Scheer (ship, 1915)
 The Scheer built as Kronenfels
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The Scheer of the Hamburg-American Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft (Hapag), completed in 1915 as Kronenfels , was confiscated by the Dutch authorities in Batavia in 1940 . The ship, which was launched in 1915 for the Deutsche Dampfschiffahrtsgesellschaft Hansa (DDG "Hansa") after completion, was delivered to Great Britain in 1919 with its three sister ships, which were also completed during the war and then launched. In 1921 Hugo Stinnes Schiffahrt bought the ship back and deployed it to East Asia. The mergers in 1926 brought Scheer with Stinnes and DADG to Hapag.
As a Dutch Mangkai , the Scheer / Kronenfels was sunk on March 16, 1941 in a convoy to North America by the German battleship Scharnhorst . She sank at position 43 ° 25 'N / 43 ° 05' W in the North Atlantic.
History of the ship
The four ships of the Kronenfels class of the DDG “Hansa” were under construction at the beginning of the war for use in East Asia; they were measured at over 8,000 GRT and had a deadweight capacity of over 12,000 tdw. They were the largest ships that DDG "Hansa" had ordered up to then.
The first ship with over 10,000 tdw was the second Drachenfels , delivered in 1900 , followed in 1912 by two more larger ships with the second Goldenfels and the OJD Ahlers , which were built for participation in the East Asia freight service. The normal large freighters of the shipping company had moved from 1896 ( Neidenfels ) to 1914 ( Greiffenfels ) in sizes between 5384 and 5852 GRT and 8270 to 8900 tdw. In five series, 35 ships of roughly the same size were built for the shipping company in addition to smaller ships and ships for areas other than the Indian Ocean.
The Kronenfels was built as the only East Asia freighter by the Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft , which was the main German supplier of newbuildings to DDG Hansa from 1888 to 1914 with 20 ships. During the war, this shipyard also completed the smaller Rudelsburg for the shipping company. The three sister ships of the Kronenfels were built by AG Weser , which had built eleven ships for DDG Hansa from 1883 until the start of the war and completed the smaller Sonnenfels before the three East Asia freighters during the war .
The Kronenfels was 145.67 m long, 18.99 m wide and had a draft of up to 8.45 m. She was measured with 8,135 GRT and had a deadweight capacity of 12,110 tdw. A 4-cylinder quadruple expansion machine of 3800 PSi made by the shipyard worked on one screw and gave the ship a speed of up to 11 knots (kn). The under construction no. 342 built ships were launched in Flensburg on October 13, 1914 as the shipping company's first Kronenfels and were delivered to the Bremen shipping company on May 18, 1915. However, the new building was opened for the war.
Mission history
At the end of March 1919, the previously unused ship was delivered to Great Britain. In November 1920, the shipping company McLelland & Co. bought the ship and named it St. Lawrence River . However, in 1921 the resale carried the ship to the AG Hugo Stinnes Maritime and overseas trade in Hamburg that the ship after the German fleet commander in the Skagerrak battle in Scheer renamed.
In 1926, in the course of the large mergers with a large part of the Stinnes ships and the Austral-Kosmos fleet , the Scheer came to Hapag, which continued to use the ship as a cargo ship to East Asia.
From May 1936, the sister ship Anglo-Colombian ex Schwarzenfels , bought by the Atlas shipping company in Emden, also came under the German flag as Africa ; However, the Afrika was lost on December 21, 1936 on a trip from Narvik to Emden in a heavy storm with a cargo of iron ore near Trondheim . The crew was saved by the German steamer Frielinghaus .
After the outbreak of war in 1939, the Scheer called at the neutral port of Makassar on Celebes . When the German Wehrmacht invaded the Netherlands on May 10, 1940 , the Dutch authorities confiscated the laid-up ship.
Final fate
The Kronenfels was renamed Mangkai by the Netherlands and handed over to Rotterdamsche Lloyd for ship management. From 7th to 28th December 1940 the Mangkai ran in the convoy SL.58 from Freetown to Liverpool .
From March 6, 1941 on the way from Glasgow to Hampton Roads , the Mangkai was on May 16, 1941 by the German battle cruiser Scharnhorst about 450 miles from Kap Race at the position 43 ° 25 ′ 0 ″ N , 43 ° 5 ′ 0 ″ W countersunk. Of the 45-man crew, only nine men were rescued from the Scharnhorst and taken prisoner. On that day, the two German battle cruisers sank a total of 13 ships from the disbanded convoy OB 294 (originally 42 ships), of which the Mangkai was the largest. Three tankers were sent to France as prizes, of which only the Norwegian motor tanker Polykarp (1931, 6405 GRT) reached the destination. The other two were provided by British warships; the prize crews could sink them, however. The German battle cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau had discovered the disbanded convoy with the help of their supply ships Uckermark and Ermland and finally withdrew from the approaching HMS Rodney .
The ships of the Kronenfels class
| Surname | Shipyard | GRT tdw |
Launched in service |
further fate |
|
Kronenfels (1) |
Flensburg building no. 342 |
8135 12,110 |
October 13, 1914 May 18, 1915 |
Delivered in 1919, in 1920 as St. Lawrence River to McLelland & Co, in 1921 repurchased by the Stinnes shipping company, renamed Scheer , in 1926 to Hapag, confiscated in Makassar in 1940, as a Dutch Mangkai on March 16, 1941 in a convoy to North America through the Scharnhorst sunk. |
|
Weissenfels (2) |
AG Weser Building No. 206 |
8319 12,270 |
30.12.1914 28.05.1915 |
Delivered in 1919, in 1920 as City of Auckland to Ellerman Lines , 1947 Karteria , 1950 Italy: Steva , demolition. |
|
Schwarzenfels (2) |
AG Weser Building No. 207 |
8325 12.175 |
29.05.1915 10.23.1915 |
Delivered in 1919, 1921 as Anglo-Colombian to Nitrat Producers Steamship Co., bought in May 1936 by Atlas-Reederei , Emden: Africa , December 21, 1936 with a cargo of iron ore from Narvik to Emden sunk in a severe storm near Trondheim , crew from German steamer Frielinghaus rescued. |
|
Falkenfels (1) |
AG Weser Building No. 208 |
8322 12,100 |
07/10/1915 12/10/1915 |
Delivered in 1919, 1921 as Tredenham to Hain Steamship Co., 1924: Pareora of Federal Steam Navigation, some accidents, mostly lying on the ground from 1930, demolition in Japan in 1934 |
Individual evidence
- ↑ Schmelzkopf: Die deutsche Handelsschiffahrt , p. 195
- ↑ Journeys of the Mangkai
- ↑ Schmelzkopf: Die deutsche Handelsschiffahrt , p. 195
Web links
literature
- Hans Georg Prager: DDG Hansa - from liner service to special shipping , Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford 1976, ISBN = 3-7822-0105-1.
- Reinhardt Schmelzkopf: German merchant shipping 1919–1939 . Verlag Gerhard Stalling, Oldenburg, ISBN 3 7979 1847 X .
- Reinhold Thiel: The history of the DDG Hansa. Volume 1: 1881-1918. HM Hauschild, Bremen, 2010, ISBN 3-8975-7477-2 .