Valkyrien (ship, 1888)
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 The Valkyrien 1899 |
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| Overview | |
| Type | Protected cruiser |
| Shipyard | |
| Keel laying | October 27, 1886 |
| Launch | September 8, 1888 |
| Namesake | the Valkyries |
| Commissioning | 1890 |
| Whereabouts | Sold for demolition in 1923 |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
3,020 t |
| length |
85.8 m over everything |
| width |
13.2 m |
| Draft |
5.5 m |
| crew |
204-305 men |
| drive |
6 cylinder boilers , |
| speed |
17.5 kn |
| Range |
3200 nm at 10 kn |
| Armament |
2 × 21 cm L / 35 Krupp cannons |
| Fuel supply |
488 tons of coal |
| Armored deck |
64 mm |
|
Armament 1913 |
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| 1915 |
2 × 15 cm L / 50 Bofors cannons replaced 21 cm cannons , 57 mm and 37 mm guns reduced to 2 each |
The Danish protected cruiser Valkyrien , put into service in 1890 , remained a single ship in the Danish Navy . The ship, known as the cruiser corvette until 1909, was a replica of the Elswick cruiser developed by the Armstrong company with two 21 cm individual guns. In 1899/1900 the Valkyrien made a trip to East Asia. In 1901/1902 and from 1915 to 1917 she was a station ship in the Danish West Indies . In 1919/1920 she repatriated Nordschleswiger who were German prisoners of war in Allied camps to Denmark.
In 1923 the ship was canceled in Denmark.
Building history
The Valkyrien was a replica of the Danish state shipyard of the Elswick cruiser developed by the Armstrong company, as it had first delivered to Chile with the Esmeralda . The relatively lightly armored type relied on a comparatively heavy armament and a higher speed in order to be able to assert itself successfully against stronger and weaker opponents.
The Valkyrien received two 21 cm L / 35 Krupp cannons with protective shields on the foredeck and aft deck, as well as six 15 cm L / 35 C.88 cannons from the same manufacturer on the sides of the superstructure in swallow nests . The light artillery was supplied by the French company Hotchkiss , whose weapons were used in all navies in the world (some manufactured under license). With two bow and one stern tube and two torpedo tubes on the side of the deck, the ship was also heavily armored in this area.
In addition, the Valkyrien was also able to carry two small torpedo boats (No. 10 and 11 ), which were delivered by Thornycroft in 1888. The small boats of 17 t were 21 m long and resembled the boats that had already been delivered for the armored ships Tordenskjold , Helgoland and Iver Hvitfeldt . From 1890 to 1893 they were used with the Valkyrien . They were renamed the P 10 and P 11 patrol boats in 1912 and only decommissioned in 1917.
The armor of the Valkyrien consisted of the usual armored deck of protected cruisers and was made of normal steel. The machines were supplied by the Danish company Burmeister & Wain , which usually supplied the engines for the warships built at the state shipyard. With her armament and the speed of 17.5 knots, the Valkyrien was a very modern ship when she was delivered.
In the first decade of her service, ship armor developed rapidly through the use of hardened steels, and artillery also developed rapidly. Not only in the case of special rapid-fire guns, the rate of fire increased considerably through mechanized loading processes. The Valkyrien was not modernized until it was transferred to the reserve in 1910, as the Danish coastal defense fleet only needed such a cruiser to a limited extent. It was not until 1913, before being used in the Mediterranean during the Balkan Wars , that the 15 cm cannons, which could only fire one shot per minute, were exchanged for modern 7.5 cm guns. During the First World War , the 21 cm cannons, which had only a short range and were only ready to fire every three minutes, were replaced by two modern 15 cm cannons from the coastal defense ship Peder Skram , which fire six to seven rounds per minute and had a range of over 14 km.
Mission history
The Valkyrien came into service on June 4, 1890 for the first time and practiced with the maneuver squadron from August 5, 1890 to be deactivated again on September 25, 1890. It was not put back into service until June 16, 1893 and then accompanied the royal yacht Dannebrog with guests to the wedding of the Duke of York (grandson of the Danish king) with Princess Maria von Teck , who later became the English royal couple. Then Madeira was visited. From August 2 to September 28, 1893, the cruiser was again part of the maneuver squadron. The next activation of the ship began with a trip to England for a wedding. This time the voyage was carried out with the coastal armored ship Iver Hvitfeldt and the wedding couple was the future Norwegian royal couple, Prince Carl of Denmark and the English Princess Maud , both grandsons of the ruling monarchs. From July 13 to September 30, 1896, the Valkyrien carried out the usual naval service.
The East Asia trip
The next activation took place on October 3, 1899 for a trip to East Asia, expressly approved by the Danish Parliament, under the command of the youngest son of the king, Prince Waldemar . With a crew of 272, the cruiser started its journey via Plymouth , Algiers , Malta , Port Said , Aden , Colombo , Singapore , Bangkok , Saigon to Hong Kong . The cruiser then visited Fuzhou , Shanghai , Yokohama , Kobe , Nagasaki , and then traveled back via Batavia , Piraeus , Gibraltar and Le Havre . Hans Niels Andersen from the Det Østasiatiske Kompagni as a representative of the Copenhagen Chamber of Commerce and the journalist Henrik Cavling followed the cruiser to Thailand with a group from the Copenhagen company on the new freighter Annam . The prince also visited the Siamese King Chulalongkorn and the Japanese Emperor Meiji . The cruiser returned to Copenhagen on July 31, 1900 and was already on its way home at the beginning of the Chinese Boxer Rebellion .
The next period of service from October 16, 1901 to July 5, 1902, the Valkyrien spent as a station ship in the Danish West Indies. From May 11, 1902, she supported French ships, u. a. the cruiser Suchet , during rescue operations after a volcanic eruption in Martinique . In the first port near the erupted volcano, 600 civilians were taken on board to bring them to safety. From July 1 to September 30, 1903, the cruiser was again in use at home, initially carried out individual trips and training, and from August 3 belonged to the maneuver squadron. Until 1910 the ship was not reactivated and then assigned to the reserve.
On November 4, 1913, the Valkyrien was activated again to be deployed in the Mediterranean until February 4, 1914. The mission took place after the end of the Balkan Wars when tensions between the states persisted, although Denmark had special ties to Greece because of the close kinship of the royal families. The cruiser was converted for use and the old, very slow-firing 15 cm guns of the side battery were replaced by modern 75 mm rapid-fire cannons.
When the Danish Navy set up its neutrality watch from August 1, 1914 during the First World War, the Valkyrien was assigned to the 2nd Squadron on the Great Belt as a living and training ship. The modernization of weapons, begun in 1913, continued and the two old 21 cm cannons were replaced by modern 15 cm Bofors guns. From April 14 to September 21, 1915, the cruiser served as a training ship for aspiring naval officers and engineers.
Surrender of the Danish West Indies
On November 8, 1915, the Valkyrien was again the station ship for the Danish West Indies . There was general social unrest among the black population, so that Denmark felt compelled to send the cruiser to restore peace and order. In January 1916, the USA and Denmark (again) agreed to sell the Danish West Indies. When the secret negotiations became known in Denmark in the summer of 1916, there was a storm of protest by the nationalists. The question was first put to a vote by the Danish people. The majority of Danes voted on December 14, 1916 to sell Danish West India to the United States. On April 1, 1917, the islands changed hands for $ 25 million . The Valkyrien in command was the last Danish governor of the islands and handled the surrender with the United States Navy . The islands became the United States Virgin Islands . On May 10, 1917, the cruiser arrived back in Denmark and was deactivated.
In 1918 the old cruiser was in Holmen and served as a ( quarantine ) hospital during the Spanish flu . From May to September 1919 it was again a training ship for cadets. In July the ship was sent to Egypt and Malta in order to persuade North Schleswig to return to Denmark among the German prisoners of war . The ship returned with 160 men from the camps. From October to February 1920 trips to Holland, Belgium and France followed, which brought another 135 "sønderjyder" back to Denmark. In the summer of 1921, the Valkyrien was used for a trip by the Danish king to the Faroe Islands and Iceland .
From May 17 to September 15, 1923, the last active phase of the ship followed, which served as a training ship for the officers and NCOs school. The Valkyrien was then sold for demolition, which was completed in Denmark in 1924.
Danish cruiser
| Surname | Launch | displacement | speed | Main armament |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Valkyria | September 8, 1888 | 3,020 t | 17.5 kn | 2 × 21 cm L / 35, 6 × 15 cm L / 35 |
| Hekla | November 28, 1890 | 1,322 t | 17.1 kn | 2 × 15 cm L / 35 |
| Gejser | May 8, 1893 | 1,282 t | 17.3 kn | 2 × 12 cm L / 40 |
| Hejmdal | August 30, 1894 | 1,342 t | 17.0 kn | 2 × 12 cm L / 40 |
literature
- Mads Kirkebæk: China and Denmark: relations since 1674 , NIAS Press Copenhagen 1999, ISBN 8787062712 .
- Benito Scocozza and Grethe Jensen: Politics Etbinds Danmarkshistorie . Politics Forlag, 3rd edition, Copenhagen 2005. ISBN 87-567-7064-2 .
- R. Steen Steensen: Vore krydsere , Marinehistorisk Selskab, 1971.
- Alexander Svedstrup: De Danskes Vej , Gyldendalske Boghandels Forlag Copenhagen 1902 (historical description of the cruiser's voyage).
Web links
- Valkyrien (1890–1923) ( Memento from January 10, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
- Valkyria
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kirkebœk, p. 160
- ↑ Danish cruiser's work of rescue NYT, May 15, 1902
- ↑ a b Danmarkshistorie 2005, p. 290.