SMS Danzig (1851)
 As Kaiten in 1868
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The wheel - Corvette SMS Danzig of the Prussian Navy was the first in Prussia produced engine-driven warship . She became known through her participation in the Battle of Tres Forcas on August 7, 1856. From 1864, the ship was under the name Kaiten ( Japanese回 天, return to heaven ) in the service of the Navy of the Tokugawa Shogunate and later the Republic of Ezo .
Construction and technical data
The Danzig was designed by the British specialist designer John Scott Russell and was originally to be built in England . At the instigation of the Commander in Chief of the Navy, Prince Adalbert of Prussia , the ship was built to strengthen the local economy in Gdansk . The iron required was imported from England, the wood for the hull came from the hinterland of Danzig, the copper for the outer skin from Berlin .
The ship was on 24 August 1850 at the shipyard JW Klawitter in Gdansk set to Kiel , was November 13, 1851. from the stack and was put into service on June 1. 1853 The name predecessor was the Haff - Gunboat Danzig (1825-1838).
The ship was 75.66 meters long and 16.5 m wide, had a draft of 4.27 m and displaced 1,920 t . It was a three-mast barque rigged and had an additional expansion steam engine of 1800 PSI or 400 PSe with four tube boilers. Under steam it reached a speed of 11.6 knots . The armament consisted of ten 68-pounder cannons , the crew numbered 220 officers and men. Since these weapons were supposed to come from Great Britain , which did not allow cannons to be exported during the Crimean War , the Danzig had to pick up their weapons during their first voyage in England.
First journey
The first voyage of the Danzig under the command of Korvettenkapitän Indebetou, which began on July 12, 1853, led to Deptford , where the gun mounts were installed. The guns themselves were mounted in Greenhithe .
Due to the war that broke out in 1853 between the Ottoman Empire and Russia , the Danzig was sent to Constantinople together with other Prussian units in September 1853 to protect Prussian interests . From April to June 1854 she stayed in Piraeus to protect the Greek King Otto I of the Wittelsbach family , as his rule was threatened by a revolution . On the return journey to Danzig, the corvette took a load of marble blocks for Berlin museums on board on the island of Syra .
The Battle of Tres Forcas (1856)
In the spring of 1856, a squadron under Prince Adalbert, consisting of the Danzig as the flagship , the Thetis , the Amazone , the Mercur and the Frauenlob , sailed into the Atlantic to practice in the squadron association. Task of the Danzig was u. a. in doldrums to drag the other ships of the Association since it was the only unit with machine drive.
In Cherbourg , the Danzig at the invitation of Emperor Napoleon III. visited, Prince Adalbert put on leave due to differences with the commander of the corvette, Corvette Captain Prince Wilhelm von Hessen-Philippsthal-Barchfeld , with the stipulation that he should only report on board again in Gibraltar . During this time, the command of the ship was taken over by Lieutenant First Class Artur von Bothwell.
The background to these differences was that Prince Adalbert was planning a punitive expedition on his own against the Rif pirates in Morocco who had attacked the Stettin brig Flora under Captain Witt on December 7, 1852 . This resulted in the battle of Tres Forcas on August 7, 1856, in which Adalbert neither achieved the set political nor military goal. After the battle, the fallen were buried in Gibraltar and some seriously wounded were disembarked. Among the wounded was also the only 16-year-old later Admiral Eduard von Knorr .
After a visit by Konstantin Opel returned to Gdansk after a layover on Syra, where ancient coffins were loaded for museums in Berlin, on 20 November 1856 after Danzig back and put out of service.
Decommissioning
Due to severe damage to the ship's hull , caused by dry rot , a basic repair was considered in which the wooden hull was to be replaced with iron. Because of the high costs, the plan was finally abandoned.
The Danzig was therefore only temporarily in service in 1859/60 and was finally decommissioned on September 1, 1862 due to unseaworthiness and removed from the list of warships, especially since paddle steamers were now technically outdated compared to screw steamers . The corvette was sold to the English company Dorset & Blythe for 56,000 thalers .
Japanese Navy
In 1864 the ship, now renamed Eagle , steamed to England and was sold to the Tokugawa Shogunate that same year, where it was put into service under the name Kaiten . The paddle steamer was supposed to be used to prevent smuggling in the sea area around Nagasaki .
During the Battle of Hakodate that came Kaiten on 7 May 1869 in the Aomori Bay in Hakodate on beach . It was burned by its own crew on June 20, 1869 so as not to let it fall into enemy hands. The incident was observed by the Prussian corvette Medusa who happened to be present .
References
literature
- Keyword: Steam corvette "Danzig" , in: Hans H. Hildebrand / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships. Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present , Ratingen o. J. (One-volume reprint of the seven-volume original edition, Herford 1979ff.,) Vol. 2, pp. 26-29.
- Jürgen Duppler: The junior partner. England and the development of the German Navy 1848-1890 , Herford 1985.
- Jürgen Duppler: Prince Adalbert of Prussia. Founder of the German Navy , Herford 1986.
- Entry: August 7th. 1856. Prince Adalbert of Prussia at Tres Forcas , in: Walter Lohmann: Memorable days from the German naval, colonial and sea war history. A traditional calendar for the Reichsmarine , Berlin 1928, p. 156f.
- Chapter 6: Prince Adalbert of Prussia , in: Wilhelm Wolfslast (d. I. Fritz-Otto Busch ): Heroes of the Sea. Volume 1: Entdecker und Admirale , Berlin 1944, pp. 89-101.
- Günter Stavorius, Peter PE Günther (eds.). Diary on board Sr. Majesty's steam corvette "Danzig" on the voyage from Danzig to London, Constantinople, Athens, Syra 1853/54. Run by Eduard Arendt, Lieutenant zur See 2nd class, Berlin and Trappenkamp 1998, self-published, without ISBN
- Otto Mielke : The first Prussian steam corvette. Paddle steam corvette "Danzig" , SOS-Fates of German Ships No. 146, Munich ( Moewig-Verlag ) undated [approx. 1958].
Web links
- Image of Danzig at deutsche-schutzgebiete.de [1]
![[1]](http://www.deutsche-schutzgebiete.de/webpages/SMS_Danzig_Radkorvette.jpg){kind=link}