SMS Iltis (1905)

SMS polecat

The sister ship Stolzenfels

Ship data flag  German Empire other ship names Turritella Polavon Gutenfels Ship type Auxiliary cruiser home port Bremen Shipping company DDG "Hansa" Shipyard Flensburg shipbuilding company Build number 254 Keel laying 1905 Launch November 18, 1905 takeover January 16, 1906 Commissioning February 27, 1917 as an auxiliary cruiser Whereabouts Submerged itself on March 5, 1917 12 ° 26 ′  N , 44 ° 12 ′  E Coordinates: 12 ° 26 ′ 0 ″  N , 44 ° 12 ′ 0 ″  E

Ship dimensions and crew length 135.2 m ( Lüa ) width 16.76 m Draft Max. 6.27 m displacement 10,700 t measurement 5,576 GRT   crew 1 officer, 27 men, 46 Chinese

Machine system machine 3 cylinder boilers 1 vertical four-cylinder quadruple expansion steam engine , Machine performance 2,600 Top speed 11 kn (20 km / h) propeller 1

Armament 1 × 5.2 cm Sk L / 55 (200 shots) 25 mines

The auxiliary cruiser SMS Iltis was built in 1906 as a cargo ship Gutenfels for DDG Hansa .

At the beginning of the First World War , it was confiscated by Great Britain in Egypt in 1914 .

In 1917, the ship , which had meanwhile been renamed Turritella , was seized by the auxiliary cruiser SMS Wolf in the Indian Ocean and used briefly as the German auxiliary miner SMS Iltis against Aden .

ship

The second Gutenfels of the DDG Hansa belonged to the eight ships of the Rheinfels class , which from 1905 to 1907 at Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson ( Rheinfels , Braunfels , Rotenfels , Rauenfels ), the Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft ( Gutenfels , Stolzenfels ), Joh. C. Tecklenborg ( Lindenfels ) and AG Weser ( Uhenfels ) had been built for DDG Hansa .

The 10,700 t displacement and 5,528 GRT ship was launched on November 18, 1905 at the Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft under the name Gutenfels . It was 135 meters long and 17 meters wide and had a draft of 6.3 meters. Its top speed was 11 knots.

At the beginning of the war, six freighters of the class were seized or seized by the British Navy in Port Said , Perim , Bombay , Calcutta , Sydney . The Rauenfels found refuge in Brazil , which was neutral until 1917 , and the Uhenfels in the neutral Dutch East Indies .

history

On February 27, 1917, the German auxiliary cruiser SMS WOLF landed the British steamer TURRITELLA in the Indian Ocean and then put it into service as the auxiliary cruiser ILTIS.

When the First World War broke out , the Gutenfels was in Port Said, Egypt . She was confiscated from Great Britain as enemy possession and first under the name Polavon , then in 1916 as the tanker Turritella ( Tanker 147 ) under the direction of the Anglo-Saxon Petroleum Company Ltd. Commissioned for the Royal Navy .

Routes of the SMS Wolf (1913) (red / green) and Iltis (blue)

On February 27, 1917 at 6:25 a.m. the German auxiliary cruiser SMS Wolf, west of Colombo , which had also belonged to the Hansa Line before the war , sighted the Turritella in the Indian Ocean. After a brief pursuit, the Turritella was stopped with a shot in front of the bow at 8 ° 40 '  N , 63 ° 15'  E at 0800. She was immediately converted into an auxiliary cruiser with a 5.2 cm cannon and 25 sea ​​mines under the name SMS Iltis . The ship's commanding officer was the Wolf's first officer , Lieutenant Iwan Brandes . The crew consisted of 27 members of the Wolf as well as a larger number of Chinese who were part of the original British crew and who have now been recruited for German services. The polecat was supposed to lay the mines off Aden and then wage a trade war on its own for as long as possible.

Naming

Frigate Captain Nerger , Commander of the Wolf , wrote the following about the commissioning and renaming of the ship :

“Kapitänleutnant Brandes, who saw 27 men, mainly machine, FT , signaling and helmsman personnel, was given command of the newest ship in the German fleet, which I commemorate the first combat activity in my life - I was on in 1900 the 'Iltis' took part in the fight against the Takuforts as first lieutenant under the current Admiral Lans - gave the name 'Iltis'. "

- Karl August Nerger : SMS Wolf , Verlag August Scherl, Berlin 1918, p. 35f.

Whereabouts

Sister ship HMS Clio the Odin , 1905

While laying the mines, the polecat was discovered on the morning of March 5, 1917 by the British sloop HMS Odin of the Cadmus class , which was armed with six 4- inch cannons. The cruiser HMS Fox , which had already been successfully deceived , approached again. In view of their hopeless inferiority, the crew of the polecat sank their ship west-southwest of Aden at 12 ° 26 '  N , 44 ° 12'  E itself and was picked up by the crew of the Odin . Some of them did not return from captivity until 1920, like Brandes himself . Until then she was housed in the detention center in Ahmednagar , India .

After the scuttling, the Chinese crew members gave the British interrogators a precise description of the wolf , but the wolf left the area of ​​operations in the Indian Ocean shortly afterwards. Two English steamers ran into the mines laid out by the polecat . On March 20, 1917 the 5,064 GRT steamer Danubian and in January 1918 the Hong Moy with 3,910 GRT. Both ships were still able to reach the port of Aden despite the damage they suffered.

Fate of the sister ships

Surname	Shipyard	GRT tdw	Launched in service	further fate
Rheinfels (2)	Swan Hunter construction no. 732	5512 8670	06/19/1905 08/08/1905	Confiscated in Bombay in 1914, Baxtergate in 1922 , laid up in March 1930, demolished in August 1933
Gutenfels (2)	Flensburg building no. 254	5576 8745	18.11.1905 16.01.1906	Confiscated in Port Said in 1914, attacked by SMS Wolf in 1917 , used as an auxiliary ship Iltis , sunk off Aden itself on March 5, 1917
Stolzenfels (3)	Flensburg building no. 255	5566 8780	01/6/1906 03/02/1906	Confiscated in Sydney in 1914: Dongarra , 1925: British Kotka , 1927 Benvrackie , 1931 demolition in Japan
Braunfels (2)	Swan Hunter construction no. 760	5557 8650	22.06.1906 08.17.1906	Confiscated in Bombay in 1914, Yugoslavia in 1924: Vidovdan , stranded in the Dutch East Indies on December 15, 1939 , total loss
Rotenfels	Tecklenborg building no. 214	5584 8700	September 18, 1906 November 8, 1906	Seized in 1914 in Calcutta, 1925 Cape St. Martin , 1927 Yugoslavia: Dujan Silni , 1925 China: Pei Ping , 1938 Japan: Wonsan Maru , November 9, 1942 US submarine USS Halibut sunk
Lindenfels (2)	Swan Hunter construction no. 768	5476 8600	November 4, 1906 December 18, 1906	Applied off Aden in 1914: Kingsmere , 1922 to Greece: Agios Ioannis , laid up in December 1931, June 1933 demolition in Italy
Rauenfels	Swan Hunter construction no. 770	5476 8620	14.12.1906 05.02.1907	1914 in Brazil, confiscated in 1917: Lages , loaned to France 1920–1922, owned by Lloyd Brasileiro in 1927 , sunk by U 514 off the north coast of Brazil on September 27, 1942
Uhenfels	AG Weser Building No. 259	5577 8670	01/19/1907 04/6/1907	1914 in Tandjung / Dutch East Indies, October 1918 to the Netherlands: Bandoeng , launched in early 1931 and sold for demolition at the end of the year

References and comments

1. ^ Paul Schmalenbach: The German auxiliary cruisers 1895-1945 . Gerhard Stalling, Oldenburg / Hamburg 1977, ISBN 3-7979-1877-1 , p. 47 .
2. ^ John Walter: Pirates of the Emperor - German trade troublemakers 1914-1918 . Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1996, p. 176. ISBN 3-613-01729-6
3. ^ Letter to the editor Hermann Rieke. In: FAZ , August 30, 2010, page 6
4. ^ John Walter: Pirates of the Emperor - German trade troublemakers 1914-1918 . Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1996, ISBN 3-613-01729-6 , p. 177.
5. ↑ Loss of the Vidovdan
6. ↑ Sinking of the Genzan Maru
7. ↑ sinking of Lages

literature

• Hans H. Hildebrand, Albert Röhr, Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships: Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present , Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford, vol. 6, p. 106
• Chapter: Auxiliary cruiser "Wolf" . In: Carl Herbert: War voyages of German merchant ships . Broschek & Co, Hamburg 1934
• Chapter: SM auxiliary cruiser "Iltis" . In: Eberhard von Mantey : The German auxiliary cruisers , Berlin 1937, pp. 315-324.
• John Walter: Pirates of the Emperor - German trade troublemakers 1914–1918 . Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1996, p. 184. ISBN 3-613-01729-6

Web links

• Gutenfels at Hansa-Ships
• The 7 days of the SMS "ILTIS" in the Indian Ocean