Rio Grande (ship, 1939)

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Rio Grande
Rio grande HSDG.jpg
Ship data
flag German EmpireGerman Empire (trade flag) German Empire
Ship type Cargo ship
class Belgrano class
home port Hamburg
Owner Hamburg South
Shipyard Howaldtswerke , Hamburg
Build number 777
Launch January 17, 1939
Commissioning April 29, 1939
Whereabouts Sunk January 4, 1944
Ship dimensions and crew
length
144.86 m ( Lüa )
134.5 m ( Lpp )
width 18.7 m
Draft Max. 6.98 m
measurement 6,062 GRT
 
crew 35 men
Machine system
machine Diesel engine
Machine
performance 		3,350 PS (2,464 kW)
Top
speed 		13 kn (24 km / h)
propeller 1
Transport capacities
Load capacity 9,406 dwt
Armament
  • 1 × Sk 15 cm
  • 6 x flak 2.0 cm

The Rio Grande came into service with Hamburg Süd in the spring of 1939 as the fourth ship of the Belgrano class . After the beginning of the war, the ship lying in Rio Grande do Sul was provided for the supply of German trade troublemakers. In October 1940 she left the Brazilian port and supplied the auxiliary cruiser Thor in the Atlantic. With 368 prisoners taken over by the auxiliary cruiser, she reached Bordeaux on December 13, 1940 .

The Rio Grande ran to Japan as a blockade breaker in autumn 1941 . After successfully returning, she repeated the blockade trip in autumn 1942 and reached Kobe again at Christmas 1942 . On October 4, 1943, she started her return journey in Japan. Discovered in the Atlantic by an American search group, she sank herself on January 4, 1944. On board, a prisoner who had been left behind drowned in his cell.

In 2018, over 200 boxes were washed ashore on the northeast coast of Brazil, the origin of which was not clear. After intensive historical research by the Instituto de Ciências do Mar (Labomar) da Universidade Federal do Ceará (UFC) it was found that these could be assigned to the sunk Rio Grande . The head professor of the institute confirmed that according to oceanographic simulations it is 99% certain where these boxes come from.

The oil spill from August – October 2019 on the northeast coast of Brazil is also seen in this context.

Building history

On October 2, 1936, the Belgrano , the type ship of the series, was put into service by Hamburg-Süd. It was the first new building in five years by the shipping company, which had just been reprivatised in September. The 136 m long motor ship was built at Hamburg's Howaldtswerft , which had completed five other ships of this type ( Montevideo , Elsa Essberger , Rio Grande , Paranaguá and Florianopolis ) for Hamburg-Süd by 1943 . The ships were powered by a 3350 hp MAN diesel and achieved a service speed of 13 knots. In addition to the Hamburg shipyard, the Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft manufactured the Porto Alegere as the second ship of the type in October 1936 and the Bremer Vulkan in August 1939 with the Florida, the sixth and last pre-war ship for the Hamburg-Süd. The attempt to have more ships built by shipyards in the occupied countries during the war was only successful in the case of the Esmeralda , actually ordered in Bremen , which was completed in Amsterdam in June 1944. In the Netherlands, the last ship of the type for Yugoslavia, the Makedonija, was completed in 1947 . It was under construction as Victoria during the war with the Florianopolis near Howaldt in Hamburg , which was completed in October 1943 , but was severely damaged by bombs during the final equipment and was then towed to the Netherlands for repair and completion after the end of the war.

The first new builds of Hamburg-Süd after the Second World War, the Santa class ( Santa Ursula , Santa Elena , Santa Isabel , Santa Catarina ), were replicas of the tried and tested Belgrano class and were also built at the Howaldtswerke in Hamburg from 1950 to 1953 . In contrast to the ships of the original series, however, they had facilities for 24 to 26 passengers.

Mission history

The Rio Grande , commissioned from Howaldt in Hamburg under construction number 777 in April 1938, was the fourth ship in this shipyard's class after the Belgrano , the Montevideo (BNr. 751/2), which were completed at the end of 1936 and the one in March 1938 Elsa Essberger (BNr. 765) completed for the shipping company John T. Essberger . The Rio Grande was the second ship of the shipping company that was named after the southern Brazilian city of Rio Grande , after the 4556 GRT Rio Grande , which was commissioned in 1905 and which was confiscated by Brazil in Belém in 1917 and continued as Benevente and Duque de Caxias until 1963 stayed in motion.

The Rio Grande was launched on January 17, 1939, was removed from Hamburg-Süd on April 29, and then used in freight service to South America. When the war broke out, it was in Rio Grande do Sul and was envisaged by the stage in Brazil as a possible supplier for German trade troublemakers. In addition to the Rio Grande , her sister ship the Montevideo was also in the Brazilian port, which was put on the chain at the instigation of a British bank in September 1939 and finally taken over by Brazil. The sister ship Porto Alegre , lying in Santos , left for her (successful) breakthrough home on September 14, 1939. By February 1940, a total of 15 Hamburg-Süd ships tried to escape from Brazil to Germany, which ten ships managed to do.

Supply from Brazil

The first use of a supply ship from the Brazil stage took place at the end of May 1940 when the motor ship Königsberg of the NDL left Belem with 1280 tons of diesel to be available for the auxiliary cruisers Orion and Widder , which needed a lot of fuel. On June 5, the Widder met the Königsberg , who brought food and in return received fuel in order to try to break through into the German sphere of influence. In order to avoid being captured by a French auxiliary cruiser, the crew sank the ship off Vigo . The two auxiliary cruisers were mainly supplied by German tankers who came from the Canary Islands to the auxiliary cruisers.

On October 31, 1940, the Rio Grande also ran out of its Brazilian port of refuge to supply the auxiliary cruiser Thor , which was now operating in the mid-Atlantic and had hijacked eight ships and had 368 prisoners on board. The two ships met from November 9 to 16 and the Rio Grande gave superfluous supplies and fuel to the auxiliary cruiser and took 364 prisoners. The captain of the Thor , Captain Otto Kähler , only kept the captains of the four sunk British ships on board so as not to give the prisoners any possible guides. The Rio Grande posed as her sister ship Belgrano at the meeting and subsequently , in order to give the prisoners the impression that the supply ship had reached the auxiliary cruiser from Germany and not from neutral Brazil. Reinforced with a small military crew, the Rio Grande ran to Bordeaux until December 13th . The 89-strong crew of the whaling factory ship Kosmos , which was sunk by the Thor on September 26, 1940, was released to their homeland in May 1941.

Use as a blockade breaker

On September 21, 1941, the Rio Grande ran from Bordeaux to Japan as the second blockade breaker. In front of her, the tanker Benno (the Norwegian prize of Ole Jacob ) was put into march on August 30th, which was supposed to take care of supply tasks on the way. The Rio Grande under Captain von Allwörden reached its destination Osaka on December 6th

On January 31, 1941, she left Japan with a cargo of raw rubber and small quantities of other goods and reached Bordeaux on April 10. On September 30, 1942, she left for her second voyage to Japan and reached Japan on December 24th. Their return journey began on January 28, 1943, but had to be broken off.

The final start of her last trip was October 4th, 1943, when she left Yokohama. She was one of the last wave of German surface blockade breakers. Before her, the Osorno had left Kobe on October 2, which was the last German blockade breaker to reach Gironde on December 26, 1943 . However, it tore its hull on the wreckage of barrier breaker 21 and had to be put on the beach with a twelve meter long crack in order to save at least the valuable cargo. The Alsterufer left Kobe on October 4th and was discovered and observed on December 27th in the North Atlantic by the British Sunderlands . A Liberator of the 311st (Czech) Squadron of the Royal Air Force set the blockade breaker on fire. After further air strikes, the crew sank their ship. The lifeboats were picked up by a Canadian escort group.

Three weeks after the first three ships, the Weserland (ex Ermland ) and the Burgenland started their voyage to Europe from Yokohama on October 26th. On New Year's Day 1944, a Consolidated PB4Y -1 Liberator launched on Ascension discovered the Weserland and tried to shoot the plane down. Found by other aircraft, early in the morning of January 3, the approached destroyer USS Somers sank the blockade breaker at position 17 ° S, 21 ° W between Ascension and the Brazilian coast. Five men died, the 134 survivors of the Weserland were taken on board by the Somers , which was returning to the Brazilian coast for new tasks.

The end of the Rio Grande

The Rio Grande , which had delayed her march due to a long stay in the sea area at 48 ° S - 25 ° W, was discovered by an aircraft on board the cruiser Omaha and pursued and captured by the Omaha and the destroyer Jouett . The crew of the blockade breaker initiated the self-sinking. The Americans forced the crew to leave the ship with fire from their light weapons back on board, but allowed the Rio Grande to be evacuated after the self-submerged explosive device. With their lifeboats, the Germans set course for the Brazilian coast 540 miles away, while the ship sank at position 6 ° 40 ′  S , 25 ° 39 ′  W on January 4, 1944. The Omaha and the Jouett continued their search for German blockade breakers and on the following day they found Burgenland , which had already been discovered on the 4th by a Martin PBM Mariner from Recife and was located at 5 ° 0 ′  S , 25 ° 0 ′  W sank when she was overtaken by Omaha and Jouett .

The Blimp K-36 of the US Navy discovered three lifeboats 240 miles south of Fernando de Noronha and led the cruiser Marblehead zoom, the 72 survivors from the Rio Grande in position 7 ° 45 '0 "  S , 33 ° 0' 0"  W absorbed . Another lifeboat reached the Brazilian coast near Fortaleza on January 11 with 22 other survivors , who were then interned by the Brazilian army. The intensive search for the German blockade breakers was largely supported by the results of the British ULTRA radio reconnaissance . After the airship K-98 discovered bales drifting from the rubber cargo on February 18, 1944, large parts were fished from the sea and more bales were driven to the coast. The team around wreck researcher David Mearns discovered the wreck of the Rio Grande as one of the deepest wrecks ever found at a depth of 5762 m.

The dead on the Rio Grande

When the crew left the Rio Grande , a German prisoner was left on the ship. The sailor Alfred Poweleit went down with the Rio Grande , locked in a cell .

In 1943, the naval attaché at the German embassy in Tokyo, Paul Wenneker , ordered the captains of outgoing blockade breakers to let the prisoners given to them to be tried at home go down with the ship if they were to sink. Poweleit, with a criminal record for “unauthorized removal from the troops” and theft of provisions, was transferred to the Rio Grande in autumn 1942 . He was burdened by the fact that he had participated in the black market with 250 watches. The Japanese reportedly wanted his removal from Japan.

On February 25, 1966, after several days of hearing, a Hamburg jury dropped the case against Paul Wenneker, who had been accused of murder. Wenneker, the court found, was guilty of manslaughter rather than murder. But that is statute-barred. The captain of the Rio Grande , Heinrich von Allwörden, was acquitted. The 5th Criminal Senate of the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) not only confirmed the termination of the proceedings against Paul Wenneker: The Senate acquitted Wenneker.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Pesquisadores desvendam origem das caixas misteriosas em praias do Ceará - Metro. October 10, 2019, accessed October 11, 2019 (Brazilian Portuguese).
  2. ↑ Government hesitated: Brazil is fighting against mysterious oil spill orf.at, October 24, 2019, accessed October 25, 2019.
  3. ^ Kludas: The ships of the Hamburg-Süd 1871-1951. 1976, p. 125.
  4. ^ Melting head: The German merchant shipping. 1974, p. 194.
  5. ↑ a b c d Kludas: The ships of Hamburg-Süd 1871-1951. 1976, p. 126.
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Kludas: The ships of Hamburg-Süd 1871-1951. 1976, p. 128.
  7. ↑ a b c Kludas: The ships of Hamburg-Süd 1871-1951. 1976, p. 130.
  8. ^ Kludas: The ships of the Hamburg-Süd 1871-1951. 1976, p. 150ff.
  9. ^ Kludas: The ships of the Hamburg-Süd 1871-1951. 1976, p. 72.
  10. ^ Fall of the Königsberg
  11. ^ Norwegian victims of Thor, accessed August 21, 2013.
  12. ^ Blockade breakers Japan
  13. ^ Rohwer: Chronicle of the naval war. 1968, p. 184.
  14. ↑ Czech victory at sea (English) accessed on August 21, 2013.
  15. ↑ Sinking of the Alsterufer (English) accessed on August 21, 2013.
  16. ↑ Weserland (English) accessed August 21, 2013.
  17. ↑ Omaha class / Omaha (English) accessed August 21, 2013.
  18. ↑ blockade-runner Rio Grande (English) accessed August 21, 2013.
  19. ↑ Rohwer p. 414 completely wrong here.
  20. ^ Surface Blockade Runners Winter 1942-43 and 1943-44 (English) accessed August 21, 2013.
  21. ^ Seeking the secrets . ( Memento of October 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 556 kB; English) accessed August 21, 2013.
  22. ↑ see Spiegel and Zeit weblinks