The ship was built in 1913/14 by the Hamburg shipyard Blohm & Voss for the Hamburg-America Line . The Secundus and her recently at the AG Weser begun sister ship Primus were initially intended for installation of double acting two-stroke engines, due to technical difficulties but when the decision was made during construction Primus for a completion with a steam engine as Kribi and in Secundus for use single-acting diesel engines. The ship looked like a normal steamship. It had a bridge house amidships and behind it a second low structure with a large chimney. Below that were the fuel tanks and the engines. The ship was extensively tested and then made its successful maiden voyage over 10250 nm from Hamburg via New York, Philadelphia, Boca Grande and New Orleans back to Hamburg.
After the end of the First World War, the Secundus was delivered to the shipping controller . In 1919 the British shipping company Sagami Navigation Company acquired the ship and renamed it Sagami . In 1927, the ship moved within Great Britain to the Phoenix Shipping Company , which operated it as Mindoro until 1933 . Then the London Andrew Weir Shipping (Bank Line) took over the ship and named it Congella .
Sinking
On October 24, 1943, the Congella was on a journey with 8,700 tons of general cargo from Calcutta to Durban when she was attacked northwest of the Addu Atoll by the Japanese submarine I-10 with two torpedo shots. With both torpedoes missing their target, the submarine under the command of Tonozuka appeared and set the British freighter on fire. 25 crew members and three Marines were killed in the sinking, the Congella radio operator was captured by the Japanese and 37 other survivors were rescued by the whaling ship Okapi and two British Royal Air Force Catalina flying boats .
literature
= Prager, Hans Georg: Blohm + Voss . Ships and machines for the world. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford 1977, ISBN 3-7822-0127-2 .
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