SMS Delphin (1860)
.jpg) The structurally identical SMS Meteor
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The SMS Delphin was the fourth ship of the Camaeleon class , a class of eight steam cannon boats 1st class of the Royal Prussian and Imperial Navy .
Construction and first term of service
The dolphin was from the Royal shipyard in Gdansk on September 8, 1859 Kiel set. The launch took place on September 15, 1860 . After the completion of the ship, it was tested without an official commissioning and transferred to Stralsund .
The outbreak of the German-Danish War brought the Delphin into its first active period. The ship was put into service on March 1, 1864 and assigned to the 2nd Flotilla Division. In April, the Camaeleon- class boats were combined into a reserve division. The Delphin belonged to this association until the beginning of 1865. After the end of the war, the division had to do survey work along the east coast of Holstein , with the Delphin particularly active in Eckernförde Bay .
Service as a station ship
In February 1865 it was decided to send the Delphin to Constantinople as a station ship . The ship was therefore subjected to a major overhaul, with the rigging changed from that of a schooner to a schooner bark. The departure was delayed, however, so that the Delphin could not leave home until August 6, 1865 together with the SMS Nymphe , with whom exercises had already been carried out in the Baltic Sea from July 20 to 23 . The two ships separated in Piraeus on September 22nd, and the Delphin continued her voyage to the Ottoman capital. Due to the impending war with Austria, both ships were recalled in April 1866 and reached Prussian waters again on July 3rd. Until the end of the war, the Delphin belonged to the North Sea Flotilla ( flagship SMS Arminius ) and was decommissioned on August 22, 1866 in Danzig.
Since the Prussian government decided in 1867 to permanently occupy the Mediterranean station , the Delphin was converted by the Royal Shipyard in Danzig according to the experiences made so far in order to serve as a station ship again. Damaged frames were replaced and the upper deck planks were relocated and moved higher, which made the deck below more homely.
Prepared in this way, the Delphin was put back into service on May 1, 1868 and carried out test drives. After a short decommissioning - the government had come into conflict with parliament on financial issues - the departure from Kiel took place on August 21 . After being forced to stay in Algiers due to an engine failure , the ship reached Constantinople on October 17th. Just a week later, a trip up the Danube to Giurgiu set out. In the following year, this trip was repeated and started in Varna on the return journey . There the dolphin received the order to take part in the inauguration of the Suez Canal . Before that, the ship had to bring Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Corinth to Piraeus, where he crossed over on the great cruiser SMS Hertha . On October 28, 1869, it finally started its journey from Constantinople to Port Said , where it met with Hertha , SMS Elisabeth and SMS Grille on November 16 and participated in the first navigation of the canal the following day. The Cricket , on which the Crown Prince was, was the third ship in the column after a French ship with Empress Eugénie and the Austrian SMS Greif with Emperor Franz Joseph I on board. The dolphin stayed in Egypt until December 10th and then returned to Constantinople.
On April 11, 1870, the Delphin left its station area and started on the way home. In front of the Tajo estuary, the ship hit aground, damaging the bowsprit and causing a leak in the hull . After repairs in Lisbon , the Delphin went to Plymouth , where she met SMS Kronprinz and SMS Renown , which Prussia had bought, on June 16 . Five days later, the Renown , which was intended as an artillery training ship, and the Delphin left for Kiel, where they arrived on June 28. From there the gunboat went on to Gdansk, where it was decommissioned on July 11th. Repair work followed, including replacing the boiler.
Due to the stay in the shipyard, the ship could not be used for the Franco-German War . Only on April 22nd, 1871 could the Delphin be put back into service. From May 13th the gunboat was in Kiel. It left Kiel on August 24th and set out for the Mediterranean. On September 29th, the Delphin reached Algiers , two days later Tunis . This was remarkable so soon after the war ended, as both cities were French at the time. Although it was planned to make the boat available to Ernst Curtius for his work, this could not be realized due to the delayed departure. When the Delphin reached Piraeus on October 12, 1871, Curtius was already on her way home. On October 25, the ship finally arrived in Constantinople, where it was stationed for the next 16 months. In February 1872 the dolphin was available to Prince Friedrich Karl Nikolaus of Prussia on his journey to the Orient, calling at Corinth, Athens , Chios , Constantinople and Bursa . In October and November of the same year, the ship made another trip on the Danube.
After King Amadeus abdicated in Spain and the First Spanish Republic was proclaimed on February 11, 1873 , the Delphin was ordered to Spain in March 1873 in order to protect German nationals and German economic interests along the Spanish Mediterranean coast during the eruption of the previous year Third Carlist War to ensure. Only in May, another ship , the Elisabeth, arrived to support this task, and at the end of June, SMS Friedrich Carl . Its commander, Captain Reinhold Werner, took over the command of the German ships in Spanish waters on June 29th, which were anchored off Málaga at that time . The dolphin was used on various missions in the following period. On October 4, 1873, the Meteor arrived to replace her sister ship, and the Delphin started her voyage home on the same day. A heavy storm forced them to stay in Lowestoft for a week . On December 4, 1873, the gunboat was decommissioned in Kiel.
Further service time
The Delphin was to serve as a survey ship from now on. Shortly after the decommissioning, the Kaiserliche Werft Kiel began with another conversion of the ship. The armament was given by board, on the upper deck one survey house and a new bridge built and the ship to Bark umgetakelt. In April 1874 the Delphin was put back into service and together with the Blitz began surveying work in the Baltic Sea , which lasted until October. On October 21, 1874, the ship was taken out of service for the winter and then prepared for a possible further use in Spain. However, since this was not necessary, the Delphin continued to serve as a survey ship in the following years. Up until 1879, a program totaling over 2,000 square miles of Baltic Sea waters had been worked through. Only in 1877 was the ship additionally active around Heligoland with the permission of the British government .
In 1880 the Delphin was used for the salvage work of the SMS Barbarossa , which was sunk during torpedo attempts by SMS Zieten under Lieutenant Alfred Tirpitz on July 28th as a target ship , without an official commissioning. It was not until March 15, 1881 that the ship was activated again in order to be active in fishery protection in the North Sea . The last decommissioning took place on August 13, 1881.
Whereabouts
The Delphin was removed from the list of warships on September 30, 1881 and was scrapped a little later. The SMS Otter gunboat was launched as a replacement in 1877 .
Commanders
| March 1 to April 1864 | Lieutenant at sea, 1st class from Nuremberg |
| April 1864 to July 1866 | Lieutenant at sea 1st class / Lieutenant Heinrich Kühne |
| July to August 2, 1866 | Captain Louis von Blanc |
| July 13, 1868 to July 11, 1870 | Captain Ewald |
| April 22, 1871 to October 1872 | Lieutenant Ditmar |
| October 1872 to December 4, 1873 | Lieutenant Captain Karl August Deinhard |
| April 21 to October 21, 1874 | Lieutenant Rudolf Hoffmann |
| April 15 to November 17, 1875 | Corvette Captain Rudolf Hoffmann |
| April 1 to October 11, 1876 | Corvette Captain Rudolf Hoffman |
| April 4 to October 29, 1877 | Corvette Captain Rudolf Hoffman |
| April 1 to October 10, 1878 | Corvette Captain Rudolf Hoffman |
| April 1 to November 13, 1879 | Corvette Captain Rudolf Hoffman |
| March 15 to August 13, 1881 | Lieutenant Trützschler von Falkenstein |
literature
- Gröner, Erich / Dieter Jung / Martin Maass: The German warships 1815-1945 . tape 1 : Armored ships, ships of the line, battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, gunboats . Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Munich 1982, ISBN 3-7637-4800-8 , p. 161 f .
- Hildebrand, Hans H. / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships . Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present . tape 2 : Ship biographies from Baden to Eber . Mundus Verlag, Ratingen, S. 220-223 .
Remarks
- ↑ The designation of the lower officer ranks was set or changed in the years 1849, 1854 and 1864. On January 1, 1900, the names Fähnrich zur See, Leutnant zur See, Oberleutnant zur See and Kapitänleutnant, which are still in use today, were introduced.
- ↑ a b The rank corresponds to a lieutenant commander.