Rauenfels (ship, 1928)
 The Rauenfels
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The second Rauenfels of the Deutsche Dampfschiffahrtsgesellschaft Hansa (DDG Hansa) was one of four sister ships of the shipping company for the Vorderindiendienst, which came into service in 1928.
At the beginning of the Second World War, the ship was at home. In 1940 the Rauenfels was used as a transporter for the Weser Exercise company . She belonged to the "export squadron " and was supposed to bring heavy equipment and supplies to the troops used to conquer Narvik and reach the port as early as possible after the occupation. The lone ship ran on April 10, 1940 in the Ofotfjord off Narvik in the British destroyers from the first attack on Narvik. The crew tried to aground their ship, but it was shot at by the Havock and torn apart by a hit in the ammunition load.
History of the ship
The Rauenfels was launched on January 3, 1928 as the first of four sister ships at Bremer Vulkan and was delivered to DDG Hansa on February 29, 1928. Previously, the shipyard had the sister ship Wachtfels from now to Deschimag belonging Tecklenborgwerft get in Geestemünde that the other two sister ships Lindenfels and Treuenfels delivered in April and June 1928 (BauNr. 424-426). They were the shipping company's largest newbuildings since the end of the war and the start of a new building program for DDG Hansa
The naming reminds of pre-war ships. The first Rauenfels (5472 GRT) had Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson Ltd. Delivered to DDG Hansa in 1907. She had sought refuge in neutral Brazil in 1914 and was then confiscated in 1917. As Lajes she was in service under the Brazilian flag until 1942 (until she was sunk by a German submarine).
The Rauenfels was 155.52 m long and 18.97 m wide. The ship was measured with 8460 GRT and 5207 NRT with a load capacity of 12,300 dwt. The ships of the series had two masts, a chimney far behind the bridge, a round stern and a fairly straight bow. the loading gear consisted of one 30 t and eighteen 5 t booms . It was driven by a triple expansion machine and a connected Bauer-Wach steam turbine . A total of 5100 PSi were available, which enabled the Rauenfels to reach a service speed of 13.5 knots . The crew of the ship consisted of 37 Europeans and 46 Indians in the service of the DDG Hansa. There was space for 8 passengers on board.
The Rauenfels was used with her sister ships in the shipping company's route to India and Burma.
When the Rauenfels left for Karachi and Bombay towards the end of August 1939 , it was stopped in Antwerp and returned to Bremen before the war broke out.
War effort
In autumn 1939 the ship was used to transport ore on the Baltic Sea.
In March 1940, the Rauenfels was used as a transporter for Operation Weser Exercise , the German occupation of Norway. She was assigned to the "export squadron " that was supposed to transport the heavy equipment of the first landing units. In the first few hours of April 3, she left with the two other transporters Bärenfels and Alster intended for Narvik as well as the tanker Kattegat Brunsbüttel to reach Narvik by April 9. The whaling mother ship Jan Wellem from the so-called Base North near Murmansk , which was used as a tanker and was ultimately the only German supplier to reach its destination before the actual invasion, was also supposed to arrive there.
The charge of the Rauenfels consisted of three 15-cm artillery pieces, four 10.5-cm anti-aircraft guns, ten 20-mm anti-aircraft guns and other Wehrmacht equipment. On April 10, the ship reached the Ofotfjord and ran through the western part towards Narvik. When the British destroyers returning from the attack on the German destroyers in Narvik came towards her, the Rauenfels tried to get to safety on the rocky beach. The damaged Havock took the German transport under fire and quickly scored hits. An explosion of ammunition in hatch III tore the ship apart, with the explosion cloud visible as far as Narvik, creating the hope that one of the damaged British destroyers had exploded.
The wreck was outside the area occupied by the Germans, so that the Norwegians were able to recover considerable amounts of ammunition, a 20 mm anti-aircraft gun, rifles, cars, motorcycles and 300,000 cans of food in April and May 1940 and for the Allied troops in the north -Norway used.
In 1950, part of the wreck was scrapped on site, and in 1978 the Norwegian Navy blew up the last remains of the wreck.
Sister ships
| Surname | Shipyard | GRT tdw |
Launched in service |
further fate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Quail rock (2) |
Tecklenborg building no. 424 |
8467 11,960 |
05/01/1928 02/19/1928 |
1939 Bari, relocated to Trieste, from October 1940 naval transporter, sunk by HMS Proteus northwest of Milos on August 6, 1942 , five dead |
| Rauenfels (2) |
Bremer Vulkan BauNr. 645 |
8460 12,300 |
3.01.1928 29.02.1928 |
at home, in 1940 for the Weser Exercise Company in the "export squadron", on April 10, 1940 in the Ofotfjord in the British destroyer from the first attack on Narvik, torn by a Havock hit in the ammunition load. |
| Lindenfels (3) | Tecklenborg building no. 425 |
8457 12,395 |
March 6, 1928 April 21, 1928 |
1935 Accident on the Ganges , 1939 Sabang , 1940: Mangkalihat , May 1942 hit a mine off South Africa, torpedoed by U 198 in the Mozambique Canal on August 1, 1943 , sunk on August 4 |
| Treuenfels (2) | Tecklenborg building no. 426 |
8457 12,395 |
April 19, 1928 June 4, 1928 |
1935 The propeller shaft breaks in the Indian Ocean, in August 1940 intended as Transporter A 22 (Antwerp) for the company "Seelöwe" , delivered to Great Britain in 1947: Empire Garry , then Vergray , from 1951 to 1956 Elath under the Israeli flag, to Japan: Shinano Maru , 1961 conversion to a fishing factory motor ship (8,647 GRT, 5,700 PSe diesel, 12.75 kn, August 1972 sold to Taiwan for demolition |
literature
- Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronicle of the Naval War 1939-1945 , Manfred Pawlak VerlagsGmbH (Herrsching 1968), ISBN 3-88199-0097
- Reinhardt Schmelzkopf: German merchant shipping 1919–1939. Volume 1: Chronicle and evaluation of the events in shipping and shipbuilding. Gerhard Stalling, Oldenburg 1974, ISBN 3-7979-1847-X .
- Trygve Sandvik: Krigen i Norge 1940 - Operasjonene til lands i Nord-Norge 1940 , 2 volumes, Forsvarets Krigshistoriske Avdeling / Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, Oslo (1965).
- Erik Anker Steen: Norge sjøkrig 1940-1945 - Sjøforsvarets kamper og virke i Nord-Norge 1940 , Forsvarets Krigshistoriske Avdeling / Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, Oslo (1958).
Web links
- The Rauenfels on ddghansa with left to the sister ships
- Use of the Rauenfels
- Sinking of the Rauenfels
- TK Derry: THE CAMPAIGN IN NORWAY
- NAVAL EVENTS, APRIL1940 (Part 2 of 4)
- Equipment Transport Echelon ( Memento from November 10, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Schmelzkopf: Handelsschiffahrt , p. 109
- ↑ sinking of Lages
- ↑ Loss of the Wachtfels
- ↑ Sinking of the Mangkalihat