Arucas (ship)
 The arucas
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The Arucas was a fruit and passenger ship of the North German Lloyd (NDL) for a service to the Canary Islands that was newly established in 1927 . She was one of two sister ships that the shipping company ordered from different shipyards for this service.
In early March 1940 the Arucas tried to break through from Vigo to their homeland. East of Iceland was from the heavy cruiser York found and put forward even at 63 ° 58 '0 " N , 14 ° 43' 0" W .
History of the ship
Until 1927, the Canary Islands were not a destination for the NDL's liner services. Only the German Africa lines had included Las Palmas and later Tenerife in their liner services since 1894. In the spring of 1924 and 1925, the Stinnes shipping company called the General San Martin on cruises in Tenerife. The NDL had also offered a winter cruise to Madeira and the Canary Islands in 1925 with the Munich and 1926 with the Stuttgart , which were followed by others until January 7, 1928. The former Princess Irene headed for one of her last trips under her first post-war name Bremen and on her first cruise to the Canary Islands. The newly planned service was supposed to transport tourists to the islands with departures every 14 days, who booked stays of one or more weeks there. For this purpose, general cargo should be transported to the islands on the outward journeys in order to transport tropical fruits to Hamburg on the return journey. They were the first post-war construction of fruit ships in Germany.
The shipping company ordered two new steamships for this new service. The relatively small two-masted steamers were given a large deckhouse with a passenger facility for up to 48 first class passengers. The contractors for the new buildings were the Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft (FSG) and the Germania shipyard in Kiel . The two steamships with a size of just over 3,300 GRT were delivered in August 1927. According to Kludas, both new ships are said to have been named Orotava after the Orotava Valley on Tenerife when they were named. Only a few days before delivery, the new FSG building was then renamed. The ship was named after the city of Arucas on Gran Canaria ; for the first time a ship belonging to the NDL bore this name.
The Arucas , built under construction number 406 at FSG, was launched on June 2, 1927 and was the first of the sister ships to be delivered to the NDL on August 3, 1927. It was registered with a length of 97.53 m and was 14.28 m wide. It was propelled by a triple expansion machine of 2,200 PSi built at the shipyard, which gave the ship a speed of 12.5 knots (kn) via one screw . The Arucas was measured with 3,359 GRT and had a carrying capacity of 3,410 dwt. In addition to the ship and cargo, the 52 crew members also had to look after up to 48 passengers.
Mission history of the Arucas
The Arucas began her maiden voyage from Bremen to Tenerife in August 1927, which the sister ship Oratava followed in the summer. The ships were ships of the line and were well used. They transported tourists to the islands. In addition to the NDL and Hamburg-Süd, there have also been cruises to the islands since September 1928 by Hapag with the Oceana , whose first voyage was first referred to as the "Hapag cruise". Hapag and the other German shipping companies had previously referred to such voyages as company, pleasure or recreational trips. In 1930 the name of the Oceana trip to Tenerife was changed to "Atlantic cruise" and the term cruise began to establish itself for such trips.
In 1932, the Arucas also carried out ten-day “special trips” to Finland in the months of June to September, which were offered at a round trip price of 220 to 300 marks. In 1933, the competing Hapag also deployed its new West India liner Cordillera to the Canary Islands. Over Christmas and New Years 1935/36, Hamburg-Süd also offered a luxury cruise to the Atlantic Islands with the Cap Arcona , which was followed in 1937 by two three-week voyages from Hamburg via Lisbon and Casablanca to the Canary Islands. At the end of 1937, Lloyd also offered a 15-day luxury cruise to the Canaries on the Columbus for from 360 marks. For the end of 1939, both Hapag and Lloyd had offered a Christmas and New Year's Eve trip to the islands. For a long time, KdF trips only offered trips to the Atlantic as far as Madeira. It was not until 1939 that they were extended to Tenerife.
The Arucas left Germany for the last time on August 12, 1939 with 47 passengers. Due to the warnings about the imminent outbreak of war, she called at the Spanish port of Vigo on the return journey and was laid up there. In the spring of 1940 it was decided that the German merchant ships lying in neutral ports should increasingly try to break through to their homeland. With these actions, allied warships were certainly to be withdrawn from European waters.
The end of the arucas
In February 1940, six German ships tried to break through from Vigo home. On the night of February 9th to 10th, the Morea (1,921 GRT), the Rostock (2,542 GRT), the Arucas (3,359 GRT), the Orizaba (4,354 GRT), the Wahehe (4,709 GRT) and the Wangoni ( 7,768 GRT) Vigo and tried to get to Norway through the North Atlantic. Five of the ships were lost:
- on February 11th, the Rostock was attacked by the French Aviso Elan ;
- on February 12, the Morea suffered the same fate from the British destroyer Hasty
- on February 21, the Wahehe was raised by the British cruiser Manchester and the destroyer Kimberley, southeast of Iceland ;
- On February 26th, Hapag's Orizaba ran aground off the north Norwegian coast near Skjervoy near Hammerfest and was lost;
- On March 1, the Africa liner Wangoni was the only one of the ships that broke out of Vigo to reach her home port of Hamburg via Kiel, after escaping an attack by the British submarine Triton on February 28 off Kristiansand .
The Arucas was discovered on March 3rd in a strong storm by the British heavy cruiser York east of Iceland. Captain Robert Möhring ordered the sinking and evacuation of the ship. In addition to Möhring, twelve other members of the crew drowned in the heavy seas before the British cruiser could pick up the survivors. Möhring's behavior, which cost him his life, was portrayed as exemplary on May 11, 1940 when the sister ship Orotava was renamed Robert Möhring .
The sister ship Orotava
The sister ship Orotava , built by the Krupp-Germania shipyard , was launched before the Arucas in May 1927, but was not delivered to the NDL until August 16, 1927. It then served together with the Arucas on the line to the Canaries. The ship, which was at home when the war broke out, was prepared for the East Prussian sea service for up to 500 day passengers and made its first voyage from Swinoujscie to Pillau in September 1939. In late autumn 1939, the last civilian operation took place in the resettlement of the Baltic Germans to the new Reich territory. Renamed on May 11, 1940 in Robert Möhring after the drowned captain of the Arucas , the ship first came into service with the navy as a barge in Swinoujscie. In 1941 it was first used as a transport for the wounded. From 1944 this became a permanent feature. On March 6, the Robert Möhring sank in a heavy air raid on Saßnitz in the port there, with 353 dead. The remains of the ship were demolished after the end of the war.
literature
- Arnold Kludas : The History of German Passenger Shipping 1850 to 1990 . Ernst Kabel Verlag, 1986 ff.
- Arnold Kludas: Die Seeschiffe des Norddeutscher Lloyd 1920 to 1970 , Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford 1992, ISBN 3-7822-0534-0
- Reinhardt Schmelzkopf: German merchant shipping 1919–1939 . Verlag Gerhard Stalling, Oldenburg, ISBN 3 7979 1847 X .
Web links
- The departures of the Arucas November 14, 1938 to July 22, 1939
- 27 trips of the Arucas in 1938/39
- Orotava rides
- The most lossy shipwrecks in the evacuation of refugees and soldiers across the Baltic Sea
Footnotes
- ↑ Kludas: The History of German Passenger Shipping 1850 to 1990 , Vol. IV, p. 188.
- ^ Kludas: Passenger Shipping , Vol. IV, p. 216.
- ↑ a b Kludas: German Passenger Shipping, Vol. IV, p. 218.
- ↑ Schmelzkopf: Die deutsche Handelsschiffahrt 1919-1939 , p. 100.
- ^ Kludas: Passenger Shipping , Vol. IV, p. 219.
- ↑ a b Kludas: Seeschiffe des NDL , Vol. II, p. 82.
- ^ Kludas: Passenger Shipping , Vol. V: An era comes to an end 1930-1990, p. 228.
- ↑ Kludas: Passenger Shipping , Vol. V, p. 109.
- ^ Kludas, Vol. V, p. 111.
- ^ Kludas, Vol. V, p. 115.
- ^ Kludas, Vol. V, p. 116.
- ↑ Kludas, Vol. V, p. 117 f.
- ↑ Kludas, Vol. V, p. 122 f.
- ^ Kludas, Vol. V, p. 134.
- ↑ The Arucas August 12, 1939
- ↑ a b Rohwer: Seekrieg , p. 31.
- ^ History of Rostock 1922-1969
- ↑ Sunk as block ship Empire Seaman ex Morea / DLL near the Orkneys in 1940
- ↑ as Empire Citizen was Wahehe DAL sunk on February 3, 1941 in the North Atlantic
- ↑ Loss of Orizaba / Hapag
- ↑ Rothe: Passenger Ships 1919–1985 , pp. 51, 86.
- ^ Fall of the Arucas / NDL
- ^ Kludas, Vol. V, p. 144.