Von der Groeben (ship, 1918)
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The Von der Groeben was a minesweeper put into service by the Imperial Navy under the designation M 107 in the last year of the First World War.It was one of 36 minesweeper- type boats of 1916 that were used in various functions by the Kriegsmarine during the Second World War .
Construction and technical data
The boat was in 1917 at the shipyard of John. C. Tecklenborg in Geestemünde at the Unterweser placed on Kiel , went there on July 3, 1918 from the stack and was put into service even on 30 July 1918.
With a length of 56.1 m in the waterline or 59.6 m over all, a width of 7.30 m and a maximum draft of 2.15 m , the boat displaced 508 t standard and a maximum of 548 t. Two coal-fired marine boilers and two standing triple expansion steam engines with a total of 1600 hp enabled a top speed of 16 knots via two shafts and screws . With the bunker supply of 115 t of coal, a cruising speed of 14 knots gave an action radius of 2000 nautical miles . The armament consisted of a 10.5-cm L / 45 C / 06 Sk and a 20-mm L / 65 C / 38 anti-aircraft gun . In 1943 a second 20 mm anti-aircraft gun was added.
history
After the end of the First World War, the boat did not have to be handed over to the victorious powers and was taken over by the Reichsmarine . It was used for mine clearance and then moved to reserve in 1920.
Since the navy had a significant shortage of tenders and escort ships for their U- , S- and R-boat flotillas when they were rapidly upgrading from 1935 , the old minesweeper at the Schichau shipyard in Königsberg was converted into a clearing boat escort ship. On April 15, 1939, the boat was then put into service under the name Von der Groeben and assigned to the 3rd clearing boat flotilla, which was set up in the Baltic Sea in the spring of 1939 with the boats R 33 - R 40 .
During the raid on Poland from September 1, 1939, the boat with the flotilla was used for mine search and clearance service in the Bay of Danzig , and on September 4, it took on another one with the old Schleswig-Holstein liner and the T 196 torpedo boat Part of the bombardment of the Westerplatte near Danzig .
After the end of the attack on Poland, the 3rd R-Flotilla moved with the Von der Groeben for security service in the North Sea in the first week of October . On April 1, 1940, the Von der Groeben was assigned to the 4th R-Flotilla, which had been newly set up in the North Sea for the minesweeping service, as an escort ship. During the Weser Exercise , the occupation of Denmark and Norway , which followed shortly afterwards, Von der Groeben belonged to Warship Group 11 under Korvettenkapitän Berger, the head of the 4th minesweeping flotilla, which in the early morning of April 9, 1940 Thyborøn at the western end of the Limfjord in Central Jutland occupied.
With the 4th R-Flotilla, the Von der Groeben was transferred to Belgian waters and the English Channel in June 1940 after the occupation of the Netherlands and Belgium, in order to provide escort there. It was damaged by a mine north of Dunkerque on August 18, 1940 , and beached near Boulogne , but was repaired again. On October 1st the boat was given the designation M 507 .
When the 12th clearing boat flotilla was set up in Bruges on May 1, 1942, the M 507 switched to this as escort ship. She remained stationed on the Channel coast when the 12th R-Flotilla moved over French rivers and canals to Marseille in the spring of 1943 and was then used in the Adriatic and Aegean Sea .
On the night of 26 to 27 September 1943 led the boat, together with M 534 Jungingen , the minesweepers M 82 and M 84 and the patrol boat V in 1507 , the 3019- BRT - freighter Madali from Le Havre to Dunkirk . British and Dutch motor torpedo boats (MTBs) and motor cannon boats (SGBs) attacked the convoy in the English Channel near Berck and sank the freighter, the Jungingen and the V 1501 Wiking 7, which was secured with other boats from the 15th outpost flotilla . M 507 Von der Groeben saw itself again in a brief naval battle in the English Channel on May 20, 1944, when the boat, together with the 4th M-Flotilla and some war fishing cutters (KFK), defended a convoy against an attack by British coastal protection forces without causing any damage originated.
Sinking
On the night of 15 to 16 June 1944, during the Allied invasion of northern France , flew 297 Lancaster , Halifax and Mosquitos of the RAF a heavy air raid on the port of Boulogne-sur-Mer. The three R-boat escort ships Von der Groeben , Brommy and Von der Lippe , six mine clearance boats, three mine sweepers, two outpost boats , two artillery ferry boats , three tugs and five harbor protection boats were sunk and three other clearance boats were badly damaged.
Footnotes
- ↑ Several other boats of the minesweeper class of 1916 were also converted into clearing boat escorts and also structurally changed by an extension of about 2 meters - including M 60 or Hecht , M 133 or Raule and M 138 or Zieten .
- ↑ http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/39-08.htm
- ↑ a b http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/km/rboote/rfl1-7.htm
- ↑ The flotilla initially included the 12 boats from R 41 to R 52 .
- ↑ The group consisted of the 4th minesweeping flotilla with the boats M 61 , M 89 , M 110 , M 111 , M 134 and M 136 as well as the 3rd clearing boat flotilla with the R-boats R 33 , R 34 , R 35 , R 36 , R 37 , R 38 , R 39 and R 40 and their escort ship Von der Groeben . ( http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/40-04.htm )
- ↑ http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/40-08.htm
- ↑ All minesweepers that were still from the Imperial Navy were given numbers starting with the number 5 at this point in time.
- ↑ The new escort ship of the 4th R-Flotilla was the converted fleet escort F 6 Queen Luise .
- ↑ http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/km/rboote/rfl8-17.htm
- ↑ http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/43-09.htm
- ↑ http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/44-05.htm
- ↑ http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/44-06.htm
Web links
- http://www.navypedia.org/ships/germany/ger_mine_m57.htm
- http://www.german-navy.de/hochseeflotte/ships/minehunters/m1916/index.html
literature
- Erich Gröner : The German warships 1815-1945, Vol. 2: Torpedo boats, destroyers, speed boats, minesweepers, mine clearance boats , Munich, 1983