Senja (ship, 1937)

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The Senja was a patrol boat of the Norwegian Fisheries Control Service ( "Fiskerioppsynstjenesten"), which in the Second World War by the German Navy conquered and under the name of Leo as a guard and patrol boat was used again as a Norwegian post-war fishery protection vessel and finally as fishing trawlers and Kümo served .

Construction and technical data

The sister ship Nordkapp

The ship was launched on August 25, 1937, a week after its sister ship Nordkapp , on the Marinens Hovedværft on Karljohansvern in Horten . It was 39.8 m long and 6.53 m wide and had a draft of 2.26 m . The displacement was 243 tons standard and 279 tons fully loaded. Two 6-cylinder 4-stroke diesel engines of Sulzer with 580 together PS permitted via a shaft of a speed of 13.7 knots . The range was 3200 nautical miles at 11 knots cruising speed. The armament originally consisted of a 47 mm cannon on the stern, which was replaced by a 76 mm cannon in January 1940. The crew consisted of 23 men.

history

German invasion of Norway

When the German invasion of Norway began in April 1940, the ship belonged to the Ofoten division in the 3rd Maritime Defense District (3rd Sjøforsvarsdistrikt) in northern Norway. On April 8th the Senja was in Narvik . She inspected the German supply tanker Jan Wellem , which came in in the afternoon, and set out in the early hours of April 9 to warn merchant ships of a British minefield allegedly laid at night near the island of Landegode north of Bodø at the entrance to the Vestfjord . On the way there, shortly after 4:00 a.m. at Ramnes, at the narrowest point of the Ofotfjord, she was arrested by the incoming German destroyer Anton Schmitt and ordered back to Narvik, where she docked at 6:30 a.m., under threat of violence German troops took possession and was then used as a guard boat.

Three days later, on the evening of April 12, the boat in an air raid twelve of was lying without crew on Nykaien, aircraft carrier HMS Furious launched Swordfish - fighter aircraft of the 818th season of the Fleet Air Arm by the pressure effect of aerial bombs sunk well like that on April 9th, the Norwegian guard ship Michael Sars captured .

Navy

On September 12, 1940, the Senja was lifted and, after appropriate repairs, put into service on October 21 with the port protection flotilla Narvik as the watch boat NN.01 "Lion" . When the port protection flotillas were converted into outpost flotillas, the boat was given the number V 6315 on May 15, 1944 in the 63rd outpost flotilla that emerged from the port protection flotilla Narvik. From December 1944 it was then used as an outpost boat V 6735 in the 67th outpost flotilla, which had emerged from the Kirkenes harbor protection flotilla; The port of operation was now Melbu on Vesterålen .

Norwegian Navy

At the end of the war in May 1945 the boat was lying in front of Bogen in the Kvæfjord , west of Harstad . It was handed over to the Norwegian Navy , which put it back into service as the KV Senja fisheries protection boat . In March 1954 the ship was decommissioned and launched .

Civil shipping

In 1956 the ship was sold and converted into a purse seine trawler and freighter with 211 GRT . One of the two diesel engines was removed so that the ship only had 290 hp. It was put into service in June 1957 as Torodd , used for purse seine fishing for herring in winter and for fishing off Iceland in summer , otherwise in coastal freight traffic.

Around 1960 the ship was resold to Åkrehamn ; it was now given the fishing number R-226-A. When the municipality of Karmøy was formed , it was given the number R-637-K on January 1, 1965.

In October 1971 there was another sale and the ship, newly measured with 198 GRT, was now only used in coastal freight traffic. On March 13, 1972, in Langevåg near Ålesund , it was so badly damaged by fire that it was written off by the insurance company as a total loss and became their property. In 1975 it was sold to Trondheim for demolition and scrapped there in May 1975.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ The Ofoten department also included the two old coastal armored ships Norge and Eidsvold , the submarines B1 and B3 with the tender Lyngen and the guard boats Michael Sars and Kelt .
  2. ↑ The coast guard boats Michael Sars and Kelt, which were also captured, could not be put into operation until April 12th. The Michael Sars was sunk by the Furious on the same day during the air raid , the Kelt sunk by the British destroyer HMS Icarus in Narvik the following day .
  3. ↑ NN = Norway Narvik
  4. ↑ http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/km/sichverb/ksv.htm
  5. ↑ http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/km/vboote/vfl63-68.htm
  6. ↑ http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/km/vboote/vfl63-68.htm

Web links

literature

  • Geirr H. Haarr: The Battle for Norway: April-June 1940. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, 2010, ISBN 159114051X (Engl.)
  • Frank Abelsen: Marinens fartøyer 1939-1945 og deres skjebne =: Norwegian naval ships 1939-1945. Sem & Stenersen, Oslo, 1986, ISBN 82-7046-050-8 (norwegian & engl.)