Rheinfels (ship, 1918)
 The third Rheinfels
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
.svg){kind=small}
The third Rheinfels of the Deutsche Dampfschiffahrtsgesellschaft Hansa (DDG "Hansa"), bought in 1926 , belonged to a series of four cargo ships that were acquired by the shipping company von Furness, Withy & Co. in 1926/27 . The four steamships built in Great Britain shortly before the end of the war were resold in 1938 to the Hamburg-South American Steamship Company , where they were given names beginning with Bahia .
In 1939 the Rheinfels, renamed Bahia Castillo , managed to break through the blockade in the home of Tenerife via Murmansk . In early May 1940 the ship was torpedoed as a troop transport in the Kattegat by the British submarine HMS Narwhal . The heavily damaged Bahia Castillo could be brought to Kiel , but it was an economic total loss and was scrapped.
History of the ship
The third Rheinfels of the DDG “Hansa” had two namesake.
The first at Sunderland Shipbuilding Co. Ltd. The Rheinfels built of 2867 GRT was a Trifels class ship that was in service with the DDG "Hansa" from 1889 to 1904. Under the Italian flag since 1908, she was lost as Febo on December 18, 1921 due to stranding off Alexandria.
The second Rheinfels was a cargo ship of 5512 GRT of the Rheinfels class built by Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson , which was in service from 1905 to 1914. Applied off Bombay in 1914 when war broke out, it was under the British flag until it was demolished in 1933 as Baxtergate in the service of Turnbull, Scott & Co.
The ships were named after Rheinfels Castle near St. Goar .
The third Rheinfels belonged to the Prince class bought in England. These four ships had already been ordered by Furness, Withy & Co before the end of the First World War as part of a newbuilding program of the shipping company as the largest ships from the British shipyards Short Brothers in Sunderland and Palmer's in Jarrow (South Tyneside) . The ships were intended for the England-Central America service of the shipping company's Prince Line. The model ship of the series was the Gaelic Prince (´26: Rheinfels ), the first new ship delivered by Short. It was launched on August 18, 1917. The second newbuilding by Short and the two ships manufactured by Palmers did not follow until 1918. The type ship was delivered on April 11, 1918 to Prince Lines Ltd., Newcastle . The three sister ships followed between June and October 1918. They had a dead weight of over 10,000 tdw, were 448.5 ft long, 57.2 ft wide and had a draft of up to 39.2 ft. The ships were propelled by four-fold Expansion engines of 3250 hp, which gave the newbuildings a top speed of between 11 and 12 knots (kn).
Mission history
_als_Gaelic_Prince_1918.jpg)
The newbuildings of the Prince Line came into service during wartime and their first missions were determined by the final war effort and the subsequent repatriations. The first area of application for the new buildings was the North Atlantic. The Gaelic Prince excelled in August 1918 when she towed the USS Katrina Luckenbach (1918, 8,074 GRT) over 1,356 miles to Newport News from the 9th to the 16th . Initially in a convoy, both ships were ballasted on their way from Gibraltar to US ports. On the Katrina Luckenbach , the machine had failed due to water in the fuel oil. On October 9, 1919, the Gaelic Prince was rammed by the USAT Antigone (ex Neckar ) in front of New York . With damage above and below the waterline, the British freighter tried to reach shallow water and landed near the Roamer Shoals Lighthouse. Once again the Gaelic Prince's shipping company managed to get compensation. Without any opponents, the ship ran aground on March 30, 1921 at the Great Round Shoal, Nantucket , and was only able to be released after eight days, after 900 tons of cargo had been removed. had pumped out liquid coconut oil . The oil clumped in the sea and was collected by the coastal inhabitants and over 400 tons. repurchased by agents of the shipping company.
On July 16, 1926, 400 miles west of Bishop Rock, in thick fog , the Gaelic Prince rammed the Trelawny (1906, 3877 GRT) of the Hain Steamship, whose crew was able to cross over to the Gaelic Prince in lifeboats before their ship sank .
Under the German flag
The four ships of the type Gaelic Prince were then sold by the Prince Line / Furness, Whithy & Co to the DDG "Hansa", which took over the type ship Gaelic Prince as the first ship on October 14, 1926 in Barry and on November 10 in Rheinfels renamed.
On November 6, 1926, the acquisition followed in Raven Rock renamed Slavic Prince in Birkenhead , in the November 25, 1926 Immingham in Schönfels renamed Celtic Prince followed. As the last ship, the fourth ship, the Gothic Prince , was taken over as Sonnenfels on March 15, 1927 in Immingham .
The ships of the Rheinfels class served on the main lines of the DDG “Hansa” to East India without any particular highlights. Externally visible changes were the higher masts and the dismantling of the two loading posts on the forecastle. From April 1938 the four ships were sold to Hamburg-Süd and gradually renamed in their service. All were given names that began with Bahia - .
The Rheinfels , which was transferred in June, was given the name Bahia Castillo on January 30, 1939 , which from 1913 to 1919 one of the large emigrant ships of Hamburg-Süd had already carried. The 1919 delivered to the victors first Bahia Castillo was in 1922 by Hugo Stinnes shipping bought back from the UK and as General Belgrano in the extensive dissolution of the existing Stinnes lines in 1926 to Hapag come, they during the Great Depression sold for demolition.
The second Bahia Castillo of Hamburg-Süd ran to Santa Cruz de Tenerife in Spain on August 27, 1939 on its return journey from Santos to Hamburg after receiving the first warning message QWA 7 about an imminent outbreak of war , which it then left again on the 29th but to return to Germany. In the event of an inspection, they wanted to pretend to be the Dutch steamer Castill . On September 16, 1939, the ship entered the Soviet Murmansk, from where it was transferred to Hamburg via Tromsø , Lødingen , Bergen and Haugesund from October 13 to 24 .
Military service
In 1939 the Bahia Castillo was converted into a troop transport . Originally intended as a ship of the export squadron during the occupation of Norway , she was replaced by the Main and assigned as a reserve ship of the 3rd sea transport squadron. She was in Oslo for the first time on April 15, 1940 during the course of the Weser Exercise Company. On her third voyage to Norway, she ran with parts of the 136th Mountain Infantry Regiment of the 2nd Mountain Division (1000 men and 390 horses) from Aalborg to Oslo on May 1, 1940 , when she was torpedoed southeast of Skagen in the Kattegat by the British submarine HMS Narwhal has been. When she hit the stern, she lost the rudder and propeller. 32 mountaineers and 60 horses died on board . Buenos Aires (1911, 6097 BRT) with 1000 men and 220 horses running with her in the convoy was hit in the same attack and sank after three hours (20 dead and all 220 horses). The Crete (1923, 2359 GRT) with 477 men and 196 horses and the Wiegand (1922, 5869 GRT) escaped undamaged.
The Bahia Castillo was brought in after Frederikshavn and towed on to Kiel from May 8th to 11th .
On August 31, 1940, the ship, which had been declared a total economic loss, was sold for demolition, which began the following month.
The Rheinfels- class ships
| Surname | Shipyard | GRT tdw |
Launched in service |
further fate |
| Rheinfels (3) | Short Bros. Build No. 395 |
8579 10,670 |
August 18, 1917 October 14, 1926 |
ex Gaelic Prince , England-Central America Service, purchased in 1926, East India Service, sold to Hamburg-Süd in June 1938: Bahia Castillo (renamed in 1939), 29 August to 16 September 1939 Blockade breakthrough from Santa Cruz de Tenerife to Murmansk, 13. Transfer to Hamburg until October 24, 1939, torpedoed by mountain troops near Skagen on May 1, 1940 on the way to Oslo, not repaired, demolished in 1940 |
| Raven Rock (2) |
Palmer's construction no. 865 |
8563 10,680 |
July 25, 1918 November 6, 1926 |
ex Slavic Prince , England-Central America Service, acquired in 1926, East India Service, sold to Hamburg-South American Steamship Company in May 1938: Bahia Laura (renamed June 9th, 1938), October 14th to December 5th, 1939 Blockade breakthrough from Buenos Aires via Montevideo to Hamburg, August to December 1940 intended for Operation Seelöwe , from April 25, 1941 troop transport, torpedoed and sunk by HMS Trident on August 30, 1941 on the way to Kirkenes , over 450 dead |
|
Schoenfels (2) |
Short Bros. Build No. 396 |
8559 10,670 |
13.02.1918 11.25.1926 |
ex Celtic Prince , England-Central America Service, purchased in 1926, East India Service, sold to Hamburg-Süd in July 1938: Bahia Blanca (renamed in 1938), December 9, 1939 from Rio de Janeiro to break through the blockade with a cargo of iron ore, tobacco and coffee , January 9, 1940 in the Denmark Strait collision with an iceberg, 11th stopped and sunk by HMS Newcastle , crew of 62 with an Icelandic fishing steamer to Iceland |
|
Sonnenfels (2) |
Palmer's construction no. 864 |
8552 10,580 |
May 23, 1918 March 15, 1927 |
ex Gothic Prince , England Central America Service, bought in 1927, East India Service, sold to Hamburg-Süd in September 1938: Bahia Camarones (renamed January 2, 1939), 1939 at home, October 1939 to end of July 1940 Sperrbrecher I (not Sperrbrecher 1 , formerly Saar ) of the Navy, June / July 1941 and April / May 1942 Marine transporter, with a carbon charge from Gdynia on 12 January 1945 by the destroyer HMS Onslow and Orwell before Egersund sunk |
Individual evidence
- ^ Kludas: Ships of the Hamburg-Süd 1871-1951 , p. 132ff.
- ↑ Gaelic Prince was awarded $ 93,000 respecting her salvage efforts
- ^ A Gift From The Sea - August 2008 Nantucket today
- ↑ The St. Ives Times and Echo, August 3rd 1962
- ↑ 3–28 September 1939 North Sea
- ^ Kludas, p. 134
- ↑ 1–20 May 1940 Norway
- ↑ 6-30 August 1941 North Sea
- ↑ January 9–11, 1940 North Atlantic
- ↑ 11-12 January 1945 Norway
Web links
- Gaelic Prince on THE SUNDERLAND SITE
- The Rheinfels (3) on ddghansa
- The Rheinfels (2)
- The Rheinfels
- Transport ships at the Weser exercise Bahia Castillo
literature
- Arnold Kludas : The ships of Hamburg-Süd 1871 to 1951 . Gerhard Stalling Verlag, Oldenburg 1976, ISBN 3-7979-1875-5 .
- Hans Georg Prager: DDG Hansa - from liner service to special shipping , Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford 1976, ISBN = 3-7822-0105-1
- Reinhardt Schmelzkopf: German merchant shipping 1919–1939 . Verlag Gerhard Stalling, Oldenburg, ISBN 3 7979 1847 X .
- Reinhold Thiel: The history of the DDG Hansa. Volume 1: 1881-1918. HM Hauschild, Bremen, 2010, ISBN 3-8975-7477-2