Skagerrak (ship, 1928)
 The sister ship Kattegat
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
.svg){kind=small}
The tanker Skagerrak of the shipping company John T. Essberger was the second motor ship completed in 1928 by Schichau-Werke for the shipping company .
In 1940 the ship was used as part of the so-called “Tanker Squadron” as part of the “Weser Exercise” company and was supposed to go to Trondheim . The tanker at sea in the southern northern sea was sunk by its crew on April 14, 1940, when the British heavy cruiser Suffolk spotted and chased it.
History of the Skagerrak
The Skagerrak was the second motor tanker built at Schichau for German customers after the sister ship Kattegat .
On June 28, 1928, the 8,500 tonne Skagerrak was launched at the Schichau shipyard in Danzig six months after the sister ship Kattegat , which had been in use by Atlantic Tank Rhederei GmbH since March 1928 . On November 14, 1928, the Skagerrak was delivered, which was almost identical to the sister ship. It was also powered by a 6-cylinder Sulzer 6S68 diesel engine of 2700 hp manufactured under license at Schichau , just as three Norwegian 10,500 t tankers had received in 1927.
With the two Schichau ships and three very similar tankers from AG Weser with 6-cylinder MAN diesel engines, the commissioning shipping company owned a total of five modern tankers.
The shipping company, initially registered in Bremen, moved to Hamburg in 1931 and finally became the sole proprietorship of John T. Essberger in 1936 .
From her last voyage in peace, the Skagerrak arrived in Hamburg from Aruba on August 16, 1939 .
War effort
A planned conversion of the Skagerrak for use by the Navy was carried out at Blohm & Voss in Hamburg at the end of October 1939 . The ship came to the supply ship association in Wilhelmshaven as the oil ship 3 "SKAGERRAK .
In 1940 the ship was used as part of the “Weser Exercise” company as part of the so-called “Tankerstaffel”, which consisted of four large and five small tankers under 900 GRT. The Skagerrak should with 6000 m³ heating oil, 575 to. Distillate, 40 to. Turbine lubricating oil, 20 to. Engine lubricating oil, 560 m³ of fuel oil for submarines and provisions for 10 small submarines go to Trondheim.
The Skagerrak left on April 4, one day after the sister ship Wilhelmshaven and stood on April 10, 1940 at an agreed meeting point in the southern North Sea to be able to supply battleships and cruisers. On the morning of April 14th, she was on a meeting line for the destroyers returning from Trondheim to the Reich when she was discovered by the British cruiser Suffolk . In order to avoid an impending agitation, the crew sank their ship themselves
at the position 65 ° 5 ′ 0 ″ N , 8 ° 0 ′ 0 ″ E,
Individual evidence
- ^ List of the first Sulzer seagoing vessels
- ^ Jordan: Merchant Fleets , p. 57
- ↑ Naval War, 3.-14. April 1940 Norway
Web links
- Use of the Skagerrak
- Use of the sister ship Kattegat
- Use of the factory ship Jan Wellem
- Use of the Stedingen ex Posidonia
- TK Derry: THE CAMPAIGN IN NORWAY
- NAVAL EVENTS, APRIL1940 (Part 2 of 4)
- Equipment tanker Echelon
literature
- Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronicle of the Naval War 1939-1945 , Manfred Pawlak VerlagsGmbH (Herrsching 1968), ISBN 3-88199-0097
- Reinhardt Schmelzkopf: German merchant shipping 1919–1939 . Verlag Gerhard Stalling, Oldenburg, ISBN 3 7979 1847 X .
- Trygve Sandvik: Krigen i Norge 1940 - Operasjonene til lands i Nord-Norge 1940 , 2 volumes, Forsvarets Krigshistoriske Avdeling / Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, Oslo (1965).
- Erik Anker Steen: Norge sjøkrig 1940-1945 - Sjøforsvarets kamper og virke i Nord-Norge 1940 , Forsvarets Krigshistoriske Avdeling / Gyldendal Norsk Forlag, Oslo (1958).