Santa Elena (ship, 1907)
 as an aircraft mother ship
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The Santa Elena was a 7,400 GRT merchant ship that was converted into an aircraft mother ship with the designation FS II by the Imperial Navy of the German Reich during the First World War and was used as such in the Baltic Sea.
After the World War, the ship served as a cargo ship under the American, French, Italian and, most recently, German flags again until 1944 . In August 1944 it was sunk in Marseille as a block ship.
Construction, technical data and years of peace
In contrast to the so-called express or post steamers of the Cap class, the cargo ships for the main line delivered after 1900 were referred to as the Santa class, since the name began with Santa on 15 of the 16 ships delivered up to 1914 . But as with the Cap steamers, there were also different groups with the Santa steamers. The ships that could only carry cargo or tween deck passengers were delivered in five groups of two to five ships.
The Santa Elena expired on November 16, 1907 at Blohm & Voss in Hamburg for the Hamburg-South American Steamship Company ( "Hamburg Süd") from the stack . At 7415 GRT, she was the largest of the Santa class and belonged to the third assembly of these ships. A very similar ship was the 7401 GRT Santa Maria built in Flensburg . The Santa Elena was 137.7 m long and 16.8 m wide and had a draft of 7.0 m. The propulsion system consisted of three steam boilers and a quadruple expansion machine that developed 3000 hp and gave the ship with its one shaft a top speed of 11 knots . Up to 1198 passengers could be transported in the tween deck.
The maiden voyage of the Santa Elena began on January 7, 1908 in Antwerp and led via Buenos Aires to Bahía Blanca . Almost at the same time, the sister ship Santa Maria made its first voyage on January 5th from Hamburg via Buenos Aires to Rosario . Until the outbreak of the First World War, the Santa Elena provided freight and passenger service between South America and Europe. In August 1914 the ship was in Germany.
First World War
In 1914 the ship was requisitioned by the Imperial Navy and converted into an aircraft mother ship at the Imperial Shipyard in Danzig . After the original conversion was considered unsatisfactory, the ship came to Blohm & Voss in Hamburg, where the final conversion was carried out. The commissioning took place on July 2, 1915. The ship now displaced 13,900 tons, was armed with two 8.8 cm anti-aircraft guns and had a crew of 122. A hangar for two seaplanes and a loading boom for lowering and picking up the aircraft were installed on the fore and aft . If necessary, two more aircraft could be carried outside the two hangars. The aircraft could be lowered into the water up to a sea state 4 ("moderately agitated").
His Majesty's auxiliary ship (SMH) Santa Elena was the largest of the German aircraft mother ships in World War I and was used in the Baltic Sea . There it took u. a. in autumn 1917 participated in Operation Albion , the amphibious landing operation to occupy the Baltic islands of Ösel , Dagö and Moon .
1919-1945
At the end of the war, the Santa Elena was interned in a Swedish port . In April 1919 she was extradited to Great Britain. It was taken over by the US Navy on April 26, 1919 in Brest as USS Santa Elena (ID 4052) and was used as a transporter to repatriate American troops from Europe until it was decommissioned on August 20, 1919 in New York. Relocated to Great Britain by September 26th, it was finally handed over to France in 1920 , where, after being overhauled, from February 1922 under the new name Linois by the shipping company Chargeurs Reunis, it was used as a freighter to French Indochina , among others .
In 1942 the ship was captured by Italy during the complete occupation of France and, after appropriate modifications, was used as a troop transport in the Mediterranean under the name Orvieto .
In September 1943 it was seized by the Wehrmacht in Genoa when Italy surrendered and then used by the Mediterranean shipping company . In August 1944 the ship was sunk as a block ship in the port of Marseille when the German troops evacuated southern France. The wreck was lifted and scrapped in 1945.
| Fate of the sister ship | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Surname | Shipyard | GRT | Launch | in service | further fate |
| Santa Maria | Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft BauNr. 276 |
7401 | 11/5/1907 | 12/22/1907 | laid up in Caleta Buena after the start of the war , machine destroyed in September 1919, towed to Hamburg in 1920, repaired there, delivered to Great Britain on April 6, 1922, but remained in Hamburg, where it was bought back by Hamburg-Süd as the first buyback on April 22, renamed Villagarcia , sold in 1932 to the Deutsche Werke in Kiel for demolition . |
Footnotes
- ↑ Rothe, p. 122.
- ↑ a b c d e f Kludas: The History of German Passenger Shipping , Volume III, pp. 44–45.
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Kludas: The ships of Hamburg-Süd 1871–1951 , p. 66.
- ↑ Rothe, p. 118.
Web links
- Santa Elena, on World Aircraft Carriers List: Germany
- Santa Elena private website, with photos of the model
- Santa Elena private website
- USS Santa Elena (ID 4052)
- Santa Elena in the Naval Historical Archive
- Santa Elena film recordings in the Federal Archives (from 1:21)
literature
- Carl Herbert: War voyages of German merchant ships . Broschek & Co, Hamburg 1934.
- 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,
- Dieter Jung, Berndt Wenzel, Arno Abendroth: Ships and boats of the German sea pilots 1912-1976 , 1st edition, Motor Buch Verlag, Stuttgart, 1977
- Arnold Kludas : The History of German Passenger Shipping. Volume 3: Rapid growth 1900 to 1914. Ernst Kabel Verlag, Hamburg 1988, ISBN 3-8225-0039-9 ( writings of the German Maritime Museum 20).
- Arnold Kludas : The History of German Passenger Shipping. , Volume 4: Destruction and Rebirth 1914 to 1930. 1989, ISBN 3-8225-0047-X . (Writings of the German Maritime Museum, Volume 21)
- Hans Georg Prager : Blohm & Voss , Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft , Herford 1977, ISBN 3-7822-0127-2 .
- Claus Rothe: German ocean passenger ships 1896 to 1918 . Steiger Verlag, 1986, ISBN 3-921564-80-8 .