 70 Polish soldiers and 50 women and children. The 668 Allied survivors were then brought to Casablanca by the Gloire .
The incident, known as the “ Laconia Incident”, resulted in the Laconia order issued by Admiral Karl Dönitz , which forbade German submarine crews to come to the aid of the survivors of a sunk ship of an enemy nation.
Cinematic reception
The events surrounding the sinking of Laconia were filmed in a German-British co-production under the title Laconia (original title The Sinking of the Laconia ) for television (directed by Uwe Janson ) and in November 2011 and January 2015 by ARD, as well as in April 2018 by SWR and in August 2018 by HR as a two-parter.
literature
- Hans-Joachim Röll: U 156, Werner Hartenstein and the sinking of the “Laconia”. The largest shipwreck rescue operation in naval history . Flechsig, Würzburg 2010, ISBN 978-3-8035-0018-2 .
Web links
- Short version of the history of Laconia
- Ship description in The Ships List (upper third)
- Details on the Laconia's last voyage and the Laconia command in the submarine database
- The Laconia in the wreck database
Footnotes
- ↑ RMS Laconia on shipwreckworld.com. Retrieved August 25, 2018 .
- ↑ IMDB