Skagerrak (ship, 1939)
The Skagerrak was a Norwegian ferry that was captured by the German navy during World War II and used as a mine ship.
Construction and technical data
The ship was built in 1939 on the Aalborg Værft in Aalborg ( Denmark ) and was named Skagerrak I as a ferry in Norway. It was 70.7 m long and 11.6 m wide, had a draft of 4.0 m and was measured at 1281 GRT . The machine system consisted of two marine diesel engines with 5000 HP and gave a top speed of 17 knots . A maximum of 400 passengers and 30 vehicles could be transported.
Mine ship
The ship fell into German hands during the German invasion of Norway and was converted into a mine ship by the Navy from May 1940. It was armed with two 3.7 cm and four 20 mm flak and could carry up to 160 mines . The ship was put into service on August 17, 1940 and, together with the also captured former Norwegian mine- layers Brummer and Togo , subordinated to the leader of the outpost boats West in Norway. From November 1940 it was subordinate to the minership group north of the leader of the minesweeping groups west.
In preparation for the planned invasion of Great Britain ( Operation Sea Lion ), the Skagerrak , like all other available mine ships, was relocated to the English Channel coast by the Navy in September 1940 . She was assigned to the so-called West Group and traveled together with the Stralsund on December 12-14. September to Le Havre , from where their mine-laying companies were supposed to start. Since the invasion of England was finally postponed indefinitely and then canceled entirely, the Skagerrak was ordered back to the Baltic Sea . During the German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941, the Skagerrak was involved with the mine ships Prussia , Grille and Versailles under the command of the Führer der Minerschiffe (FdM), Kpt.zS Bentlage, and laid mine barriers in the eastern Baltic Sea.
After that she was in Swinoujscie for a long time before she was sent back to Norway and used there to lay mines. In each of her subsequent ventures she laid nearly 160 mines . Already on May 22, 1942, she laid the "Nero" barrier in Skagerrak , on June 30, the "Eisvogel" barrier on the northern Norwegian coast and on July 24 and 25, barriers at the Namsenfjord and Romsöyfjord. From August 20, 1942, the Skagerrak served for a while as a target ship for the 27th U-Boat Flotilla , a training unit in the Baltic Sea. In October, November and December 1942 she laid minefields again near Tromsø , Petsamo and Bodø , and in January and February 1943 in the Varangerfjord , Kirkenes and Tromsø. Barriers were laid in the Bergen area at the beginning of March and in the Tromsø area at the end of March / beginning of April. Between April 20 and June 5, the northern Norwegian coastal path on the polar coast was mined. From June 25 to July 11, 1943, the mine barriers "NW 51" to "NW 56" were deployed on the Norwegian west coast south of Lofoten , and from July 12 to 14, the barriers "NW 41" to "NW 44" were deployed the coast off North Trøndelag near Vikna .
The End
The ship then went to the shipyard, which it did not leave again until November 6, 1943. It then moved back to Norway, where it was sunk on January 20, 1944 west of the island of Egeröy (off Egersund ) by a torpedo shot down by a Bristol Beaufighter of the 489th Squadron of the Royal New Zealand Air Force . Seven men of the crew were killed.
Notes and individual references
- ↑ Facta om Fartyg (Swedish)
- ↑ http://www.navypedia.org/ships/germany/ger_conc_aml2.htm
- ^ Naval Warfare, September 1940
Web links
literature
- Karl von Kutzleben, Wilhelm Schroeder, Jochen Brennecke : Mine ships 1939–1945. The mysterious missions of the “midnight squadron”. Köhler, Herford 1974, ISBN 3-7822-0098-5 .