Scharnhorst (F 213)

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Scharnhorst
The Scharnhorst in its final state of arms
The Scharnhorst in its final state of arms
Ship data
flag United KingdomUnited Kingdom (Naval War Flag) United Kingdom of Germany
GermanyGermany (naval war flag) 
other ship names
  • Mermaid
Ship type Sloop training
ship
class modified
Black Swan class
Callsign DBSV
Shipyard Denny & Brothers , Dumbarton
Build number 1375
Keel laying September 8, 1942
Launch November 11, 1943
Commissioning May 12, 1944 ( RN )
May 28, 1959 ( German Navy )
Decommissioning March 15, 1968
Whereabouts Sold for scrapping in 1989
Ship dimensions and crew
length
91.34 m ( Lüa )
width 12.2 m
Draft Max. 2.86 m
displacement 1,925  ts
 
crew 180 men
Machine system
machine 3 boilers ,
2 Parsons turbines
Top
speed 		20 kn (37 km / h)
Armament from 1944

last

The frigate Scharnhorst (F 213) of the German Navy was a training ship, named after the Prussian general and chief of staff Gerhard von Scharnhorst (1755-1813). The ship was launched in 1943 as HMS Mermaid for the Royal Navy and was in service for another year in World War II ; the ship was awarded the Battle Honor Arctic 1944 for war missions. From 1959 to 1968 the Scharnhorst served as an artillery training ship for the German Navy. In autumn 1989 it was sold to Zeebrugge for demolition .

History of the ship

In service with the Royal Navy, she drove as the sloop HMS Mermaid . She had taken up her service with the British Home Fleet on August 17, 1944 and was used to secure Northern Sea convoys . On August 24, 1944, while defending convoy JW 59 to Murmansk, she sank the German submarine U 354 with the destroyer Keppel , the Sloop Peacock and the frigate Loch Dunvegan . During the counter-escort RA 59A on September 2, the U-boat U 394 , first attacked by a Swordfish of the Vindex , succeeded again with Keppel and Peacock and the Whitehall .

A planned mission in 1945 with the British fleet in the Pacific ended when the war left Aden, also against Japan. The ship remained in service with the British Mediterranean fleet until 1954 . Until it was sold to the German Navy, the ship was in the reserve in Portsmouth . Before being handed in, the Mermaid was overhauled at Vickers-Armstrong in Newcastle .

Service as an artillery training ship for the German Navy

Germany took over the Scharnhorst as part of the rearmament of the Federal Republic of Germany from the United Kingdom with six other frigates of different classes. She was one of three frigates of the modified Black Swan class . For the sake of simplicity, the school frigates were grouped together under the heading of class 138 school frigates , although they were by no means identical. The Scharnhorst was put into service in 1959 for the Naval Artillery School . During her service, she made some training trips in European waters.

From June 1961 to July 1962 the Scharnhorst was rebuilt at HC Stülcken Sohn and received the artillery weapons intended for the new buildings of the German Navy with two fully automatic French 10 cm cannons, a 40 mm Bofors L / 70 twin gun and two individual guns Type.

Compared to the other school frigates, she remained in active service for a comparatively long time until March 15, 1968. After retiring from active service, she remained with the reserve flotilla until 1974. After her final elimination, she served as a training hulk for the ship safety teaching group in Neustadt . There crews of the maritime units were trained in fire fighting and leak prevention. In November 1989 she was replaced there by the former frigate Cologne . The Scharnhorst was scrapped in Zeebrugge.

Other warships with the name Scharnhorst

Several other German warships were named after Gerhard von Scharnhorst :

gallery

  • HMS Mermaid

  • French 10 cm multipurpose gun

  • Bofors L / 70 single mount

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rohwer: Chronicle of the naval war. P. 475.
  2. ↑ a b service history Mermaid (U 30)

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.
  • Günter Kroschel, Klaus-Jürgen Steindorff: The German Navy 1955–1985. Ships and planes. Lohse-Eissing, Wilhelmshaven 1985, ISBN 3-920602-30-7 .

Web links