Sulina (ship, 1939)
.jpg) The sister ship Mangalia in 1943 as USS Pleiades (AK-46)
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The Sulina was a Romanian passenger and cargo motor ship built in 1939 for the state shipping company Serviciul Maritim Român . During the Second World War , the Romanian government chartered the ship to the German Navy in 1941 , which used it as a transporter and transport ship for the wounded . In May 1942 a Soviet submarine sank the Sulina . The name of the ship comes from the town of Sulina .
Construction and technical data
The ship was to order the Romanian state shipping company "Serviciul Maritim Român" (SMR) at the shipyard Cantieri Navali Riuniti factory Palermo to set keel . The launch took place in June 1939 under the name Sulina , the completion and delivery took place in September 1939. The sister ships Mangalia , Balcic and Cavarna ordered by SMR were also built at this shipyard .
Its length was 116.20 meters over everything, it was 15.40 meters wide and had a maximum draft of 7.11 meters. She was with 3495 BRT measured or 2022 NRT and had a capacity of 5,000 dwt The drive consisted of a. Fiat - six-cylinder - diesel engine whose power 3200 hp was. This acted on a screw , the ship reached a speed of 15.5 knots . The range was 9,125 nautical miles at 12 knots. As a transport ship for the wounded, it was equipped with two 20mm anti-aircraft guns.
history
Romanian combi ship Sulina
After the shipyard was delivered to the shipping company SMR, the Sulina was registered in Constana as the home port. It is unclear on which routes the ship was initially used by the “Serviciul Maritim Român”. When Romania entered the war on the side of the Axis Powers on June 21, 1941, the Romanian government chartered the Sulina to the German navy .
German wound transporter Sulina
As early as May 1941, the Navy planned to convert the Sulina into a hospital ship. Since the Soviet side did not recognize hospital ships in principle, it was used as a transport for the wounded and could take 60 wounded. With this status she could also transport troops and supplies to the front and was armed with two 20 mm anti-aircraft guns.
No documents are known about the Sulina operations - only sporadic information is available on voyages: In the spring of 1942, after the ice thawed, the ship was again used in supply traffic from April 20 and operated between Constana and Otschakov in what is now Ukraine.
A few weeks later, on May 29, 1942, the Sulina was the target of a Soviet submarine attack: during an escort with the freighter Ardeal and escorted by the Romanian destroyers Regina Maria , Mărăşti and Mărăşeşti , the convoy was on its way from Constancea to Odessa. On board the Sulina was said to have been a cargo of 4000 tons of oats and 510 tons of wheat. Shortly before Odessa, the Soviet submarine A-3 attacked the convoy with two torpedoes and hit the Sulina .
Today the wreck of the ship, which is about 20 meters deep, is a popular destination for divers.
literature
- Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronicle of the naval war 1939-1945. Published by the Working Group for Defense Research and the Library for Contemporary History . Manfred Pawlak Verlagsgesellschaft, Herrsching o. J. [1968], ISBN 3-88199-009-7 . (extended online version)
- Erich Gröner , Dieter Jung, Martin Maass: The German warships 1815-1945. Volume 5: Auxiliary Ships II: Hospital Ships, Residential Ships, Training Ships, Research Vehicles, Port Service Vehicles. Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Koblenz 1988, ISBN 3-7637-4804-0 .
- Reinhart Schmelzkopf: Foreign ships in German hands 1939–1945. Strandgut-Verlag, Cuxhaven 2004, DNB 972151001 .
- Rudolf Schmidt, Arnold Kludas : The German hospital ships in the Second World War. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1978, ISBN 3-87943-560-X .
- Volker Hartmann, Hartmut Nöldeke : Wound transport by sea: German hospital and wound transport ships in the Second World War. (= Small series of publications on military and naval history. Volume 20). Winkler Verlag, Bochum, 2010, ISBN 978-3-89911-142-2 .
Web links
- Lloyd's Register Navires a Vapeur et a Moteurs. (1939-1940). ( accessed online on January 14, 2018)
- https://uboat.net/allies/warships/ship/5806.html accessed on January 14, 2018
- https://wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?187958 accessed on January 14, 2018
- http://www.unstory.com/torpila-sau-mina-scufundarea-cargoului-sulina.html (with photos), accessed on January 14, 2018
- http://www.work-dive.at/?page_id=809#sulina accessed on January 14, 2018
Footnotes
- ↑ http://www.plimsollshipdata.org/pdffile.php?name=39b1066.pdf Schmelzkopf, p. 241, Gröner, p. 54, http://www.unstory.com/torpila-sau-mina-scufundarea- cargoului-sulina.html
- ↑ Schmelzkopf, p. 241, Gröner, p. 54.
- ↑ Gröner, p. 54, Schmidt, Kludas, p. 85, p. 165.
- ↑ http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/42-04.htm Hartmann, Nöldeke, p. 211.
- ↑ Schmelzkopf, p. 241, Gröner, p. 54, http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/42-05.htm https://uboat.net/allies/warships/ship/5806.html
- ↑ work-dive.at