T 19 (ship, 1940)
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T 19 was a" Type 1937 " torpedo boat ofthe German Navy in World War II . The boat was assigned to the US as spoils of warafter the war ended, and the US made it available to Denmark . The planned conversion to a command ship for speedboats was abandoned in 1950 and the boat was scrapped in Denmark in February 1952.
Building history
T 19 ran as the seventh boat "Type 1937" from the stack . The nine boats of the type were all built at the Schichau works in Elbing and largely corresponded to the first torpedo boats of the “Type 1935 ” armament program of the Kriegsmarine . They were a bit shorter and wider and had an enlarged bow to reduce splashing. Changes in the ship's structure around the machinery allowed a larger fuel supply (216 t instead of 200 t). The steam boilers of the drive system were operated at a lower temperature in order to reduce the susceptibility to failure. To improve the controllability, the boats were given two oars behind the two propellers , which should allow a more direct reaction to changed rudder angles. From the T 19 onwards, the shape of the tail was also slightly changed in order to improve the reversing characteristics.
Originally 36 boats were to be built. However, since not all desirable changes could be incorporated into the basic design, the Kriegsmarine abandoned the construction of this type after the first nine units and instead ordered the larger boats of the "Type 1939", the so-called fleet torpedo boats . The first fleet torpedo boats, which replaced orders that had already been placed, were completed alongside the last boats of the "Type 1937".
Only two boats of the "Type 1937" were launched immediately before the start of the Second World War; the others followed until November 21, 1940. The nine boats came into service from May 31, 1941 to July 11, 1942. When the last boat of the type was completed, the T 21, the first two fleet torpedo boats were already in service.
Mission history
Launched on July 20, 1940, the T 19 was put into service on December 18, 1941 and, like its sister boats, was assigned to the 3rd torpedo boat flotilla under Corvette Captain Hans Wilcke in Gotenhafen . After completing their training in the Baltic Sea, the boats were to be used on the French Atlantic coast. T 19 and T 18 moved west in mid-September 1942. The boats collided during the march in the English Channel and had to go to Le Havre for repairs.
Operations in the Canal and in the Bay of Biscay
In October, the auxiliary cruiser Komet tried to cross the English Channel in order to leave western France for a second pirate voyage. The as Sperrbrecher disguised raider ran loss of part of his preventive forces on a minefield after Dunkirk one. On October 12th he continued his journey to Le Havre. There he ran out the next day, secured by the torpedo boats T 4 , T 10 , T-14 (leader boat with the boss of the 3rd T-Flotilla, Hans Wilcke) and T 19 to march on. Knowing the identity of the ship was the Royal Navy two battle groups with nine escort destroyers of the Hunt class and eight motor torpedo boats to sea to the comet intercept. Shortly after midnight, a Swordfish scout discovered the German association and marked it with light bombs, and the British ships attacked near Cherbourg . Wilke wanted to call at Cherbourg, but the auxiliary cruiser continued on its way.
A confusing battle ensued, in which both sides probably shot at their own units. T 14 was hit (probably by the Komet ) and the flotilla chief Wilcke was killed. The Komet exploded after a torpedo hit or a lucky hit by artillery by a British destroyer and sank with all of its crew. In addition to the T 14 , the T 10 and, on the British side, the Brocklesby were also damaged in the battle. The German torpedo boats continued to Brest after the sinking of the Komet .
The boats of the 3rd T-Flotilla ( T 13 , T 14 , T 18 , T 19 , T 21 ) then secured the departure of German and Italian ships from Bordeaux in the Bay of Biscay , together with boats of the 5th T-Flotilla Far East. From September 9 to December 12, ten blockade breakers left the French port, six of which reached Japan . From November 9th to 11th, T 19 , together with the fleet torpedo boat T 22 , the Falke and its sister boat T 13, secured the departure of the Spichern supply tanker . The British discovered the unit, but only attacked the tanker after the security boats had withdrawn from the air. The damaged Spichern broke off their journey and sought refuge in neutral El Ferrol . At the beginning of November three German blockade breakers ( Tannenfels with prisoners and the crew of the sunk auxiliary cruiser Stier , Dresden and Kulmerland ) also reached the Biscay and were led to Bordeaux by torpedo boats of the 3rd (including T 19 ) and 5th T flotilla. From November 1, T 9 , T 17 , T 18 and T 19 searched for the Tannenfels , which arrived in Bordeaux on November 2, 1942 .
At the end of March 1943, the T 19 was one of the security vehicles for the Italian blockade breaker Himalaya, which was leaving the Gironde for Japan on the 28th . A total of four destroyers, a fleet torpedo boat and seven other German torpedo boats secured this last attempt to set a surface ship on march to Japan. After the discovery by the British air reconnaissance, the experiment was canceled and the ships involved returned to their ports of operation on March 30th.
The T 19 was the only boat of the class to remain in France until autumn 1943 and, with the boats of the 5th T-Flotilla, carried out three mine-laying operations in the English Channel in September 1943.
Operations in the Baltic Sea
The boat was relocated to Germany in autumn 1943 and served with the sister boats as a school flotilla at the torpedo school in the Baltic Sea. From the summer of 1944, the 3rd T-Flotilla with T 20 , T 13 , T 17 and T 19 was again deployed to secure German transports with soldiers and refugees. On September 23, 1944, the boats secured the last convoy from Reval with more than 9,000 people on board. One of the tasks of the flotilla was to secure the heavy units of the Kriegsmarine, which intervened with their artillery in the land battles, as on 23/24. October, when the heavy cruiser Lützow shelled Soviet positions on Sworbe and near Memel . These missions were partly connected with the defense against Soviet air strikes. On 20./21. November T 19 was involved in the action of Kampfgruppe Thiele with the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen , four destroyers and three sister boats at Sworbe.
At the beginning of 1945, the T 19 was in service in the Skagerrak , where it was with the light cruiser Nürnberg , the mine ship Linz , the destroyers Friedrich Ihn and Theodor Riedel and the sister boat T 20 on 13/14. January moved a mine barrier. On 17./18. March the Friedrich Ihn and T 17 , T 19 and T 20 secured the laying of another mine barrier in the western Skagerrak by the mine ships Ostmark and Lothringen .
In the course of the war, the boat's anti-aircraft capabilities were improved several times (so-called Barbara armament). The boat is to carry a 40-mm Bofors gun, two individual 37-mm automatic cannons and two 20-mm twin MKs and two 20-mm quadruplets each, in addition to the 10.5-cm gun aft to have. For this purpose, older flak and a torpedo tube set were removed.
Last missions
T 19 and T 17 belonged with the destroyers Hans Lody , Friedrich Ihn , Theodor Riedel , Z 25 and the fleet torpedo boats T 23 and T 28 to the units of the Kriegsmarine, which after the surrender of the Wehrmacht came into force in northwest Germany and Denmark outside the German and Danish territorial waters and ran from the Copenhagen area to Hela on May 5, 1945 to evacuate soldiers and refugees from there. They were disembarked on May 6th in the roadstead in front of Copenhagen and the boats ran again to Hela, where they took more soldiers and refugees on board until May 8th, who were then brought to Schleswig-Holstein .
Commanders
| December 18, 1941 to May 1943 | Captain Carl-August Richter-Oldekop |
| May to September 1943 | Lieutenant Weinling |
| September to November 1943 | i. V. Lieutenant Uhde |
| November 1943 to December 1944 | Lieutenant Captain Werner Westphal |
| December 1944 to May 1945 | Lieutenant Captain Horst Freiherr von Luttitz |
Whereabouts of the boat
With the surrender, T 19 passed into British possession. When the spoils of war were distributed among the Allies , the boat was assigned to the USA in January 1946. The US Navy had no interest in the boat and made it available to Denmark in November 1947. There, consideration was given to using the boat as a guide boat for speedboats, because Denmark had also received twelve German speedboats from the Americans ( Glenten class). In June 1948, the US Navy also handed over the torpedo boat T 4 to Denmark. The vague plans for the use of the two boats were soon abandoned and the T 4 was scrapped in 1951, T 19 in 1952.
Individual evidence
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War , October 13-14, 1942 Canal
- ^ Rohwer, October 1–26, 1942 Biscay
- ↑ Rohwer, November 2–11, 1942 Biscay
- ↑ Rohwer, 28.- 03.31.1943 North Atlantic / Biscay
- ^ Rohwer, 1.– 5.9. and September 29-30, 1943 Kanal
- ↑ Rohwer, 17.- 28.09.1944 Estonia / Baltic Sea
- ↑ Rohwer, 2.- 24/10/1944 Baltic
- ↑ Rohwer, November 18-30, 1944 Baltic Sea / Baltic Islands
- ↑ Rohwer, 13./14.1.1945 North Sea
- ↑ Rohwer, 16.- 18.03.1945 North Sea / Skagerrak
Remarks
- ^ "Force A" with five Hunt escort destroyers: HMS Albrighton , Cottesmore , Quorn and the two Norwegian Glaisdale and Eskdale as well as eight Vosper MTBs; "Force B" with HMS Brocklesby , Tynedale and Fernie and the Polish Krakowiak .
- ↑ Hans Wilcke, 1909–1942, posthumously frigate captain
- ↑ According to the British assessment, the Komet sank after a torpedo hit from MTB 236 ; on the German side, an artillery hit on the auxiliary cruiser burning after the previous torpedo hit is considered decisive.
- ↑ The Spichern was able to return to occupied France later and ended up as a block ship in Brest. The ship, which was lifted after the war and repaired at Howaldtswerke in Kiel, came under the Norwegian flag again and was finally scrapped in 1964. The ship was built in 1935 as Krossfonn (14,225 tdw, 9,323 GRT) at a Danish shipyard for Norwegian accounts and was captured by the auxiliary cruiser Widder in 1940 and was then successfully sent to occupied France as one of the first prizes. In 1941 the tanker had served as a supplier to the Prinz Eugen after the latter had separated from the Bismarck .
literature
- Erich Gröner , Dieter Jung [arr.]: The ships of the German Navy and Air Force 1939–1945 and their whereabouts. Bernard & Graefe, Bonn 2000 (9th, revised and expanded edition), ISBN 978-3763762156 .
- Hans H. Hildebrand / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships: Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present , Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford,
- Wolfgang Harnack: Destroyers under the German flag: 1934 to 1945. Koehler, Hamburg 1997 (3rd, revised edition), ISBN 3-7822-0698-3 .
- John Jourdan, Jean Moulin: French Destroyers: Torpilleurs d'Escadre and Contre-Torpilleurs, 1922-1956 , Seaforth Publishing (2015)
- Volkmar Kühn: Torpedo boats and destroyers in action 1939–1945. The fight and destruction of a weapon. Flechsig, Würzburg 2006 (6th, ext. A. special edition), ISBN 978-3881896375 .
- Anthony Preston: Superdestroyers- the German Narvik type 1936 , Warship special2, Conway maritime press, Greenwich (1978), ISBN 0-85177-131-9
- Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronicle of the Naval War 1939-1945 , Manfred Pawlak VerlagsGmbH (Herrsching 1968), ISBN 3-88199-0097
- Mike J. Whitley: Destroyers in World War II: Technique - Class - Types. Motorbuchverlag, Stuttgart 1991, ISBN 978-3613014268 .
Web links
- Germany 10.5 cm / 45 (4.1 ") SK C / 32 on navweaps.com (accessed October 22, 2015)
- Germany 3.7 cm / L83 (1.5 ") SK C / 30 on navweaps.com (accessed April 29, 2014)
- Germany 2 cm / 65 (0.79 ") C / 30 and C / 38 on navweaps.com (English, accessed April 29, 2014)
- "1937" type torpedo boats (1941-1942) (accessed January 2, 2016)
- Torpedo boat 1937 (English, accessed January 2, 2016)