Seattle (ship, 1928)
 Overgrown railing at the stern of the Seattle wreck
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The Seattle was a combined cargo and passenger ship of the shipping company HAPAG in Hamburg, which was launched in 1928, was sunk in 1940 during the Weser Exercise company near Kristiansand and is now a popular but dangerous wreck for recreational divers .
Construction and use
The Seattle was one of a series of five very similar combination ships , built and 1928-1929 for the HAPAG to port cities in the US were named Pacific Coast: Los Angeles , San Francisco , Seattle , Portland and Oakland . They were intended for regular service to the west coast of the USA. The Seattle was the third ship of the series and a little longer than the Los Angeles and San Francisco , which had previously also been manufactured by the Deutsche Werft in Hamburg-Finkenwerder , and which came into service in February and May 1928. Her sister ship was the Portland delivered by the Bremer Vulkan . The slightly smaller Oakland was the fifth ship to be delivered by the German shipyard in 1929.
The Seattle offered space for up to 38 passengers and had holds with a volume of 13,619 cubic meters. She ran in March 1928 launched and completed yet in June 1928 its maiden voyage through the Panama Canal to the North American west coast. In the following years she commuted three times a year between Germany and the west coast of the USA. From 1938 she was under the command of Captain Hermann Lehmann, who led the ship until it sank.
Seattle's final fate
The Seattle's last voyage began in May 1939 and passed through the Panama Canal to Los Angeles , San Francisco and Tacoma . On the way home, the crew of u. a. Seattle was loaded with tropical fruits , wood, general cargo, hides, honey, coffee and tea and a radio signal from the Navy ordered a quick return to Germany because of the risk of war. Alternatively, the instructions prepared for this situation prescribed entry into a neutral port. Since the Seattle could not reach Germany in the given time, she called at Willemstad on the island of Curaçao , part of the Netherlands Antilles , where she arrived on August 29, 1939. Together with several other German ships, including the HAPAG steamer Vancouver , the Seattle was detained and placed under supervision by the Dutch authorities. After some time, the German ships had to move to the unprotected San Miguel Bay, where they were watched by Allied warships. On the one hand, the German captains took precautions to sink themselves, on the other hand they also prepared an attempt to escape, which was implemented on March 4, 1940. That evening the Seattle and the Mimi Horn escaped , the following evening the Hannover .
The Seattle was the only one of the three ships that managed to escape the Allied warships in the North Atlantic and, despite the lack of sea charts , to reach Norway through the Denmark Strait and north around Iceland , where it entered Tromsø on March 31 . On her onward journey south along the Norwegian coast, the Seattle was escorted by Norwegian warships, first on April 8th by the torpedo boat Draug under frigate captain Thore Horve , then from Stavanger by the destroyer Gyller , whose commander Captain Lehmann on the evening of April 8th instructed to anchor at the island of Oksøy off Kristiansand . When Lehmann was supposed to continue the voyage the next morning, warships were sighted en route to Kristiansand. It was a German association under the leadership of the light cruiser Karlsruhe , which was supposed to occupy the port city as part of the attack on Norway ( Operation Weser Exercise ). Lehmann thought the ships were British and tried to flee towards Kristiansand with his ship. The Seattle got caught in the defensive fire of the Norwegian coastal artillery on the island of Odderøya , with which the German attackers were initially forced to turn away. The Seattle was hit amidships and caught fire. It is not entirely clear whether it was a grenade from the Norwegians or an aerial bomb from one of the Heinkel He 111 bombers requested by Karlsruhe for support . The Gyller is also said to have shot at the Seattle . The entire crew was able to leave the ship, which was burning for four days before Kristiansand, until it finally sank at Dvergsnestangen in the Korsvikfjord.
The wreck
The Seattle was discovered in 1988 by the Norwegian diver Erling Skjold and has since become one of the most popular wrecks in southern Norway. The hull lies upright on the seabed, with the stern on a rock ridge, which is bent upwards as a result. The stern rises up to about 25 meters, the rudder and propeller shafts (the propellers were dismantled and recovered) are at a depth of about 38 m, while the bow is 72 m deep. Despite significant damage from the fire and corrosion , the wreck is still quite well preserved. However, parts seem so fragile that at least parts of the fuselage will collapse in the foreseeable future. The chimney probably sagged in a storm in winter 2006/2007. The wreck ( 58 ° 2 ′ 19.6 ″ N , 8 ° 1 ′ 25.4 ″ E, ) shows heavy vegetation with dead man's hands , Sea squirts and sponges and is inhabited by numerous fish and starfish .
For recreational divers diving with compressed air , only the stern of the wreck with the clearly visible rudder quadrant, bollards , the stern superstructure and the rear cargo holds are accessible. The lower parts such as the midships bridge (from approx. 50 m) and the forward cargo holds are reserved for technical divers . The Seattle has to be considered a demanding dive, as the stern slopes steeply and divers can quickly reach great depths there. Especially in autumn, when the surface layers of the water are cloudy, hardly any sunlight reaches the wreck and it can be very dark there. It is dangerous to break into the interior because of the obvious signs of decay. Several fatal diving accidents have occurred on the Seattle , in at least one case because a diver was trapped inside the ship by collapsing wreckage.
literature
- Arnold Kludas : The History of German Passenger Shipping Volume IV Destruction and Rebirth 1914 to 1930 , Writings of the German Shipping Museum, Volume 21