Rolandseck (ship, 1937)
 The stranded Rolandseck in 1938
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
The fourth Rolandseck of the German Steamship Company "Hansa" (DDG "Hansa"), put into service in 1937, was the first of three newbuildings for the shipping company's Spain-Portugal service.
The Rolandseck succeeded after the war began in 1939 to return home to Germany from Spain. In use as a troop transport, she sank on March 12, 1945 off the Danish coast in the Kattegat .
History of the ship
The first DDG ship "Hansa" for the Spain-Portugal service of the shipping company after the state reorganization of the shipping areas of the major German shipping companies in 1936 was given the name Rolandseck , which had previously carried the shipping company's smallest seagoing ship from October 1882 to March 1904, the had been used in the North and Baltic Sea. The second Rolandseck from 1912 was the shipping company's first motor ship and was also used in the Spain-Portugal service until 1914. The third Rolandseck (built in 1905, 1826 BRT / 2600 tdw) was purchased in Great Britain in December 1921. It was built as Florence for the Sloman shipping company in Flensburg . After the Spain-Portugal service, it was handed over to DG Neptun in 1932 , which used it as Saturn .
For the first time, the Stettiner Oderwerke were contractors for a new building for DDG "Hansa". The new building, built under construction number 792, was 90.9 m long and 12.84 m wide and was launched on November 23, 1936. While the main liner cargo ships of the Ehrenfels class that were delivered at the same time were powered by diesel engines, the Rolandseck and the two newbuildings for the Spain-Portugal service that followed until 1939 as part of the state four-year plan again received triple expansion machines combined with a Bauer-Wach steam turbine . The new building had two loading hatches in front of and behind the central bridge house with a relatively high chimney close behind and two masts between the hatches. On the masts, the loading gear was attached to a 30-tonne cargo boom on the front mast, a 15-tonne cargo beam on the rear mast and eight 5-tonne cargo booms.
The 1845 GRT fourth Rolandseck of the DDG "Hansa" was delivered on February 8, 1937 and came into the shipping company's Spain-Portugal service alongside the 1663 GRT freighters Lahneck and Stahleck, which were delivered in 1923 . In 1938 came the still-like, from the Deschimag Group belonging Seebeck Shipyard in Wesermünde new buildings made Soneck and Schwaneck 2190 BRT added.
The new Rolandseck hit the Salmedia Reef on December 16 in the Guadalquivir estuary with beacons that had been extinguished due to the civil war. The ship could be removed again, but was not ready for use again until March 1939 after repairs in Cádiz .
Fate of war
At the beginning of the Second World War , the Rolandseck was in the roadstead of the Spanish Vigo . On October 10, 1939, she left the Spanish port to return home via Norway. Disguised as the Danish steamer Olaf , she was able to reach Hamburg on November 1, 1939 via the Denmark Strait and Norway . Intended as a transporter A 30 (Antwerp) for the company "Seelöwe" , she sank on September 15, 1940 after being hit by a bomb in Antwerp . In March 1941 she was used as a troop transport to Finland. On June 14, 1944 and January 17, 1945, the Rolandseck in Oslo was the target of acts of sabotage. In the second attack, a Norwegian sabotage unit under Captain Max Manus , SOE , used detention charges (so-called "limpets") with delay fuses against the Norwegian transporters Danube (9035 GRT) and Rolandseck , as they were used by the British in 1942 during the command attack on the port of Bordeaux had been used (see Tannenfels ). The explosive charges on the outflowing Danube detonated on January 17 near Dröbak at the mouth of the Oslofjord . The transporter had to be put on the ground there, badly damaged. The Rolandseck was only slightly damaged in the detonation in the port of Oslo, but partially sank to the bottom of the port and threatened to capsize .
The loss of the Rolandseck
On March 12, 1945, the restored Rolandseck was attacked on a trip to Aarhus loaded with 417 soldiers, 116 horses, over 70 vehicles and other equipment by Handley Page Halifax of the 58th Squadron ( RAF ). Because of the existing minefields, the ship could not evade and had to anchor. Two hours after the attack, the Rolandseck sank at position 57 ° 19 ′ 0 ″ N , 11 ° 36 ′ 0 ″ E. after the bombs shortly before midnight. The M 265 minesweeper that had secured them took over the survivors and brought them to Frederikshavn .
The * -eck ships of the DDG "Hansa" (1919–1939)
| Surname | Shipyard | GRT tdw |
Launched in service |
further fate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Soneck (2) |
Wigham & Richardson building no. 388 |
1121 1643 |
02/25/1902 02/18/1902 |
72.40 m, during World War ore and coal voyage on the North and Baltic Seas, at times coal ship XVIII of the Imperial Navy , 1919 only remaining seagoing ship of the DDG "Hansa", 1932–35 Latona of DG Neptun , sold to the Navy in August 1936 : test ship Strahl Sunk on the transfer to Great Britain, February 2, 1949 |
|
Rolandseck (3) ex Florence |
Flensburg building no. 250 |
1826 2631 |
August 26, 1905 December 13, 1921 |
85.34 m, built as Florence for Sloman , delivered in 1920, bought on December 13, 1921 and renamed Rolandseck , sold to DG Neptun in December 1932 : Saturn , 1937 to Borchardt shipping company : Lucy Borchardt , emigrated to Great Britain with the shipping company in 1938, 1939 Ammunition storage ship there, demolished in 1951 |
|
Lahneck (3) |
AG Weser Building No. 337 |
1663 2128 |
12.1922 01/13/1923 |
77.16 m, 1939 refuge in Vigo , from 11 November 1939 breakthrough in the home on the North Cape , (4.12.) On 16 December 1939 in Hamburg on March 6, 1942. Oksöy near Kristiansand after collision with the Treuenfels dropped |
|
Steel corner (3) |
AG Weser Building No. 338 |
1663 2128 |
03.1923 5.04.1923 |
77.16 m, from 1939 North and Baltic Sea voyage, from November 1945 repaired at the Bremer Vulkan, 1946 to the Netherlands: Aardenburg , 1946: Danae , sold to Greece in 1953, 1963 trailer in Djibouti , sunk in 1965; lifted and broken off |
| Rolandseck (4) |
Oderwerke building no. 792 |
1845 2970 |
23.11.1936 08.02.1937 |
90.9 m, at the start of the war in Vigo, 10 October to 1 November 1939, breakthrough home, attacked by RAF machines on March 12, 1945 on the journey to Aarhus and sunk after being hit by bombs |
|
Soneck (3) |
Seebeck building no. 597 |
2191 3080 |
4.06.1938 16.07.1938 |
93.04 m, September 1939 in Padang , confiscated by the Dutch authorities in May 1940: Karsik , 1948 conversion. Stranded and repaired in 1950, Pearl of Victoria (Panama) in 1963 . Accumulated, broken and broken off in the Red Sea on June 9, 1967 |
| Schwaneck | Seebeck building no. 617 |
2194 2985 |
4.03.1939 1.06.1939 |
100.05 m, intended as a transporter for sea lions, sank on November 17, 1941 on a trip from Norway to Memel with pebbles in the Pomeranian Bay after being hit by a mine. |
Individual evidence
- ↑ Schmelzkopf: Deutsche Handelsschiffahrt, p. 205
- ↑ January 17, 1945 Norway
Web links
- Rolandseck (4)
- Soneck (3)
- Schwaneck (1)
- Results of a Swedish diving group ( Memento from July 20, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) </
- Report from Danish divers
- Location of the wreck
literature
- 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 .