Tanais (ship, 1907)
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The Tanais ( Greek Τάναϊς ) was a German prisoner transport ship that was torpedoed and sunk north of Crete by the British submarine HMS Vivid on June 9, 1944 . In large numbers, estimates range from 500 to 1000, Jewish and Christian Cretan civilians as well as Italian prisoners of war on board were killed.
Construction and technical data
The ship, a necklace with a steely hull , ran in 1907 on the shipyard of John Blumer and Company in Sunderland , England , with the hull number 193 stack . It was 74.5 m long and 11.6 m wide, had a draft of 4.8 m and was measured with 1545 GRT and 965 NRT. The load-bearing capacity was 2400 dwt . The machinery came from North Eastern Marine Engineering in Sunderland and consisted of a two-cylinder, triple-expansion steam engine with two boilers . She delivered 214 nhp and allowed a speed of 10 knots with one screw .
history
The ship was put into service under the name Holywood by the shipping company "Tyne & Wear Shipping - Wm. France, Fenwick & Co." and used to transport hard coal from northern England to London, later also to transport coal to the Baltic Sea coasters and Bringing wood from there to England. In 1935 the ship was sold to the Greek shipowner Stefanos Synodinos and his shipping company “Synodinos Bros.” in Piraeus and renamed Tanais , after the ancient Greek city at the mouth of the Don into the Black Sea .
During the German attack on Crete ( Operation Merkur ), the Tanais was sunk in Souda Bay on May 26, 1941 by fighter planes of the German Air Force . She was lifted and repaired in 1942 and then operated by the semi-public German Mediterranean shipping company founded in November 1942 . It drove in passenger and freight traffic between the Greek mainland and the islands of the Aegean Sea , mostly for the German occupiers .
Sinking
On the night of June 8th to 9th, 1944, the Tanais sailed from Heraklion to Piraeus , secured by the three small boats UJ 2142 , GK 05 and GK 06 . In addition to the 12 men of their crew and 14 anti-aircraft guns, about 265 Jews (including more than 100 children) who had been arrested a few days earlier in Chania , a number of Christian residents of Crete who are suspected of collaborating with the Cretan resistance, were on board and a large number of Italian prisoners of war. There were also 40 men on guard and 14 civilian passengers. The exact number of Greek and Italian prisoners on board is given differently in post-war literature. At 2:31 a.m. on June 9, the British submarine Vivid (P 77, V-Class) discovered the ship about 14 nautical miles north of the small island of Dia . At 3:12 a.m., the submarine commander, Lieutenant John Cromwell Varley, shot four torpedoes on the Tanais from a distance of about 2,200 m , two of which hit. The Tanais sank very quickly and only 51 survivors were rescued from the security vehicles, including 37 Germans. When Varley observed the sinking point ( 35 ° 40 ′ 0 ″ N , 25 ° 11 ′ 0 ″ E ) through his periscope two hours later , nothing could be seen.
Footnotes
- ↑ https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/North_Eastern_Marine_Engineering_Co
- ↑ 1901 formed through the merger of Fenwick, Stobart & Co., HC Pelly & Co. and William France & Co. ( https://www.wrecksite.eu/ownerBuilderView.aspx?9264 )
- ^ Greek ship losses, The Historical Naval Archive
- ↑ See e.g. B. here and here as well as Shmuel Spector et al: The Encyclopedia of Jewish Life Before and During the Holocaust. Volume I. Yad Vashem, Jerusalem & New York University Press, New York, 2001, ISBN 0-8147-9376-2 , p. 282.
Web links
- HMS Vivid (P 77)
- SS Tanais (Vivid) (+1 944) at wrecksite.eu (with photo), accessed on May 14, 2020
- http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/km/mittelmeer/italien/mmr.htm
- Ναυάγιο Tanais (Δανάη) 9/6/1944 Η εξόντωση των τελευταίων Εβραίων της Κρήτης
literature
- Reinhart Schmelzkopf: Foreign ships in German hands 1939–1945. Strandgut-Verlag, Cuxhaven 2004, DNB 972151001 , p. 245.