SMS Pommerania

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
War Ensign of Germany (1892–1903) .svg
SMS Pommerania.jpg
Construction data
Ship type Aviso
Builder: AG Vulcan , Szczecin
Launch : September 1864
in service: April 27, 1871
painted: August 10, 1890
Technical specifications
Displacement : fully equipped: 460 t
Length: over everything: 55.20 m
Width: 9.70 m above wheel arches
Draft : 2.35 m
Machinery:
Drive: 2 side wheels, 5.4 m ø
Power: 490 PSi
Top speed: 12 kn
Rig
Rigging : More beautiful
Masts: 2
Crew size: 65 men
Armament
originally: 2 - 8 cm ring cannons
1880: 2 - 8.7 cm ring cannons
4 revolver cannons
Whereabouts
Converted to a three-masted schooner in 1892, sunk

SMS Pommerania was an Aviso from the Imperial Navy . The ship was built as a mail steamer for the liner service from Stralsund to Sweden. The Pommerania wastaken overby the Navy of the North German Confederation in 1870and was in service with the Imperial Navy until 1889.

History of Pommerania

The Pommerania was launched in September 1864 at AG Vulcan in Stettin . The client was the Prussian Navy Ministry, but the delivery was made to the postal administration. The Pommerania was used in the liner service between Stralsund and Sweden. It was an iron side-wheel steamer with two chimneys. The two side wheels between the two chimneys each had ten blades with a diameter of 5.4 m, which were driven by a two-cylinder expansion machine. The two masts were able to carry bail sails, but were not sufficient for sailing under sail. It is unclear whether sea officers practiced handling steamers on the mail ship.
In 1870 the navy showed interest in a temporary takeover of Pommerania , as the Radaviso Loreley, which was last used by the navy as a survey ship, had been used up and the necessary overhaul would cause the Loreley to fail for a long time. On August 20, 1870, the Pommerania was taken over by the Navy of the North German Confederation, where it is unclear what legal form the takeover was based on. Due to the Franco-German War , however, immediate commissioning was not possible because neither crew nor equipment were available.
For use as Aviso, the 55.2 m long and 9.7 m wide over the wheel arches Pommerania was armed with two short 8 cm ring cannons. It displaced 460 t with full equipment and reached up to 12 knots (kn) with its two-cylinder expansion steam engine .

First missions

It was not until April 27, 1871 that SMS Pommerania was put into service for the first time. After the transfer to Kiel, SMS  Pommerania was made available to a scientific commission to research the North and Baltic Seas in the interests of sea ​​fishing . The first expedition began in Kiel in mid-July 1871 and led to the Skagerrak , then along the Swedish coast to Stockholm and then to the Courland coast. The voyage ended after 2,800  nm in Friedrichsort , where the ship had to remain in quarantine due to a cholera outbreak on board before it was decommissioned on November 16, 1871. The Aviso was supplied and looked after by the gunboat Cyclop . On July 11th, 1872 the next commissioning of the Aviso took place, in which already on July 21st a second scientific journey began, this time through Kattegat and Skagerrak to Bergen , then across the North Sea to Peterhead and back via the Doggerbank , Den Helder and the then British Heligoland led to Wilhelmshaven . The Pommerania then arrived back in Kiel on September 10 after a voyage of 2500 nm, where she was decommissioned again on the 21st. The next active period of service from April 16 to October 31, 1873 spent SMS Pommerania with surveys, especially the Mecklenburg coast. She was supported by the Blitz gunboat . A machine failure in May caused the Aviso to stop at the shipyard unexpectedly.

Use in the Mediterranean

On May 1, 1876, SMS Pommerania was put back into service and assigned to the tank training squadron.
The uneasy situation in the Ottoman Empire after the outbreak of the April Uprising and the murder of the German consul Abbot and his French colleague in Thessaloniki on May 6 led to the Berlin Memorandum on May 15 , an agreement on the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire between Germany , Russia and Austria-Hungary , which was also joined by France and Italy . As a result, von Bismarck asked for the squadron to be sent to the Mediterranean . On May 22nd, therefore, the tank frigates Kaiser , Deutschland , Friedrich Carl and Kronprinz as well as Pommerania ran out of Wilhelmshaven into the Mediterranean under the command of Rear Admiral Karl Ferdinand Batsch . Via Plymouth , Gibraltar and Valletta the ships reached Thessaloniki on June 25th, where ships from all signatory states of the Berlin Memorandum as well as British units were staying. The Aviso also called at Algiers on June 12th, making it one of the first German warships to call at a French port after the
Franco-Prussian War of 1870/71 .

The armored frigate Friedrich Carl

After the negotiations had been concluded because of a satisfaction for the murder case, the flagship Kaiser and the Germany marched back home on August 23, 1876 . The commander of the Friedrich Carl , who led the remaining units as commodore, collected the German units off Smyrna on September 10th. While the two remaining armored ships went back to Thessaloniki due to renewed unrest, the Pommerania remained in Smyrna until it was replaced there by the gunboat Comet . In November, the Radaviso moved to Constantinople as a second stationary alongside the gunboat Meteor . The Crown Prince returned to Germany at the end of December 1876 and finally Friedrich Carl was withdrawn from the Aegean Sea in March 1877 . The corvette Gazelle remained there as a larger ship .

The gunboat Meteor

From March to May 1877 the Pommerania was again stationed in Smyrna. The Meteor , used as a stationary since April 1874 , finally left Constantinople on June 3, 1877. Its sister ship Comet and the Radaviso Pommerania remained as stationary in Constantinople. The two were occasionally used to travel to the station area and were also available to the German ambassador.
In July 1877, the armored training squadron with Kaiser , Germany , Friedrich Carl and the new armored frigate Prussia as well as the Aviso Falke were relocated again for three months to the eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea and the stationary units were subordinated to the squadron during the mission. The Pommerania was primarily used in the Bosporus and the Marmara Sea , while the Comet traveled to the Aegean Sea, was temporarily stationed in Smyrna and also made a trip in the Black Sea to the Danube Delta .
On June 12, 1879, Pommerania left Constantinople to return home and was decommissioned on August 9, 1879 in Wilhelmshaven. As a replacement for the stationary, the Aviso Loreley arrived in Constantinople on September 3, 1879 , so that the Comet could begin its journey home.

Further missions and whereabouts

On August 25, 1881, the Pommerania came back into service as a tender for the North Sea naval station and completed this task until it was decommissioned on the 24th. Since it had previously served as the pleasure ship of the German ambassador, it had a high level of comfort, but was due to the high paddle wheel - Superstructures susceptible to wind and tilted to the side even in weak winds. April 1884. From March 25th to September 30th, 1885 the Pommerania served in the North Sea in fishery protection. She also took part in the autumn maneuvers of the training fleet.
From 1886 to 1889, the Pommerania was used as a survey ship from April to mid-October along the German coasts. In June 1887, Pommerania took part in the celebrations to celebrate the groundbreaking ceremony for the Kiel Canal . On this occasion, Kaiser Wilhelm I visited the navy for the last time and took a parade of the fleet on board the Pommerania . On October 18, 1889, SMS Pommerania was taken out of service for the last time.

The Aviso was finally deleted from the list of warships on August 10, 1890. In 1892 the ship was sold to a Hamburg company and converted into a civil three-masted schooner Adler . The schooner went missing on the first Baltic voyage in 1892.

Commanders

April-June 1871 KL Victor Sattig 1843-1883 last KzS
June - November 1871
July - September 1872
April - September 1873
KL Rudolf Hoffmann 1830- ?? KK
September - October 1873 LzS Julius Köthner 1847- ?? KL d. Sea defense
May 1876 - May 1877 KL / KK Martin Georgi 1836- ?? KK
May 1877 - July 1878 KL Rudolf, Frh. Von Rössing 1846-1934 KzS
July 1878 - August 1879 KL Franz Junge 1846- ?? KzS
August 1881 - April 1884 KL "Fritz" Graf von Baudissin 1852-1921 Admiral , wing adjutant of Wilhelm II.
April / May 1884 KL Karl Ascher 1851-1940 Rear admiral
March - September 1885 KL Ludolf Frh. Von Sohlern 1852- ?? KL
April - October 1886 KL Hugo Rüdiger 1851- ?? FK
April - October 1887 KK Max Foss 1850-1939 Rear admiral
April - October 1888 KK Adolph Becker 1850-1890 KK
April - October 1889 KL Max von Halfern 1848- ?? KzS

literature

  • Ernst Gröner: All German warships from 1815-1936 . BoD - Books on Demand, 2010, ISBN 3-86195-391-9 .
  • Hans H. Hildebrand / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships: Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present , Koehler's publishing company, Herford, seven volumes

Individual evidence

  1. a b c d e f Hildebrand u. a .: The German Warships , Volume 5, p. 50
  2. Groener: All German Warships , p. 44
  3. Hildebrand et al. a .: The German Warships , Volume 2, p. 22
  4. Hildebrand et al. a .: The German Warships , Volume 1, p. 147.
  5. a b Hildebrand u. a .: The German Warships , Volume 3, p. 115 f.
  6. a b c Hildebrand u. a., Volume 2, p. 16
  7. a b c d e f Hildebrand u. a., Volume 5, p. 51.