Trave (ship, 1928)
 The sister ship Havel
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The second Trave of the North German Lloyd (NDL) in Bremen was the tenth ship of a fast freighter series for the East Asian service. The Trave , the only ship in the series built by AG Vulcan in Stettin , was the first motor ship in the series. In 1938 the ship, like the two sister ships supplied by Schichau , was extended on the AG Weser and received new machinery. All three ships were renamed, and the Trave came back into service as Regensburg .
When war broke out in 1939, the ship was in East Asia and was used by the Japan stage for supply trips for German auxiliary cruisers . In 1943, Regensburg was supposed to break through to its homeland with a load of goods essential to the war effort. The British light cruiser HMS Glasgow landed it on Denmark Strait and sank itself when it approached on March 30, 1943. Of the 118 men on board the blockade breaker , the cruiser was only able to save six alive.
history
From 1926 onwards, North German Lloyd procured a series of express freighters for its East Asia service, which reached a service speed of 13.5 knots . While the first two ships ( Franconia , Swabia ) were traditionally named after German landscapes, the other newbuildings were given names of German rivers, as the NDL had used for its first express steamers. A total of fifteen new buildings had been completed for the NDL by 1930.
The Trave was completed in 1928 as the tenth ship in the series. Its namesake, also named after the river Trave in Holstein , was a fast steamer that was in service with the NDL from 1886 to 1908.
The new Trave was the first motor ship of the series and the only express freighter completed by AG Vulcan in Stettin . By then, the NDL had only received three motor ships: the cargo ships Erfurt (1923, 4201 BRT), Königsberg (1924, 6466 BRT) and the combined ship Fulda (1924, 9415 BRT). The traveler was from a 6-cylinder MAN - diesel engine driven by 4600 PSe which gave her a service speed of 13 knots.
Two very similar motor ships ( Saale , Havel ) were built at the same time by Schichau in Danzig , which were powered by a 10-cylinder Sulzer Schichau diesel engine with an output of 4500 PSe.
After these ships, the NDL ordered the next three ships of the series again with an expansion steam engine, supplemented by an exhaust steam turbine.
In 1934, the NDL acquired two motor ships ( Elbe , Weser ) built in Kiel for Norwegian accounts with a service speed of 17 knots, which were also assigned to the class.
In 1938, the three motor ships on the original order were extensively modernized. At AG Weser they were lengthened by 10 meters and received a new drive system with two MAN diesels acting on a gearbox. When commissioned after the renovation, the ships were given city names ending in -burg .
The Trave was the second ship to return to service as Regensburg on July 4, 1938 . Two new 8-cylinder engines gave it a drive power of 10,000 PSe and enabled a service speed of 16.5 knots.
The Regensburg was still used on the main line and was on September 3, 1939 in Yokohama .
War missions
The Regensburg became the Navy - stage assigned to Japan, where the main objective to support the pre-discharged into the Pacific in 1940 auxiliary cruiser Orion and Comet was. She left Yokohama on September 27, 1940 with 2800 tons of heating oil and provisions and ran to the Ailinglapalap atoll of the Marshall Islands , where she waited for the Orion until October 10 . Since the Weser of the NDL, which was also intended to serve as a supplier, had been seized by a Canadian auxiliary cruiser just a few hours after leaving Manzanillo (Mexico) , the Orion and the Regensburg ran immediately on to Lamotrek in the Carolines to take the Komet and her out there Japan sent supplier to meet Kulmerland . On October 18, the four ships met, all superficially disguised as Japanese. The Regensburg then ran back to Japan to procure urgently needed spare parts for the Orion , while the three other ships in the formation searched the South Seas.
On December 20, 1940, Regensburg left Yokohama again to supply the Orion with provisions and the necessary spare parts at Lamotrek . The former Norwegian tanker Ole Jacob was waiting for the Orion with her . This pinch of Atlantis had been sent to Japan with its cargo of aviation fuel and important documents . In exchange for the documents and the gasoline, the tanker was now loaded with fuel for the German auxiliary cruisers and other supplies. The Regensburg gave its supplies to the Orion and the Ole Jacob and left the meeting point immediately after the New Year in order to procure more goods in Japan. On January 12, 1941, she left Japan for a third time with supplies and water for the Orion , which was now near Maug in the north of the Mariana Islands , in order to carry out a comprehensive overhaul far away from the shipping lanes. Their future provider was Ole Jacob . The Münsterland from the Japan stage also arrived with fresh water and food , which also brought a new Nakajima E8N -1 aircraft , as the old aircraft could no longer be used. The Orion and Ole Jacob left Maug on February 6, while the two providers stayed behind.
The Regensburg then ran to Dairen , where it was equipped to break the blockade. She left with a load of raw rubber and grease under Captain Harder Dairen on May 5, 1941 and arrived on June 27 as the second blockade breaker from Japan after the Warmia in Bordeaux in the German-occupied France.
In October she moved to Nantes , where she was overtaken to run back to Japan as a blockade breaker. The bridge was lightly armored and additional cabins were installed for the crew. In February 1942, she left Bordeaux for the Far East with a load of turbines, dyes and other goods important to Japan. On the way, the Regensburg supplied the auxiliary cruiser Thor , which left on its second voyage in January . She reached Yokohama on July 7, 1942 as the eighth Navy Service ship sent from Europe.
The first supply of the Thor from Regensburg took place from March 24th to 27th north of Tristan da Cunha shortly after the first success of the auxiliary cruiser. It was not until May 4 that the ships met again in the southern Indian Ocean. The Regensburg gave supplies to the auxiliary cruiser and took 162 prisoners from the five victims of Thor so far . The blockade breaker did not use his possible maximum speed on the journey to save fuel; The maximum possible speed was only used in critical sea areas.
On May 10, the Thor succeeded in capturing the 7,130 GRT Australian combi ship Nankin , which was on its way to Bombay with 162 passengers and 180 crew members . The ship was named Leuthen , and all the prisoners got the prize. The supplies of the summoned Regensburg were distributed, and then the Regensburg was released to Japan with the prize.
The blockade breaker who arrived there in July was unloaded in Yokohama and then went to Kobe to pick up whale and coconut oil for the journey home. On September 14, 1942, Regensburg began its return journey to Europe. Balikpapan was called to receive fuel and then to Batavia , where quinine was added to the cargo. The last port in the Japanese sphere of influence was Singapore , where the holds were filled with raw rubber and zinc ore . The ship left there on October 9th and went through the Sunda Strait into the Indian Ocean. There the Regensburg was attacked by the US submarine USS Searaven . One of the five torpedoes hit in the forecastle. With the front cargo holds full, the Regensburg managed to reach Batavia, where she entered with practically no freeboard. Emergency repairs were carried out there with divers and the ship then went back to Singapore, where it was unloaded and repaired. The cargo was taken over by the Rhakotis , which however failed to break through to southern France.
The last ride of Regensburg
After the repair, the Regensburg took on another 9,000 tons of cargo (4500 tons of raw rubber, 3785 tons of coconut and whale oil, 500 tons of tin, 100 tons of tungsten ore, 100 tons of tea) and left Singapore on January 30, 1943 with 116 men on board. In addition to the usual crew, former crew members of the Uckermark and the Doggerbank were on board, as well as a marine doctor and 15 marines for the existing on-board weapons: The Regensburg had a typical British 4-inch gun at the stern and two British 40 mm Bofors anti-aircraft guns in the wings of the bridge. There were also two fog canisters at the stern. The ship called at Batavia, took over 15 tons of quinine there and left on February 6, 1943 together with the Weserland (ex Ermland ). However, this was soon left behind.
On February 28, the ship in the South Atlantic was ordered to sail through the Denmark Strait and along the Norwegian coast to Stettin . On March 22nd, he was given a meeting point with U 302 , with which Regensburg met on the following day. The submarine gave the blockade breaker a radio monitoring device of the Metox type with two operators as well as maps and identification symbols for the rest of the voyage.
On March 28, the Regensburg entered the Denmark Strait and increased her speed to 15 knots. At dawn on March 30, a light grenade exploded in front of the ship and the Regensburg was immediately taken under cover under artillery fire . The commander signaled that he would stop and ordered the sinking and evacuation of Regensburg . But only one lifeboat could be successfully brought into the freezing water. The crew tried to save themselves on rafts. The light cruiser HMS Glasgow sank the German ship at 66 ° 41 ′ 0 ″ N , 25 ° 31 ′ 0 ″ W with artillery and a torpedo. Only six of the 118 men on board the Regensburg could be rescued from the rough seas . The success of the Glasgow was due to the British radio reconnaissance ( Ultra ).
Fate of the motor freighters delivered by Schichau
| Launched in service |
Surname | tonnage | Construction no. | fate |
| May 12, 1928 July 26, 1928 |
Saale | 7262 BRT 10600 dw |
1197 | Maiden voyage to the west coast of the USA, first to East Asia in 1930, renamed in Marburg as the last conversion on October 4, 1938 , launched in Naples in 1939 , to Venice in 1940, in service as a transporter from October 1940, May 21, 1941 off Cap Dukato sunk southwest of the island of Lefkas after being hit by a mine |
| 08.09.1928 10.10.1928 |
Havel | 7256 BRT 10667 dw |
1198 | also used to Australia, March 4, 1938 as the first conversion, renamed in Coburg again in service, laid up in Massaua in 1939, set sail on February 17, 1941 for a meeting with the auxiliary cruiser Atlantis , sunk on March 4, 1941 as the Australian heavy cruiser HMAS Canberra represents the Coburg . |
literature
- Arnold Kludas : The ships of the North German Lloyd 1920 to 1970 . Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, 1992, ISBN 3-7822-0534-0 .
- Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronicle of the naval war 1939-1945 , Manfred Pawlak VerlagsGmbH (Herrsching 1968), ISBN 3-88199-0097 .
- Reinhardt Schmelzkopf: German merchant shipping 1919–1939 . Verlag Gerhard Stalling, Oldenburg, ISBN 3-7979-1847-X .
Web links
- East Asia stage
- Blockade breakers 1941–1943
- Blockade runner Regensburg USN Intelligence Report May 8, 1943
- Surface Blockade Runners Winter 1942–43 and 1943–44