Spree (ship, 1890)

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As Empress Maria Theresa

The Spree was a passenger ship built in 1890 by the North German Lloyd (NDL). It was rebuilt in 1899 and renamed Empress Maria Theresia , sold to Russia in 1904 , converted into the Ural auxiliary cruiser ( Russian Урал ) and sunk on May 27, 1905 in the sea ​​battle near Tsushima by Japanese artillery and torpedo hits .

Construction and technical data

The ship was ordered from AG Vulcan in Stettin in 1889, together with its sister ship Havel . The two ships were the last of the river class comprising a total of eleven units , but were about 2000 GRT larger than their older sisters built between 1881 and 1887, as they were equipped with a significantly larger and therefore higher speed engine system.

The Spree , from steel built, ran on 17 May 1890 the yard number 194 from the stack . She was 140.83 m long and 15.11 m wide and was measured with 6963 GRT . It had three masts and two chimneys . Two five-cylinder triple expansion steam engines achieved a speed of 18 knots over two screws , two knots less than the shipping company had requested when the order was placed. The ship was originally built as a single-screw steamer with a six-cylinder engine, but was converted in 1899. The express steamer had space for 244 passengers in first, 122 in second and 460 in third class.

fate

Spree express steamer

On October 11, 1890, the Spree set off from Bremen on its maiden voyage via Southampton to New York , where it arrived on October 21. She then served the Bremen-New York line for seven years, mostly via Southampton and occasionally via Cherbourg . There have been several special events over the years.

  • In the early afternoon of December 18, 1891, off the coast of Nova Scotia about 1,300 nautical miles east of New York, the lookout of the Spree discovered smoke. The Spree immediately set course in this direction and met the burning Abyssinia of the Guion Line , on which fire had broken out in a hold full of cotton that could no longer be brought under control. The Spree launched its lifeboats and by 4.15 p.m. all 57 passengers and 88 crew members were rescued. They were set ashore in Southampton on December 22, 1891 .
  • On November 26, 1892, on a journey with 750 passengers from Bremen to New York, the propeller shaft of the Spree broke about 1000 nautical miles from Queenstown ( Ireland ). The broken wave leaked the stern of the ship and the compartment under the aft cabins overflowed, causing panic among some of the passengers ; one man even jumped overboard and drowned. The ship was unable to maneuver in the Atlantic and a call for help could not be issued as there was no radio on board yet. After two days, the Lake Huron, the Canada Steamship Company (known as the Beaver Line) was sighted, which towed the Spree to Queenstown in six days. The accident was processed in a long poem by the eccentric poet William McGonagall . The Spree was in Milford Haven ( Wales repaired) and returned in 1893 back into service.
  • On April 12, 1894, the Spree arrived in New York with the turtleback struck by a heavy breaker in a storm.
  • On December 19, 1895, the Spree ran aground on the Warden Ledge at the northwest end of the Isle of Wight opposite Hurst Castle at 2:10 a.m. when entering the Solent in Southampton , although under the command of a pilot . After an examination in the dry dock in Southampton on December 22nd, she was able to continue to Germany a few days later.
  • On July 2, 1897, on the voyage from New York to Bremen, the drive shaft broke again and the ship drifted 550 nautical miles west of Ireland for three days until it was discovered by the Maine of the Atlantic Transport Line and towed to Queenstown. It arrived there on July 9th and was then towed to Southampton (arriving on July 16th) and repaired there.

Express steamer Empress Maria Theresia

Colored postcard view of the promenade deck of Empress Maria Theresa

On November 16, 1897, she sailed for the last time as the Spree from Bremen to New York, and on November 30, she made the last return trip to Southampton and Bremen under her old name. Then she was relocated to Stettin, where she was completely overhauled in her shipyard AG Vulcan and converted into a twin-screw ship. It was enlarged to 160.3 m in length and 7840 GRT and equipped with additional boilers as well as two four-fold expansion steam engines and two propellers, which enabled a higher speed of 20 knots. The number of masts was reduced to two and a third chimney was added instead. The passenger capacity after the conversion was 405 in the first, 114 in the second and 387 in the third class. When it came back into service, the ship was given the new name Empress Maria Theresia .

The work was completed in June 1899, but during a test voyage the ship ran aground and two tugs and two German warships, the coastal armored ships SMS Aegir and SMS Odin , were needed to get them back on the road. On the way back to Szczecin she ran aground again and this time five tugs and an icebreaker were used to tow her free. The Empress Maria Theresia was so badly damaged that she had to run back to the shipyard at low speed and be repaired again. The ship could not be used again until March 1900.

On March 13, 1900 she drove for the first time after the repair from Bremen via Southampton to New York, where she moored on March 22. In total, she completed 29 round trips as Empress Maria Theresa - including seven Mediterranean New York trips. Her last North Atlantic crossing from Bremen to New York began on September 26, 1903.

Auxiliary cruiser Urals

In March 1904 - the Russian-Japanese war had begun with the Japanese attack on Port Arthur in February - the Russian naval command, which needed fast auxiliary ships, began negotiations with the NDL through intermediaries with regard to the purchase of Empress Maria Theresia . (Russia also acquired the Auguste Victoria , Columbia and Fürst Bismarck from HAPAG from Germany .) For camouflage reasons, it was said that the ship would be acquired by the Russian Volunteer Fleet . The purchase price was 2.5 million rubles , and on April 6, 1904, test drives began for the future owners. The ship achieved an average engine power of 18,110 PSi and a speed of 20.35 knots; the maximum power was 19,328 PSi and 22 knots. The bunker capacity of 2,760 tons of coal could be increased by loading unneeded tween deck cabins so that at a cruising speed of 13 knots up to 10,300 nautical miles could be sailed without having to bunker again.

On April 21, 1904, the ship moved to Libau for delivery , and on April 24 the conversion to an auxiliary cruiser began there . The armament consisted of two 120 mm L / 45 Canet guns, four 76 mm L / 40 guns from Armstrong-Elswick , eight 57 mm Hotchkiss guns and two machine guns . The bunker capacity was increased to 4,260 tons of coal, and a telegraph and two combat floodlights were installed. The crew of the auxiliary cruiser consisted of 19 officers and 491 men. After its completion, the ship was entered in the fleet list as a 2nd class cruiser under the name Ural ( Урал ).

The first mission led the Ural , together with the auxiliary cruiser Don , the former Prince Bismarck , in July 1904 north around the Shetland Islands into the Atlantic , to off the northwest coast of Africa , Cape Verde , the Strait of Gibraltar and the Atlantic coast of Spain and To track down and raise Portugal's contraband intended for Japan . The two cruisers parted on August 8 at the height of Lisbon and the Urals ran towards Cape Finisterre . On August 17th, without waiting for the Don at the agreed meeting point , the Urals went to Vigo . There, on the morning of August 20, she took a working DC generator and 1,200 tons of coal on board and, through the Russian agent on site, received an order from the Navy Ministry to return to Libau immediately. On August 25, the Urals were back in Libau. During her voyage she had covered 6,568 nautical miles, burned 3,480 tons of coal and inspected 12 ships.

In Libau, the Urals were being prepared to move to the Far East. This included, in particular, the installation of a particularly powerful radio station, by means of which radio communication with Vladivostok could be maintained during the trip . When the Russian Baltic Fleet, renamed the Second Pacific Squadron, set out for Vladivostok on October 28 under Admiral Zinovi Petrovich Roschestvensky , the Urals were there, but had to drop anchor the next day, after only 210 nautical miles, to correct their failed steering system to repair and then hurry after the squadron.

On December 7th, the Urals reached Dakar , where 1,811 tons of coal were bunkered. On the 9th she received an order to intercept the German cargo steamer Sambas , which was traveling with 236 field guns and 93 mountain guns for the Japanese army. She then marched into the sea area of ​​Cape Verde, but could not track down the Sambas until December 20th, and then steamed after the squadron in the direction of the Cape of Good Hope . On January 10, she arrived in Nosy Be ( Madagascar ), where Roshestvensky's fleet had to stay involuntarily for more than two months due to urgent repairs and only lifted anchor on March 16 . The ship was assigned to the reconnaissance division.

The fighting ended on May 27, 1905
Map of the Russian ship losses at Tsushima

More than two months later, on May 27, 1905, the Urals took part in the naval battle of Tsushima with Roshestvensky's squadron . The three ships of the reconnaissance division received orders the morning before the battle to move to the end of the formation behind the supply ships in order to protect the transporters and special ships. The Urals took up position behind the Swetlana and in front of the Almas , the two light cruisers.

The large and unarmored Urals made an easy target. She received several hits, including one at 3:35 p.m. below the waterline on the bow on the port side. The forward compartments quickly filled up and the ship swerved to port. Another shell hit destroyed the steering gear, so that it was only possible to steer with the screws and their position could no longer be maintained. Attempts to seal the leak were unsuccessful, and when another hit struck amidships to starboard below the waterline, the commander ordered the ship to be abandoned. The destroyer Grozny ( Грозный ) responded to the Urals' call for help and at around 5 p.m. took the last nine men on board on board. The rest of the crew were already in the boats and were mostly picked up by other Russian ships: 337 men from the transporter Anadyr ( Анадырь ), 96 from the tug Swir ( Свирь ), which handed them over to the transporter Yaroslavl the next morning . 57 men reached the Japanese coast in their boats and were captured. 22 men lost their lives during the battle.

At 5:40 p.m. the Urals drifted alongside the 1st Division of the Japanese fleet. Not knowing that the ship had been abandoned by its crew, the Japanese fired their heavy artillery at the auxiliary cruiser, and at 5.40 p.m. the still floating Urals were hit by a torpedo east of Tsushima and north of the island of Iki no shima at about 34 ° 27 '0 "  N , 130 ° 6' 0 '  O sunk.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ The Spree's Great Peril. In: The New York Times . 4th December 1892
  2. ↑ Launched on September 10, 1881 at London & Glasgow Co. in Glasgow , 117 m long, 4040 GRT
  3. ↑ http://www.norwayheritage.com/p_shiplist.asp?co=beave The Beaver Line, at Norway-Heritage
  4. ↑ William McDonagall: The foundering of the Steamer "Spree" , 1892
  5. ↑ Deck roofing, curved like a turtle, to protect against overcoming waves.
  6. ↑ A Mishap to the Spree; Stranded on the Warden Ledge on Coast of the Isle of Wight . New York Times , December 20, 1885
  7. ↑ http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNRussian_47-45_m1892.htm
  8. Jump up ↑ 500-GRT combi ship , hull number 178 , delivered to Norddeutscher Lloyd in August 1901 by Joh. C. Tecklenborg , Geestemünde . Bought in December 1904 by the Dutch Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij , renamed Valentijn and then used in the Dutch East Indies . Decommissioned on June 5, 1923, partially dismantled in October and made available to the colonial administration as a warehouse hulk . Sunk in 1927 as a breakwater during the construction of the port in Sabang. ( http://www.marhisdata.nl/printschip.php?id=6845 )

Web links

literature

  • Arnold Kludas: The ships of the North German Lloyd . 1857 to 1970. Weltbild Verlag, Augsburg 1998, ISBN 3-86047-262-3 .
  • Arnold Kludas : The History of German Passenger Shipping . Volume I - The pioneering years 1850 to 1890. Ed .: Detlev Ellmers, Wolf-Dieter Hoheisl, Gert Schlechtriem. Weltbild Verlag, Augsburg 1994, ISBN 3-89350-821-X .
  • Armin Wulle: The Szczecin VULCAN . A chapter in German shipbuilding history. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford, ISBN 3-7822-0475-1 .