Vallelunga (ship, 1924)
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The Vallelunga was a mine and ammunition transporter and auxiliary mine -layer built in 1924 by the Regia Marina . After the ship was submerged in September 1943, the Navy lifted the ship and put it into service as a mine ship under the same name. In May 1944 it was sunk in Genoa by an air raid. The ship was named after a naval ammunition depot.
Construction and technical data
The Vallelunga was founded in 1924 as the third and last ship of Panigaglia class as their predecessors Panigaglia and Buffoluto at Ansaldo San Giorgio del Muggiano in La Spezia on down Kiel . The launch took place on May 28, 1924, the delivery to the Regia Marina in December of that year. The name of the ship - like that of the sister ships - was derived from one of the navy's large ammunition depots.
Her length was 56.24 meters, she was 9.00 meters wide and had a draft of 3.00 meters. The design displacement was 916 tons standard and 1071 tons maximum. The drive consisted of two standing 3-cylinder triple expansion machines with two Thornycroft water tube boilers, which achieved 1400 hp and operated on two screws . With that she reached a speed of 11.0 knots and had a range of 960 miles. In addition to a capacity of 30 to 53 mines, the ship was armed with two 100 / 47mm cannons and a machine gun. The crew consisted of 3 officers and 61 men.
Ammunition transporters and auxiliary mine layers of the Regia Marina
Their job was to transport ammunition and sea mines from the naval depots to the ports and ships that needed them. No further information is available on these routine tasks in peacetime.
At the time of Italy's entry into World War II on June 10, 1940, the Vallelunga was already being operated as an auxiliary mine-layer and was in Naples with her two sister ships. Due to its low speed, it was only used for laying defensive mine barriers. When the defensive barriers were set for Italy to enter the war in June 1940, only the Buffoluto was used. The information about their operations remains sparse: On May 1, 1943, the Vallelunga, together with the Vieste and the Prähmen G 53 , G 56 and G 58, began laying 12 defensive minefields with a total of 1036 mines on the Sicilian coast. The Vallelunga laid further defensive mine blocks again with the Vieste from 19 July 1943 - this time seven minefields with around 500 mines in the Gulf of Naples.
On September 9, 1943, the crew of the Vallelunga sank their ship in the port of La Spezia so as not to let it fall into the hands of the Germans.
Mine ship Vallelunga of the German Navy
The Navy lifted the wreck in October 1943 and repaired the ship. Only on March 31, 1944 was she able to put the ship back into service and kept the name Vallelunga . No information is available about a change in armament. The ship was assigned to the 13th security flotilla and was supposed to be used as an auxiliary mine layer in the port of Genoa, but was no longer used. After about two months of service in the Navy, the end came: On May 28, 1944, British bombers attacked the port of Genoa and sank the F 482 and F 708 naval ferry boats . The Vallelunga also sank after being hit by a bomb and the cargo exploded.
In 1947 the ship was recovered and scrapped.
literature
- Maurizio Brescia: Mussolini's Navy. A Reference Guide to the Regia Marina 1930-1945 . E-Book, Kindle Edition 2012, ISBN 978-1-84832-115-1 .
- Erich Gröner , Dieter Jung, Martin Maass: The German warships 1815-1945 . Volume 3: Submarines, auxiliary cruisers, mine ships, net layers and barrier breakers . Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Koblenz 1985, ISBN 3-7637-4802-4 .
- Karl von Kutzleben, Wilhelm Schroeder, Jochen Brennecke : Mine ships 1939–1945. The mysterious missions of the “midnight squadron” . Köhler, Hamburg 2002, ISBN 3-7822-0844-7 .
- Reinhart Schmelzkopf: Foreign ships in German hands . Strandgut Verlag, Cuxhaven 2004.
- Donald A. Bertke, Gordon Smith, Don Kindell: World War II Sea War - Volume 9: Wolfpacks Muzzled . Naval-history.net, Bertke Publications, Dayton OH 2012, ISBN 978-1-937470-16-6 .
- La Guerra di Mine . Ufficio Storico della Marina Militare, Roma 1966.
Web links
- wlb-stuttgart.de accessed on September 5, 2017
- wlb-stuttgart.de accessed on September 8, 2017
- wlb-stuttgart.de accessed on September 5, 2017
- naval-history.net accessed on September 5, 2017
- navypedia.org.Retrieved September 5, 2017
- xoomer.virgilio.it accessed on September 7, 2017
- antiqueprints-maps.com accessed on September 7, 2017 (photo of the sister ship '' Buffoluto '')
- naviearmatori.net accessed on September 7, 2017 (photo of the sister ship '' Buffoluto '')
- associazione-venus.it accessed on September 7, 2017 (photo of the sister ship '' Buffoluto '')
Individual evidence
- ↑ Brescia
- ↑ Gröner, p. 187, Schmelzkopf, p. 259, von Kutzleben, p. 250f .; Brescia, antiqueprints-maps.com
- ↑ naval-history.net wlb-stuttgart.de
- ↑ wlb-stuttgart.de
- ↑ Bertke, p. 318, wlb-stuttgart.de
- ↑ Berteke, p. 61, wlb-stuttgart.de
- ↑ Gröner, p. 187, Schmelzkopf, p. 259, von Kutzleben, p. 251, cf. wlb-stuttgart.de
- ↑ Gröner, p. 187, Schmelzkopf, p. 259, cf. wlb-stuttgart.de
- ↑ xoomer.virgilio.it