Rigel (ship, 1924)
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The Rigel was a cargo ship put into service under the Norwegian flag in 1924 . When it was sunk in World War II on November 27, 1944 as a German prisoner transporter , 2,571 people died. This is Norway's largest shipping disaster to date .
history
Prewar years
The Rigel was established in August 1924 by the shipyard Burmeister & Wain Maskin- og Skibsbyggeri in Copenhagen to the shipping company Bergen Steamship Company ( "Bergen Line") in Bergen delivered and first of these on their own account, from 1925 to various shipping companies chartered in the Tramp shipping used. From 1938 the ship then went on the Norwegian South America Line ( Norske Syd-Amerika Linje ), which was operated as a joint service by Bergen Line and two other shipping companies and connected Oslo with Rio de Janeiro , Santos and Buenos Aires in a liner service .
After the beginning of the Second World War, the ship sailed between Norway and Great Britain : at the end of December 1939 it went to Norway with convoy ON 6, at the end of January 1940 with convoy HN 9A in the opposite direction, and at the beginning of March 1940 with convoy ON 17A back again to Norway.
Second World War
During the German invasion of Norway (" Enterprise Weser Exercise ") in April 1940, the ship was surprised in Norway. On August 16, 1940, it was requisitioned by the German occupation authorities and then used as a transport ship for the Wehrmacht troops , still under the Norwegian flag and with Norwegian crew .
After the Red Army captured Kirkenes in the far north of Norway during the Petsamo-Kirkenes operation on October 25, 1944 , the Wehrmacht began a gradual retreat to the south. Among other things, the prisoners of war had to be evacuated from the northern Norwegian prisoner and labor camps . For this purpose, the Rigel was confiscated on November 2nd, placed under the German flag with the Nord-Reederei , provided with a German crew under Captain Heinrich Rohde and then used in the evacuation of Finnmark .
On November 21, the Rigel (with a crew of 28 men and one woman and three pilots ) left Bjerkvik at the northeast end of the Ofotfjord with 951 prisoners of war and 114 guards on board. In Narvik as 95 German were briefly taken further 349 prisoners on prisoners (mostly the desertion accused Wehrmacht soldiers) and eight Norwegian civil prisoners. In convoy with several smaller ships that drove Rigel then continue south, taking in Tømmerneset , about 75 km north-east of Bodø , another 948 Soviet and Serb prisoners of war on board, there under the leadership of the Organization Todt (OT), Einsatzgruppe Wiking , as Forced laborers were used to build the polar railway (section Fauske - Tysfjord ). In Narvik and Tømmerneset there were also 341 guards as well as OT and Wehrmacht members.
When the Rigel left for Trondheim on November 26 after a short stay in Bodø , there were a total of 2,838 people on board: 2,248 Soviet, Polish and Serbian prisoners of war in the holds , 95 German Wehrmacht prisoners, eight Norwegian prisoners, 455 German guards and other members of the Wehrmacht and the Todt Organization, 28 men and one woman of the ship's crew and three pilots. One of the pilots and the only woman on the ship's crew were Norwegians. The ship drove in convoy 410 with the coal freighter Korsnes (1741 GRT), secured by the two outpost boats V 6115 Helgoland and V 6308 Saturn ,
Downfall
On the morning of November 27, the small convoy between the islands of Tjøtta and Søndre Rosøya , north of Namsos , was discovered by an aircraft launched by the British aircraft carrier Implacable , whose crew thought the Rigel was a troop transport because of the many people on deck . This prompted around 11 am, an attack of 16 Fairey Firefly dive-bombers and Supermarine Seafire fighter aircraft of the Fleet Air Arm of the Implacable . The two outpost boats were quickly incapacitated. The Korsnes was set on fire and put aground by her crew, who had to complain about six deaths. The Rigel received up to five bomb hits , caught fire and began to sink over the stern . Captain Rohde managed to set the ship aground about 100 meters off the east coast of Søndre Rosøya. Nevertheless, only a small minority of the people on board - 267 of 2,838 - were able to save themselves on land. 2571 were killed. Many had already been killed by the bomb blasts and aerial fire with automatic cannons, and most of the others drowned trying to get to the shore.
Aftermath
1,011 dead were buried in a mass grave, but more bodies were washed ashore throughout the winter and spring of 1945. The wreck of the Rigel , with the bow sticking out of the water, lay at the sinking site until the summer of 1969. Then the remaining dead were recovered and, since identification was no longer possible, buried in a communal grave at the International War Cemetery Tjøtta . In 1970 the tomb was consecrated and a simple stone cross was erected.
The wreck was demolished in situ in 1975 and scrapped.
Media attention
- In 1970 the American folk rock band Pearls Before Swine released the song Riegal by and with Tom Rapp on their record The Use of Ashes , which deals with the fate of the ship and the people on board.
- The Norwegian state radio and television company Norsk rikskringkasting (NRK) broadcast a long interview with a survivor and some underwater footage of parts of the wreckage of the Rigel in 2004, on the 60th anniversary of the disaster .
See also
Footnotes
- ^ Convoy ON 6 - UK-Norway warsailors.com - there is, however, disagreement as to whether it was the Norwegian ship or a Finnish ship with the same name.
- ^ Convoy HN 9A - Norway-UK warsailors.com
- ^ Convoy ON 17A - UK-Norway warsailors.com
- ↑ Heinrich Rohde (born September 28, 1909) died eight years later when the general cargo freighter Melanie Schulte sank on December 22, 1952, along with the entire crew of the ship.
- ↑ Arvid Ellingsve: Nordlandsbanens krigshistorie. Norges Statsbaner, Oslo 1995, p. 52.
- ↑ 61. Outpost Flotilla, Bodø, 534 GRT
- ↑ 63. Outpost Flotilla, Narvik, Mob fish steamer 1 Saturn , 869 t
- ↑ The Korsnes was lifted in 1946 and repaired again; it remained in service under different names until 1965.
- ↑ In some reports there are only 2721 people on board and 415 survivors (see e.g. http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/44-11.htm ).
- ↑ Tjötta war gravesites, Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge eV, volksbund.de
- ↑ Pearls Before Swine - The Riegal - Tom Rapp Cover . In: YouTube . February 28, 2012. Retrieved December 16, 2014. Video 2:44
- ↑ Gerd Elise Martinsen: Her døde 1000 flere enn i Titanic -forliset: Over 2500 men omkom da det tyske fangeskipet MS «Rigel» gikk ned for Helgelandskysten under 2. Verdenskrig. nrk.no, December 6, 2004, article April 15, 2012 (100 years of the sinking of the Titanic )
Web links
- Rigel on Dykkepedia (Norwegian)
- http://www.warsailors.com/homefleetsingles/rigel.html (English)
- Dødsskipet ”Rigel” (Norwegian)
- http://minnehallen.no/skip_2/rigel-ms (Norwegian)
- http://www.schiffswrackliste.de/BRT%201944.htm
Coordinates: 65 ° 49 ′ 13.8 ″ N , 12 ° 20 ′ 9.6 ″ E