Barrier breaker 14
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As Sperrbrecher 14 one was mine countermeasures vessel referred that the Navy began 1940-1942. The cargo ship , built in 1929, operated as Tai Ping for the Norwegian shipping company Wilh until 1940 . Wilhelmsen served overseas and was confiscated by the German Wehrmacht in May 1940 . After it was briefly assigned to the Unterweser shipping company as Bockenheim , the Navy requisitioned the ship and used it as a barrier breaker - until it was decommissioned after a mine damage in 1942.
history
Norwegian cargo ship Tai Ping
After delivery in 1929, the shipping company registered the Tai Ping in Tønsberg on the Oslofjord , where it remained at home until it was confiscated by the Germans in 1940. Like most of the shipping company's ships, the Tai Ping was also used in overseas trade : Immediately after commissioning, the ship ran from Oslo to New York City , which it reached in January 1930. From there it went via the intermediate station Newport News through the Panama Canal to the American Pacific coast to Los Angeles . Then she went to Manila in the Philippines , via Shanghai and Hong Kong to Kobe and Yokohama in Japan - and back to New York, which she reached again at the end of August 1931.
During the German occupation of Norway by the Weser Exercise Company , the Tai Ping was lying in the Akers Mekaniske Verksted shipyard in Oslo on April 9, 1940 for repairs and was seized there by the Navy. This first captured the ship on May 9, before it was confiscated for the German Reich on May 28, 1940.
Cargo ship Bockenheim
The confiscated Tai Ping was handed over to Unterweser Reederei AG (URAG) in Bremen on June 1, 1940 , and was given the name Bockenheim , a district of Frankfurt am Main , on June 11 . At URAG this was the fourth ship of this name. URAG had used the last Bockenheim to transport ore for the parent company, the Metallgesellschaft ; it was sunk on April 11, 1940 near Narvik by its own crew , as it thought approaching German destroyers were enemy units. The German government gave the Norwegian ship to URAG as a replacement for the Bockenheim that had just been submerged.
However, this fourth Bockenheim only stayed with URAG for a short time, as the Navy after a few weeks requisitioned the ship for its own purposes and had it converted into a barrier breaker on August 2, 1940.
Barrier breaker 14
The Navy let the ship - as did three other ships from the Wilh shipping company. Wilhelmsen - converted into a barrier breaker, as it was well suited for use in the Biscay or the rough waters of the North Sea and the strong hull walls and the high freeboard promised greater resistance to mine detonations.
The conversion took place from August 2 to October 15, 1940 at the Seebeck shipyard in Bremerhaven . The ship was equipped with a protective stowage mainly made of sand and empty barrels, a VES system and armament consisting of two 105-mm guns, four 37-mm and five 20-mm anti-aircraft guns. The commissioning took place on November 30, 1940 in Wesermünde as barrier breaker 14 for the 2nd barrier breaker flotilla founded in July.
The operational area of the flotilla was on the French coast between Brest and the Spanish border, after the formation of the 6th barrier breaker flotilla on July 1, 1941 between the Loire estuary and the Spanish border. The main base of the flotilla was Royan , and the ports of operations were Saint-Nazaire , La Rochelle , La Pallice and Bordeaux . The tasks included keeping the access routes to the ports free for the German submarines, blockade breakers and suppliers.
In 1942 the ships of the 2nd barrier breaker flotilla were in constant use. On their last deployment, Sperrbrecher 14 scored three clearing successes off Royan on June 22, 1942, one of which was a direct mine hit under the engine room. This hit damaged the machinery so badly that it should have been replaced. The ship was first brought to Bordeaux. It received additional damage there when a British command unit attacked during Operation Frankton in December 1942. The group had started from the British submarine HMS Tuna and reached the port of Bordeaux by canoe on the Gironde at night. On December 12, 1942, she installed mines on several ships there. Blockade breaker 14 received further damage as a result, as well as the blockade breakers Alabama , Tannenfels , Portland and Dresden . On the same day, the Navy put the Bockenheim out of service due to the damage.
The ship initially remained in Bordeaux and was sunk on August 25, 1944 in the Gironde estuary near Bassens as a block ship to prevent the Allies from using the port of Bordeaux.
In March 1945 the ship was lifted and a year later towed to Pasajes in Spain , where it was scrapped until February 1949.
Construction and technical data
The ship was built at the Swedish Kockums shipyard in Malmö for the Norwegian shipping company Wilh. Wilhelmsen on August 10, 1928 the hull number 159 to set keel . The launch took place on March 16, 1929 under the name Tai Ping - Chinese for "great peace" or "luck" - and the handover to the shipping company on June 16 of that year.
It was 147.51 meters long, 18.49 meters wide and had a draft of 8.76 meters. It displaced 14,250 tons and was measured at 7,019 GRT . The drive consisted of two Kockums 8-cylinder four - stroke diesel engines , which together made 7,500 hp and operated on two screws . With this she reached a speed of 15 knots and a range of 31,600 nautical miles with a bunker reserve of 226 tons of oil .
Like almost all Wilhelmsen ships, she was able to take up to twelve passengers. The ship also had a refrigerated hold.
See also
literature
- Jan Mordhorst: 125 years of Unterweser Reederei URAG: 1890–2015 . Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg 2015, ISBN 978-3-7822-1219-9 .
- Peter Arndt: German barrier breaker 1914-1945. Construction - Equipment - Armament - Tasks - Use . Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Bonn 2005, ISBN 3-7637-6257-4
- Erich Gröner , Dieter Jung, Martin Maass: The German warships 1815-1945 . Volume 3: Submarines, auxiliary cruisers, mine ships, net layers and barrier breakers . Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Koblenz 1985, ISBN 3-7637-4802-4
- Reinhart Schmelzkopf: Foreign ships in German hands . Strandgut Verlag, Cuxhaven 2004
- Bård Kolltveit, Bjørn Pedersen, Wilh. Wilhelmsen (Firm), World Ship Society: Wilh. Wilhelmsen: 150 Years, 1861-2011 . WW / Dinamo Forlag, Fornebu / Norway 2011, ISBN 978-82-8071-221-9
Web links
- wlb-stuttgart.de
- wlb-stuttgart.de
- navypedia.org
- varvshistoria.com
- lardex.net
- varvshistoria.se
- norskeskip.no
- charmedlife.info
- naviearmatori.net (Photos Sperrbrecher 14)
- imgur.com (150 barrier breaker photos)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Charmed Life. A Biography of Einar Lauritsen .
- ↑ varvshistoria.se
- ↑ Mordhorst, p. 214; Gröner, p. 264; Arndt, p. 238; Schmelzkopf, p. 243
- ↑ Mordhorst, p. 214; Arndt, p. 238
- ↑ Reinhart Schmelzkopf: Die deutsche Handelsschiffahrt 1919-1939, Vol. 2: List of all ships over 500 GRT with all technical and historical data , Verlag Gerhard Stalling, Oldenburg, Hamburg 1975, ISBN 978-3-7979-1859-8 , p 58
- ↑ Mordhorst, p. 61
- ↑ Mordhorst, p. 214
- ↑ Gröner, p. 264; Arndt, p. 238
- ↑ wlb-stuttgart.de ; Arndt, p. 90f., P. 102, p. 158
- ↑ wlb-stuttgart.de ; Arndt, p. 169
- ↑ wlb-stuttgart.de ; Gröner, p. 264
- ↑ wlb-stuttgart.de ; wlb-stuttgart.de ; Gröner, p. 264
- ↑ Mordhorst, p. 214; on the other hand skipshistorie.net
- ↑ Mordhorst, p. 214; Gröner p. 263 f .; Arndt, p. 238; navypedia.org
- ↑ varvshistoria.com , lardex.net