Starfish (ship, 1903)
.jpg) German government yacht Seestern , date and location unknown (before June 1909)
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The Seestern was a government steamer of the Imperial Gouvernement for German New Guinea . She has been missing since she left Brisbane on June 2, 1909 . As a service vehicle of the Foreign Office (until 1907) and the Reich Colonial Office (from 1907), it carried the Reich Service Flag or Reich Colonial Flag .
history
The Seestern served as a so-called station steamer in the New Guinea Governorate from 1903 and was therefore obviously stationed in Herbertshöhe or Rabaul . It had the clipper bow typical of the yacht type of that time . Details of the operation are not known, among other things, it was used as a troop transport for the New Guinea police force. One voyage led to Singapore , apparently Australian ports were called regularly . The starfish also went to the Palau Islands .
Since June 3, 1909, the starfish has been considered missing since it left Brisbane , where repairs had been made, to Rabaul or Samarai ( Milne Bay Province ). Due to the poor communication connections - the Seestern had no radio telegraph system and Rabaul was not connected to the telegraph cable network - the steamer was apparently only missing from the German authorities at the beginning of July. Apparently in mid-July the Norddeutscher-Lloyd - passenger steamer Prinz Waldemar arrived in Sydney and brought the news from Samarai that the yacht has been missing there for 20 days. Allegedly, the Starfish had not sailed from Brisbane to Rabaul, but was supposed to call against the original order Jap , which was apparently not known in Rabaul.
According to newspaper reports, shortly after the starfish left the area in question, the weather conditions were extremely bad. In the search for the starfish , among others, that were survey ship Planet and the light cruiser Condor and Australian vessels are taking part. As far as is known, no wreckage or other indications of their disappearance have ever been found. According to a passenger on the steamer Moresby , a Mr. Seeley, the Starfish should have been unexpectedly ordered to the Admiralty Islands to put down a native riot. The captain of the Moresby , which had apparently arrived in Brisbane from the Solomon Islands on July 20, 1909 , had strong doubts about this information.
On August 25, 1909, the Condor arrived in Brisbane after an 18-day search for the lost yacht. She found a plank on the Sanmarez reef on August 9, but it could not be assigned to the starfish . On the Mellishriff, the Condor found an iron shipwreck with two anchors lowered , but the wreck was apparently already years old. Some officers of the Condor told the press that the starfish probably capsized and sank. Information about the crew is not yet known.
The government yacht Komet , which was built by the Bremer Vulkan in Vegesack , was put into service in 1911 to replace the Seestern .
literature
- Erich Gröner : The German warships 1815-1945 , Volume 7: Landungsverbände (II), landing vehicles i (m). e (actual). Sense). (Part 2), landing ferries, landing support vehicles, transporters; Ships and boats of the army, ships and boats of the Seeflieger / Luftwaffe, colonial vehicles , Koblenz 1990, p. 223 ff. ISBN 3-7637-4807-5
- German yacht. The starfish. Not yet reported. No cause for anxiety , in: The Beaudesert Times, July 16, 1909, p. 8.
- Missing Yacht Seestern , in: The Argus ( Melbourne , Victoria), July 21, 1909, p. 6.
- Missing German Yacht , in: Wairarapa Daily Times , Volume LXI, Edition 9428 of July 21, 1909.
- German Yacht Seestern , in: The Argus (Melbourne, Victoria) of August 25, 1909, p. 8.
Web links
- Information about the starfish at wrecksite.eu
- Photo of the starfish off the island of Fanna in December 1906, Koloniales Bildarchiv, University Library Frankfurt am Main
