San Jeronimo (ship)
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The San Jeronimo was one of the largest oil tankers in the world with its commissioning right before the start of the First World War and 14 years later under the name Southern Empress the largest whaling ship under the British flag for a short time . Until 1941, the ship was used for whaling in the Southern Ocean.
On October 14, 1942, the Southern Empress ex San Jeronimo was sunk in a convoy on the North Atlantic by a German submarine.
history
The San Jeronimo was the fifth of ten hurriedly built San Fraterno class ships to transport fuel from Mexico on behalf of the British Admiralty. The client was the Eagle Oil Company , a London subsidiary of the British Pearson Group . Its owner, Weetman Pearson , who later became Lord Cowdray, had a strong business interest in Central America, especially in Mexico. With the completion of the new fleet at shipyards like William Doxford & Sons , a shipyard based in Pallion, Sunderland on the River Wear in North East England , it made up ten percent of the world's tanker tonnage. The San Jeronimo was rebuilt in 1917, whereupon the measurement changed to 12,028 gross register tonnes and from April 1919 onwards, under Shell paints, it was employed in the crude oil and product transport.
Whaling mother ship Southern Empress
In May 1928 the ship was at the close of the Group Lever Brothers belonging Southern Whaling & Sealing Co. Ltd. sold and extensively rebuilt to replace the factory ship Southern Queen , which was lost in 1928 . Before the San Jeronimo , the San Gregorio of the San Fraterno class had already been converted into the Norwegian whaling factory ship CA Larsen in 1926 . However, the reconstruction of the San Jeronimo differed considerably. It received higher superstructures, which connected the navigating bridge with the aft superstructure, and a rear lift only in 1934 after it turned out to be almost impossible, as planned, to lift killed whales on board with a steel net for further processing. From the 1928/1929 fishing season, the converted ship was operated as the Southern Empress from Port Stanley on the Falkland Islands as a factory ship with initially four fishing boats. The "Southern Whaling" also bought the sister ship San Patricio in April 1929 and had it converted into the factory ship Southern Princess , which was immediately fitted with a stern lift and had Dunedin in New Zealand as its home port. Between 1928 and 1930 , the shipping company had ten new fishing boats built by the British shipyard Smith's Dock for use with the two factory ships , of which the Southern Sea was lost in its first season.
In the 1934/1935 hunting season, the now slip-fitted Southern Empress achieved a record result of 226,000 barrels of whale oil. To do this, however, she stayed in action for 153 days, while the other ships only caught whales for three months. The shipping company had extended the mission because the Southern Princess had canceled early in the season in order to produce an expected overall result for the company. This use was criticized by the Norwegian companies as a violation of the voluntary quantity restrictions. Unilever did not comply with the rules that the group applies to the purchase of whale oil from the Norwegian companies. In 1936 the company renewed its fishing fleet and replaced seven fishing boats with boats of 344 GRT newly built at the Bremer Vulkan , according to the plans of the Southern Star, built by Smith's in 1930 . In addition, Smith's Dock delivered the Southern Pride of 582 GRT, a large exploration and fishing boat, of which the volcano also delivered a replica in 1937 with the Southern Gem . At the end of 1938 and beginning of 1939, Unilever temporarily considered selling the Southern Empress to Germany, which wanted to expand its whaling fleet, while at the same time a modern Norwegian whale factory should come under the British flag. This should further reduce the Norwegian influence on whaling. The increasing tensions with the Third Reich prevented the sale.
War effort
During the Second World War , the Southern Empress completed at least six successful Atlantic crossings as a tanker.
Used again as a factory ship in the winter of 1940/1941, she was warned in January 1941 by the Norwegian factory ship Thorshammer (ex San Nazario ) about the German auxiliary cruiser Pinguin , which on January 14th, the Norwegian factory ships Ole Wegger (ex San Lorenzo ) and Pelagos , the Solglimt and eleven fishing boats used as a supply ship . The British auxiliary cruiser Queen of Bermuda shortly afterwards joined the remaining whale factories to secure them. In addition to the Southern Empress and the Thorshammer , the modern factory ship Svend Foyn used by the shipping company Christian Salvesen & Co. was also located in the fishing area south of South Georgia . The older factory ships Ernesto Tornquist and Lancing were used as supply ships and to transport the whale oil extracted .
In September 1941, the Unilever Group sold the ship with its entire whaling fleet to the Salvesen shipping company in Edinburgh . The 15 fishing boats had all been in service with the Royal Navy since March 1940 and the 13 surviving boats were only used as whalers again after the war.
Sinking of the Southern Empress
In October 1942, the ship was under the command of Captain Olaf Hansen as a fleet tanker of the Royal Navy with the convoy SC-104 on a trip from New York to Glasgow .
The convoy consisted of 48 ships with different flags. On October 14, 1942, the ship was about 400 nautical miles south of Cape Farewell (northeast of St. John's, Newfoundland) at position 53 ° 40 ′ N , 40 ° 40 ′ W torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U 221 . At least 48 seafarers were killed.
The 77 survivors were picked up by the Norwegian corvette Potentilla , transferred to the Norwegian whaling factory ship Suderøy , which was also used as a tanker, and brought to Liverpool . The eleven landing craft carried as cargo for the Royal Navy were lost.
literature
- Tony Gibson: The world of ships . Basserman Verlag, 2007, ISBN 978-3-8094-2186-3 , page 204.
- RK Lochner: The amazing story of the "San Fraterno" class of the Eagle Oil shipping company. Hamburger Rundbrief issue 76/83, pages 1-7.
- Joh. N. Tønnessen, Arne Odd Johnsen: The History of Modern Whaling , University of California Press (1982), ISBN 0-520-03973-4
Web links
- Website about the ship as a whaling mother ship (English)
- Website about the ship at helderline (English)
- History of the Southern Empress with lots of pictures
Individual evidence
- ^ Tønnessen, p. 384
- ^ Tønnessen, p. 351
- ↑ Tønnessen, p. 406
- ↑ These larger boats were the type ships of the 267 Flower class corvettes built for the Royal Navy during World War II
- ^ Tønnessen, p. 465
- ↑ Information on convoy SC-104
- ↑ Page with information on the sinking by U 221 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
