SMS Szent István
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The SMS Szent István was a battleship of the Austro-Hungarian Navy . It was named after the Hungarian national saint, Saint Stefan ( Hungarian : Szent István ). This was done in recognition of the Hungarian part of the dual monarchy.
The Szent István , which was considered the most modern ship of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, was sunk on June 10, 1918 in the Adriatic Sea off the island of Premuda by an Italian speedboat through two torpedo hits. The downfall was captured on film.
construction
The Szent István belonged as the Viribus Unitis , the Prinz Eugen and the Tegetthoff to Tegetthoff class . The approval of the Hungarian people's representatives for the construction of this class could only be bought with a concession that the Hungarian shipbuilding industry would participate. The only company of this kind was the Danubius shipyard of Ganz & Co. in Fiume , which had previously only built torpedo boats and destroyers and therefore had no experience with the construction of capital ships . She was entrusted with the construction of this battleship as well as two cruisers and several destroyers. The battleship was scheduled for completion on July 30, 1914.
With considerable expenditure of money and the cancellation of the Sunday rest, the shipyard was enlarged. The keel of the Szent István was laid on January 29, 1912. The construction was carried out with mainly Hungarian material. The gun turrets, on the other hand, were produced by the Škoda company, and the armor plates came from the Witkowitz ironworks in Witkowitz , Moravia . It was only launched on January 17, 1914; a breaking anchor chain killed a shipyard worker and seriously injured another.
After the launch, the ship's hull was taken to the equipment basin for the installation of the machinery. When the First World War broke out, the unfinished ship from Fiume was transferred to the central war port of Pola for completion .
After the London Treaty of April 1915, Italy switched sides, making the Adriatic as well as the Alps a war zone. Commissioning followed on November 17, 1915. The completion of the Szent István was delayed by a total of 17 months.
Calls
In November and December 1915, the ship carried out several sea trials and completed a trial shooting in the Fasana Canal . Since the trips were only relatively short, the maximum speed of 20 knots could not be tested. On December 23, the Szent István was officially assigned to the 1st Squadron. On January 6, 1916, she received a plaque of honor with the image of St. Stephen given by the Hungarian Adriatic Association .
On February 10, 1916, she sailed the Fasana Canal with her sister ships. On February 16, 22 and 26, there was an air raid in Pola. On March 15, accompanied by four torpedo boats, she drove to the Adriatic Sea, where she held target practice on March 16. Then she was back in Pola, where there were again air attacks in March, May, June, July and August. At the end of August she practiced torpedo shooting in the Fasana Canal. On December 15, 1916, the new Emperor Charles I visited the ship.
In 1917 nothing changed in this monotonous existence. Between occasional trips to practice shooting, there were repeated Italian air raids. On December 12th, the German Kaiser Wilhelm II came on board.
In 1918 the Szent István ran out only once before it was sunk. Together with her sister ship Viribus Unitis , she undertook a one-day test shooting at San Giovanni in Pelago , a small island south of Rovinj .
The sinking
On February 27, 1918, Miklós Horthy was appointed fleet commander. He decided to use all four dreadnoughts of the fleet as part of a large-scale naval operation in the southern Adriatic to break the Italian barrier of the Otranto Strait. To report on this great event, Horthy was the Tegetthoff a team of imperial war press quarters , as well as its flagship the best-known reporter of the empire, Egon Erwin Kisch bring on board. On June 8, the Viribus Unitis and the Prinz Eugen left Pola with seven escort vehicles, followed the next day by the Szent István under the liner captain Heinrich Seitz , who also commanded the department, and the Tegetthoff . Only one destroyer and six torpedo boats were available as escorts. Until then, the Szent István had been in port for 883 days of her 937 days of service, which is why the crew had no experience at sea. Since the crew at the port barricade was not informed for reasons of confidentiality, it was not possible to leave the port at 9 p.m. as planned, but only at 10:15 p.m. In order to make up for the loss of time, the ship went to top speed for the first time during its service life. This and the freshly bunkered, still damp coal caused a strong plume of smoke.
On the island of Lutrošnjak near Premuda , the two Italian motor torpedo boats MAS 15 and MAS 21 returned from an uneventful patrol under the command of Corvette Captain Luigi Rizzo . Rizzo noticed a large plume of smoke on June 10th at 3:15 a.m. at first dawn, coming from the north. Under cover of darkness, the boats broke through the escort at slow speed. The two torpedoes of MAS 15 hit Szent István, who was only 14 knots from about 600 m to starboard because of damage to the main shaft bearing, at around 3:30 a.m. , while those of MAS 21 missed their target. Both boats managed to escape to Ancona .
The first torpedo hit at the level of the bulkhead between the two boiler rooms, the second at the level of the aft boiler room. There was severe water ingress, whereupon the fires in the boilers on the starboard side had to be extinguished. The Szent István headed for the island of Molat at a speed of 4.5 knots , as the two forward boilers on the port side continued to function. The Tegetthoff tried three times to tow the Szent István , but this had to be stopped twice due to false submarine warnings. At the third attempt the ropes were cut again because of the risk of capsizing. When at about half past five the last two boilers had to be extinguished due to the risk of explosion and the hull was listed more than 30 °, the ship was lost. At 6:05 a.m. the Szent István capsized and at 6:12 a.m. she disappeared under the surface of the water. The losses amounted to four officers and 85 crew grades, and there were 29 injured. After the loss of the ship, the entire action against the Otranto barrier was canceled.
The sinking of the ship was filmed by the war press camera team on board the Tegetthoff . The film is a contemporary document that is still frequently shown in the media and is mostly used to illustrate the vulnerability of large ships to underwater attacks. The apparent serenity of the crew shortly before the ship rolled over is striking. When this happened with surprising speed, many sailors tried to save themselves over the railing and side wall to the keel turning upwards. Besides the Barham , which sank in World War II , the Szent István is the only battleship whose sinking could be filmed.
consequences
After confirmation of the sinking, Corvette Captain Rizzo received the Golden Medal of Bravery . This was his second award, because he had also received this medal for sinking the ship of the line Vienna . June 10th, the day of the sinking of the Szent István , was determined to be the day of the Italian Navy and is still today. The kuk fleet, on the other hand, did not dare any further action until the end of the war.
reception
The wreck
In 1976, Yugoslav navy divers took the first underwater photographs of the sunk ship. The wreck lies keel up on the seabed at a depth of 66 meters (position 44 ° 12 ′ 7 ″ N , 14 ° 24 ′ 5 ″ E, ). In 1990, an Italian-Yugoslav expedition financed by Italian television made the next dive. In June 1994 an Austrian team under the leadership of Gerhard Jurecek and Franz Mittermeier arrived for the first time, and in autumn 1994 a Hungarian team followed.
In May and September 1995, a Hungarian-Croatian group under László Czakó and Mario Jurišić carried out extensive investigations. The ship is eight miles from Premuda Island and eleven miles from Ilovik Island . The screws protrude at a depth of 48 m. The front part of the fuselage has broken off. The two holes on the starboard side caused by the torpedoes are clearly visible. Further expeditions followed in October 1997 and 2007 in the course of research and recordings for the documentary, which was completed in 2008.
During the diving expeditions it was found on the wreck that the torpedo explosions with holes 5 m × 6.70 m had caused unusually severe damage to the hull. The explanation given is that the belt armor only reached 2 m below the waterline and that the torpedoes hit exactly at this transition between the armored and unarmored area. In addition, with the boiler rooms, they hit the most vulnerable parts of the ship.
Movie
In the 1920s, the Italian side in the silent film Gli eroi del mare nostro (The Heroes of Our Sea) also portrayed the great success of the sinking of the Szent István in propaganda. In the second part of the 35-minute film, the well-known Austrian original film material of the sinking was supplemented by recreated recordings on the captured Tegetthoff , as well as action scenes from MAS boats (led by Luigi Rizzo, who portrays himself). The entire film can be viewed on the website of the image archive of the Italian Senate.
In 2008, the drama about Szent István was filmed in a documentary directed by Maria Magdalena Koller (camera: Stephan Mussil ). This shows the background to the downfall and the consequences that resulted from it. The deployment of Franz Dueller, machine manager (technical naval officer rank at lieutenant level) on the Szent István is particularly highlighted . The film has several titles. In the German version it was originally Death at Dawn - The Downfall of the Szent István , but most recently (with repetitions on ORF in November 2018 or on arte on February 3, 2015) Torpedoes at Dawn - The Emperor's last battleship .
Museum reception
The history of the kuk Kriegsmarine is documented in detail in the naval hall of the Army History Museum in Vienna , and the exhibition also includes an impressive 6 m long cut-away model 1:25 of the sister ship Viribus Unitis as well as contemporary representations in paintings and photographs of the Szent István . In addition, the film that was recorded by a camera team from the war press headquarters during the sinking and later commented on by Horst Friedrich Mayer is shown in an endless loop. A model of the ship is on display in the Gallerion Museum in Novigrad , Croatia .
literature
- Franz Scheiber: The sinking of the battleship SMS Szent Istvan. In: GKB-Zeitung für Eisenbahn und (nd) Bergbau , No. 2/1938 (IX. Volume), February 12, 1938, p. 22 ff. (Online at ANNO ). .
- Zvonimir Freivogel: Dive around the K. u. K. Battleship Szent Istvan. (= Marine-Arsenal. Special. 8) Podzun-Pallas, Wölfersheim-Berstadt 1998, ISBN 3-7909-0642-5 .
- Dieter Winkler, Erwin Sieche, Walter Blasi : His Majesty's battleship Szent István. The Hungarian dreadnought as reflected in eyewitness accounts ( memento from November 9, 2013 in the Internet Archive ). In: Österreichische Militärische Zeitschrift , No. 5/2006, ZDB -ID 2425952-4 .
Web links
- Szent István on kuk-kriegsmarine.at , accessed on May 8, 2013
Individual evidence
- ↑ Winkler et al .: His Majesty's battleship Szent István .
- ↑ Documentari: Gli eroi del mare nostro . (Italian). Italy 1927.
- ^ Manfried Rauchsteiner : The Army History Museum in Vienna. Photos by Manfred Litscher. Verlag Styria, Graz et al. 2000, ISBN 3-222-12834-0 , p. 84 f.
- ^ Museum website