Takstaas

The Takstaas was a Norwegian cargo steamship that was sunk by a German submarine in September 1939 .

history

The ship ran in 1916 on the shipyard Sørlandets Skibsbyggeri in Fevig in Arendal under the name of Standford from the stack and then by the Fredrikstad Mekaniske Verksted in Fredrikstad for the shipping company A / S Standard (JB Stang) in Oslo finished. It was 81 m long and 12.60 m wide and measured at 1,830 GRT . It was sold to the CN Stensholt shipping company as early as 1916 and renamed Stokke . In 1927 it became the property of Arnt J. Mørland in Arendal and was renamed Takstaas .

Downfall

On September 29, 1939, the ship was with a load of lumber on the voyage from Sundsvall, Sweden to Antwerp and London . About 10 nautical miles from the island of Store Marstein , before entering the Krossfjord and thus to Bergen (Norway) , it was shot by the German submarine U 7 under Oberleutnant zur See Werner Heidel by a shot with the 20 mm anti-aircraft gun stopped in front of the bow. After checking the shipping documents, Heidel gave the crew 20 minutes to get into their lifeboats . 8:55 pm, he shot a torpedo amidships to the starboard side of the Takstaas , which then flip side to the port side was, but did not sink because of their timber cargo. Even the subsequent bombardment with the on-board gun below the waterline did not cause the ship to sink and had to be canceled when a Norwegian plane appeared and forced the submarine to dive away.

The two lifeboats with the crew were soon found by the Norwegian torpedo boat Storm and towed to Sund in the Korsfjord, from where they were then brought to Bergen.

The Takstaas , severely damaged by the torpedo hit and artillery shelling , was towed by the Norwegian tug Hercules in the early afternoon , but then broke in two. The fore ship sank at position 60 ° 15 ′ 0 ″ N , 4 ° 51 ′ 0 ″ W Coordinates: 60 ° 15 ′ 0 ″ N , 4 ° 51 ′ 0 ″ W in naval grid square AN 2473, but the stern part with a large part the cargo could be recovered. 60.25 -4.85

literature

Busch, Röll: The U-Boat War 1939-1945 , Volume 3, ISBN 3-8132-0513-4
Erich Gröner: The merchant fleets of the world 1942 and supplement 1944 , ISBN 3-469-00552-4
Erich Gröner: Search list for ship names , ISBN 3-469-00553-2

Web links

Individual evidence

^ Donald A. Bertke, Don Kindell, Gordon Smith: World War II Sea War, Vol. 1. Bertke Publications, Dayton (Ohio), 2009, ISBN 978-0-578-02941-2 , p. 96
↑ http://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/50.html

[1] Donald A. Bertke, Don Kindell, Gordon Smith: World War II Sea War, Vol. 1. Bertke Publications, Dayton (Ohio), 2009, ISBN 978-0-578-02941-2 , p. 96

[2] ttp://www.uboat.net/allies/merchants/50.html