Resolute (ship, 1920)
 The Lombardia ex Resolute
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The Resolute of the Hamburg-American Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft (Hapag) was launched in 1914 as William O'swald for the Hamburg shipping company's South American service. During the World War 1916 she was sold to the Koninklijke Hollandsche Lloyd , from July 1920 she was used by the Dutch shipping company in service between Amsterdam and the ports on La Plata . In 1922, the United American Lines (UAL) cooperating with Hapag bought the ship and operated it between Hamburg and New York under the name Resolute . In 1923, like other ships on the American line to Panama , the ship was flagged out to circumvent American prohibition laws.
On July 27, 1926, Hapag separated from United American Lines and bought the Resolute and two other former Hapag ships (the sister ship Reliance and the Cleveland ) from UAL in order to operate independently again. From 1928 the Resolute was used almost exclusively as a cruise ship. In August 1935 she was sold to Italy and used as a troop transport under the name Lombardia . During an Allied air raid on Naples , the Lombardia was hit and sank. The wreck of the former Resolute was lifted after the end of the war and scrapped in La Spezia .
Building history
When the First World War broke out, three steamers of around 20,000 GRT were under construction for Hapag's South America service. After at AG Vulcan in Stettin way past 1913 launched Admiral von Tirpitz and on 10 February 1914. Joh. C. Tecklenborg in Geestemünde overflowed launched sister ship Johann Heinrich Burchard on March 30, 1914 was at the AG Weser in Bremen , the William O'swald was the last of the Hapag South American ships to be launched.
The ship was named after the Hamburg Senator William Henry O'Swald (1832–1923). The planned ship with a size of almost 20,000 GRT should be able to carry 1,000 cabin passengers in three classes as well as up to 850 emigrants in the tween deck. The William O'swald was to form a common timetable of almost identical ships with her sister ship to be delivered by Tecklenborg and the Hamburg-Süd steamers Cap Trafalgar and Cap Polonio . The two steamers of the HSDG were two-masted three-chimney and received a three-screw drive, which was driven by two triple expansion engines on the outer shafts and an exhaust gas turbine on the central shaft. However, only the Cap Trafalgar was finished before the outbreak of war and was then lost as an auxiliary cruiser. The AG Weser, which was busy with armaments contracts, stopped building the William O'swald after the outbreak of war . In June 1916 the ship was sold to the Koninklije Hollandsche Lloyd (KHL) together with the sister ship Johann Heinrich Burchard, which was under construction near Tecklenborg , after this shipping company had lost the Tubantia to a German submarine . The delivery date for the ships should be the end of the war. So it happened that the ship never went to sea under his baptismal name and began its career as Brabantia .
Use under foreign flags
At the end of the war, the prefabricated construction and equipment of the ship, renamed Brabantia , began. It left Bremerhaven on July 28, 1920 and began serving the new owner KHL between Amsterdam and Argentina. At 20,200 GRT, the Brabantia was able to transport 355 passengers in the first class, 284 in the second and a further 469 in the third. In addition to the 1,108 cabin passengers, 857 passengers could travel to South America on the tween deck. Whether the sale of the two sister ships during the war was still legal under the terms of the peace treaty remained a matter of dispute until 1922.
In 1922, Hollandsche Lloyd sold four of its passenger ships to Hapag and the United American Lines (UAL) of the Harriman Group, which operated in a shared timetable . The UAL received the two almost new, former Hapag ships Limburgia and Brabantia for their share in the joint North Atlantic line between Hamburg and New York as the largest ships, which they renamed Reliance and Resolute , while Hapag received the older, slightly over 7,000 GRT Frisia and Hollandia (built in 1909), which were used as Holsatia and Hammonia on the route to Mexico.
Resolute and Reliance were modernized again at Blohm & Voss , were given a pure oil-firing system and a more spacious passenger facility, which now has space for 290 passengers in the 1st class, 320 in the 2nd class and 400 in the III. Class bot. On April 11, 1922, the Resolute started as the first of the sister ships in Hamburg on her first voyage under the American flag via Southampton and Cherbourg to New York. From 1923 she was used, like her sister ship Reliance and the Cleveland , also used by the UAL , to circumvent the American prohibition regulations under the flag of Panama .
With the two ships that were planned to be very luxurious from the start, UAL also resumed parts of Hapag's pre-war cruise program. The Resolute made its first trip around the world on January 9, 1923, not like most such trips eastwards from the USA, but through the Panama Canal to Hawaii and for 14 days to Japan. The journey continued via China, the Philippines, Zamboanga , four days before Java, around the Malay Peninsula and Burma to India, where 21 days were available for excursions to Kashmir . The Resolute ran to Ceylon and then to Suez . Excursion programs were still carried out in Egypt and Italy. Monte Carlo was the last port in Europe to be called . From January 19 to May 4, 1924, the ship carried out its second voyage around the world with 396 passengers from New York to New York. The trip led through the Mediterranean to East Asia and also into the South Seas , where Apia and Papeete were visited, and finally through the Panama Canal back to the starting point. The trip was organized by the travel agency Raymond & Whitcomb .
Two follow-up trips offered for 1925/1926 around the turn of the year took over the routes from the prewar voyages of the Cleveland and did without the expensive canal passage. It was a return trip to California across the Mediterranean and East Asia. Before these voyages, the Resolute made a special trip when it carried out a 66-day “Around South America Tour” from January 24 to March 26, 1925, from New York via Havana , Jamaica and the Panama Canal along the West Coast of South America to the Strait of Magellan which passed the Resolute as the first large passenger ship after the World War. The journey then went north again along the east coast. Inland excursions were offered in the ports of the continent. The trip was concluded with a cruise through the Caribbean.
Your last trip for the American shipping company began on July 13, 1926 in Hamburg on the main route to New York. On July 27, Hapag bought itself free again from the timetable joint venture with the American line and at the same time acquired its three former ships, most recently used under the Panamanian flag, in order to be able to conduct North Atlantic traffic independently again.
Back in the service of Hapag
On August 10, 1926, the Resolute began service on the Hamburg - Southampton - Cherbourg - New York route for Hapag under the name introduced to the American public. However, the New York service was now primarily handled by the newbuildings of the Albert Ballin class , of which all four ships were operational at the beginning of the 1927 season. Hapag tried to build on the successes in the cruise business before the World War with the Resolute and its sister, whereby these trips were still called pleasure trips.
The Resolute opened its part of Hapag's new cruise program from 6 January to May 1927 with the first Hapag world tour after the war and then also with a Nordland cruise. By 1935 she made eight more trips around the world. The captain on these voyages was the future commodore of Hapag, Friedrich Ferdinand Heinrich Kruse (1874–1945), who had already been chief officer of the Cleveland before the war .
The Resolute was overhauled in June 1930 and June 1931 and its passenger facilities were adapted. In 1930 the II. Class was renamed the tourist class and in 1931 the III. Class abolished. Despite the global economic crisis, there was initially no slump in sales of luxury travel. At the end of August 1933 it made its last scheduled trip between Hamburg and New York and was then only used for cruises until it was sold in 1935. The increasing conflicts of the German Reich with other nations reduced the number of foreign passengers and the possibilities of international trips and travel programs. The lower utilization of the liner ships also led to overcapacities. Hapag therefore sold the Resolute to Italy in 1935, expecting the ship there to be demolished.
The end as Lombardia
The Italian government took over the Resolute , which was sold by Hapag on August 22, 1935, and had it converted into a troop transport that offered over 103 seats in a first class and space for 4400 soldiers. The ship, renamed Lombardia , was operated by Lloyd Triestino and was used in the Abyssinian War from September 28, 1935. After about 20 trips to Ethiopia, further missions took place to bring “Italian volunteers” to Cádiz when Italy was involved in the Spanish Civil War on the side of the Franco troops . The ship was also used as a troop transport during World War II . The ship was hit and sunk in an Allied bombing raid on Naples . The ship was completely demolished in La Spezia in 1947 .
literature
- Arnold Kludas : The History of the German Passenger Shipping Volume III Leap growth 1900 to 1914 , Writings of the German Shipping Museum, Volume 20
- Arnold Kludas: The History of German Passenger Shipping Volume IV Destruction and Rebirth 1914 to 1930 , Writings of the German Shipping Museum, Volume 21
- Arnold Kludas: The History of German Passenger Shipping Vol. V An era comes to an end from 1930 to 1990 , writings of the German Maritime Museum, volume 22
- Claus Rothe: German ocean passenger ships 1896 to 1918 . Steiger Verlag, 1986, ISBN 3-921564-80-8 .
Web links
- United American Lines' Resolute and Reliance
- Thorsten Totzke: The Resolute
- List of 396 passengers on the 1924 world tour
- Booklet and advertisement for the 1927 world tour
- Photos from China during the world tour in 1932
- Advertisement in the Pittsburgh Press of October 16, 1932 for Resolute's 1933 world tour
Footnotes
- ↑ Rothe, p. 147.
- ↑ a b c d Rothe, p. 148.
- ^ Kludas, Vol. III, p. 102.
- ^ Kludas, Vol. IV, p. 222.
- ↑ a b Kludas, Vol. V, p. 109.
- ↑ Schmelzkopf, p. 184: Resolute is one of six large passenger ships that are acquired for the upcoming Abyssinian War; next to Coblenz , Saarbrücken , Sierra Ventana , Werra and General Miter