Thor (ship, 1938)
 As Santa Cruz in 1938
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The Thor was a German merchant ship that was captured during World War II under the designation Schiff 10 for use in the Navy . It was originally the turbine-powered refrigerated ship Santa Cruz of the Oldenburg-Portugiesischen Dampfschiffs-Rhederei , Oldenburg , for the Hamburg - Canary Islands - Africa liner service . Under the designation Handelsstörkreuzer 4 (HSK 4) the ship was used as an auxiliary cruiser . The name Thor was chosen after the Germanic god of thunder . At the British Royal Navy was Thor as a Raider E known.
Mission history
The trade sturgeon cruiser 4 Thor was a reefer ship that had been converted into an auxiliary cruiser. The commander on the first, more successful voyage was Captain Otto Kähler . A total of 148,640 GRT was raised on two trips . This made the Thor , in terms of sunk tonnage, the most successful German auxiliary cruiser of the Second World War. The task of the Thor was to disrupt trade in the South Atlantic and tie up British warships.
During her first venture, the Thor , which sailed on June 6, 1940, operated temporarily in the same waters as the Admiral Scheer from November 1940 . To deceive the enemy, the auxiliary cruiser ran partly under the Yugoslav (under the name Vir ) or under the Soviet flag. Before the opening of fire on an opposing ship, the naval war flag of the German Reich was hoisted.
Armament
The main armament of the Thor was six rapid-fire cannons from the former central artillery of imperial ships of the line from 1913. These were hidden on the foredeck, the aft deck and to the sides of the superstructures under camouflaging deck superstructures and two in the intermediate deck of the cargo hold behind flaps in the ship's side. In this way, three of these guns could be deployed simultaneously in the pursuit battle and four in the broadside. The guns on the upper deck were provided with protective shields. Furthermore, two of the torpedo tubes were camouflaged behind flaps in the side wall below the lifeboats. Distributed on the superstructure were four 2-cm anti-aircraft cannons and on the rear superstructure a 3.7-cm double anti-aircraft mount.
The first ride
On June 6, 1940 at 9:30 p.m., the Thor sailed under the strictest of secrecy. The crew had not been able to say goodbye to their relatives, nor could they tell them how long to stay at sea. This first trip was to take 329 days, almost a full year. After crossing the Denmark Strait , first the breakthrough into the North Atlantic, later into the operational area in the South Atlantic, the sea between the east coast of South America and the west coast of Africa.
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The Thor's biggest prey was the Norwegian whaling factory ship Kosmos . The second largest ship in the Norwegian merchant fleet was sailing to the West Indies with a cargo of whale oil when it was stopped by the Thor near the equator on September 24 . Despite the valuable cargo, the commander had the ship sunk because he saw no chance of bringing the conspicuous ship into the German sphere of control. The cosmos was heavily overgrown by long wait times since the hunting season 1939/1940 and could reach only low speeds. The crew was taken on board and later transferred to the Rio Grande , which took 364 prisoners to France.
During the voyage, the Thor took supplies from prizes and supply ships (e.g. Alsterufer , Nordmark , the tankers Eurofeld and Rekum ). The shipwrecked enemy ships were, if the situation permitted, rescued and interned on board in a room specially equipped for this purpose and, if possible, brought home.
During the operation, the Thor came into contact with British auxiliary cruisers three times .
On July 28, 1940, the Thor fought with the auxiliary cruiser Alcantara (22,209 GRT, 8 × 15.2 cm guns) and was able to shoot the enemy, superior in armament and size, unable to move and later flee. During this battle the Thor was hit by two enemy shells, one of which, however, turned out to be a dud. The other hit level with the starboard torpedo tubes. Three men died and others were injured. However, the Thor did not suffer any serious damage.
On December 5, 1940, the Thor fought with the British auxiliary cruiser Carnarvon Castle (20,122 GRT, 8 × 15.2 cm guns) under the command of Henry Noel Marryat Hardy . In this battle, too, the Thor was able to put the damaged enemy to flight.
On April 4, 1941, the Thor sank the British auxiliary cruiser Voltaire (13,245 GRT, 8 × 15.2 cm guns).
On April 30, 1941, the Thor docked again in Hamburg. Twelve enemy ships with a total of 96,603 GRT had been sunk or seized.
Angry ships
| Surname | Type | country | date | Tonnage in GRT |
Whereabouts | Load in tons | |
| 1 | Kertosono | Combined ship | Netherlands | July 1, 1940 | 9,289 | sunk as a prize to Lorient, 1943 | |
| 2 | Bruges | freighter | Belgium | July 8, 1940 | 4,983 | sunk ( location ) | 6746 t of wheat |
| 3 | Gracefield | freighter | Great Britain | July 14, 1940 | 4,631 | sunk ( location ) | 7,430 t of wheat and bran |
| 4th | Wendover | freighter | Great Britain | July 16, 1940 | 5,489 | sunk ( location ) | 7,250 tons of coal |
| 5 | Tela | freighter | Netherlands | 17th July 1940 | 3,777 | sunk ( location ) | 2,555 t millet, 2407 t corn, 489 t wheat |
| 6th | cosmos | Whale boiling | Norway | September 24, 1940 | 17.801 | sunk ( location ) | 17,662 t whale oil largest ship sunk by an auxiliary cruiser |
| 7th | Natia | freighter | Great Britain | October 8, 1940 | 8,715 | sunk ( location ) | no |
| 8th | Delambre | freighter | Great Britain | November 25, 1940 | 7,032 | sunk | Cotton, hides, cottonseed, wood |
| 9 | Trolleholm | freighter | Sweden | March 25, 1941 | 5,047 | sunk | Coals |
| 10 | Britannia | Passenger ship | Great Britain | March 25, 1941 | 8,799 | sunk ( location ), 249 dead |
Military personnel, civil passengers, general cargo, war material |
| 11 | Voltaire | Auxiliary cruiser | Great Britain | April 4, 1941 | 13,245 | sunk ( location ), 75 dead |
no |
| 12 | Sir Ernest Cassel | Ore carrier | Sweden | April 16, 1941 | 7,739 | sunk | no |
The second trip
On November 30, 1941, the Thor ran out again under a different commander, Captain Günther Gumprich , and initially moved to a French port. From there the actual voyage began on January 12, 1942. Over the next 321 days, 52,037 GRT were sunk or seized in enemy ship space.
Angry ships
| Surname | Type | country | date | Tonnage in GRT |
Whereabouts | Load in tons | |
| 1 | Pagasitikos | freighter | Greece | March 23, 1942 | 3,942 | sunk | Coals |
| 2 | Wellpark | freighter | Great Britain | March 30, 1942 | 4,649 | sunk | Military equipment |
| 3 | Willesden | freighter | Great Britain | April 1, 1942 | 4,565 | sunk | u. a. Oil barrels on deck |
| 4th | Aust | freighter | Norway | April 3, 1942 | 5,626 | sunk | |
| 5 | Kirkpool | freighter | Great Britain | April 10, 1942 | 4,842 | sunk | coal |
| 6th | Nankin | Combined ship | Great Britain | May 10, 1942 | 7.130 | as a prize with 500 prisoners to Japan, renamed Leuthen , burned out with Thor | 162 passengers and 180 crew members |
| 7th | Olivia | Tanker | Netherlands | June 14, 1942 | 6,305 | sunk | Gasoline and kerosene |
| 8th | Herborg | Tanker | Norway | June 19, 1942 | 7,892 | renamed Hohenfriedberg as a prize to Japan , sunk in 1943 |
11,000 tons of crude oil |
| 9 | Madrono | Tanker | Norway | 4th July 1942 | 5,894 | renamed Rossbach as a prize to Japan , sunk in 1944 |
empty |
| 10 | Indus | freighter | Great Britain | July 20, 1942 | 5,187 | sunk, 23 dead |
The end of HSK 4
On November 30, 1942, the Thor took over fuel from the fleet tanker Uckermark (formerly Altmark ) in the port of Yokohama . The supplier exploded for reasons that have not yet been clarified. In addition to the Uckermark and the Thor , the steamer Leuthen and the Japanese steamer Unkai Maru No. 3 also caught fire and were destroyed. Thirteen of the Thor's crew were killed. The surviving attaché of the German Embassy in Tokyo, Erwin Wickert , who was on board the Thor at the time of the explosion, provides an impressive eyewitness report of this accident .
literature
- Gröner, Erich / Dieter Jung / Martin Maass: The German warships 1815-1945 . tape 3 : U-boats, auxiliary cruisers, mine ships, net layers and barrier breakers. . Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Munich 1985, ISBN 3-7637-4802-4 , pp. 160 f .
- Jochen Brennecke: Auxiliary cruiser Thor - Pike in the Atlantic. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg 1998, ISBN 3-7822-0733-5 .
- Heinz Tischer: The adventures of the last caper: Auxiliary cruiser Thor's journey into disaster. Comradeship auxiliary cruiser Thor, Ahrensburg 2000, p. 104.
- Roel Vande Winkel: The Auxiliary Cruiser Thor's Death and Transfiguration. A Case Study in Nazi Wartime Newsreel Propaganda. In: Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television , Vol. 23, 2003, No. 3, pp. 211-229.
Web links
- Newsreel about the auxiliary cruiser Thor
- Auxiliary cruiser Thor
- Thor (HSK 4)
- Norwegian Victims of Thor
- D / T Madrono
Footnotes
- ↑ Map of the first trip ( Memento from December 6, 2015 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Information on T / S Kertosono (1923)
- ↑ Information on Bruges (1904)
- ↑ Information on D / S Gracefield (1928)
- ↑ Information on D / S Wendover (1928)
- ↑ Information on the D / S Tela (1911)
- ↑ Information on the D / S Kosmos (1929)
- ↑ Information on the D / S Natia (1920)
- ↑ Information on D / S Delambre (1917)
- ↑ Information on M / S Trolleholm (1923)
- ↑ Information on D / S Britannia (1926)
- ↑ Information on D / S Voltaire (1923)
- ↑ Information on Sir Ernest Cassel (1910)
- ↑ Information on Pagasitikos (1914)
- ^ Wellpark (1938)
- ↑ Information on Aust (1920)
- ↑ Information on Kirkpool (1928)
- ↑ Nankin (1912)
- ↑ Information on Olivia (1939)
- ↑ Information on Herborg (1931)
- ↑ Information on the Madrono (1917)
- ↑ Information on the Indus (1940)
- ↑ The Leuthen was the former Australian combined ship Nankin , which the Thor had brought up on May 10, 1942 and sent as a prize to Yokohama to serve as a reserve for German surface units. See also: http://www.far-eastern-heroes.org.uk/Experiences_of_Cecil_Saunders/html/ss_nankin.htm
- ↑ Erwin Wickert: Courage and arrogance. Stories from my life. German publishing house. Stuttgart 1991, ISBN 3-421-06614-0 , pp. 380-388.
Map with all coordinates: 