Watussi (ship)
.jpg) The Watussi
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The Watussi of the Woermann Line (WL) was the first two-chimney of the German Africa Lines. Her sister ship Ubena went to the German East Africa Line (DOAL). Both ships were the top ships of the German Africa Service from 1928 to 1936.
The Watusi was in 1939 when war broke out in front of the Island of Mozambique . On November 22, 1939, she tried to break through from there to South America. Spotted by South African aircraft, the ship sank itself as the British cruiser Sussex approached. The sinking of the burning ship was hastened by the heavy artillery of the also approaching battle cruiser Renown .
History of the ship
After the conclusion of a conference agreement between British, Dutch and German Africa shipping companies in 1924, Africa traffic developed very positively and the German shipping companies decided in 1927 to increase passenger traffic. The Hamburg-American Packetfahrt-Actien-Gesellschaft parked the Toledo (ex Kigoma of the DOAL) for 310 passengers in January 1927, while the WL and DOAL ordered two new ships from Blohm & Voss, which were to come into service in 1928. With 9500 GRT and space for 325 passengers, they significantly exceeded the previous ships. They were the first German ships to Africa to have two chimneys.
The Watussi , named after an ethnic group in East Africa, was the first new building to be completed. The ship with hull number 391 was launched on February 2, 1928 and was delivered on May 30, 1928. It was 141.1 m long, had a turbine set with gearbox of 4200 HPw, the steam of which was generated in five oil-fired boilers. The service speed of the new building was 13.5 knots (kn) . For the accommodation of the passengers there were 114 places in the 1st class, 78 in the 2nd and 132 places in the III. Class. Although belonging to the Woermann line, the Watussi , like all ships used on the main line, carried the DOAL's chimney mark.
The sister ship Ubena was delivered to the DOAL on July 31, 1928.
On June 16, 1928, the Watussi began her maiden voyage to South Africa. For new buildings, and the Toledo , which had been conducted since their introduction into the Africa service corresponding test trips, a new main line had been set up to South Africa in 21 days from Hamburg via Rotterdam and Southampton to Las Palmas and on about Walvis Bay and Luderitz to Cape Town led and was seven days faster than the previous route. The ships then continued on via Port Elizabeth , East London and Durban to Lourenco Marques . On the way back, the journey from Cape Town led directly to Europe. In the following years the routes were changed several times. In 1934, the two sister ships at the shipyard were lengthened by 7 m, which increased their service speed by one knot. The II. And III. Class have been combined into a tourist class. Since 1937, the meanwhile united German Africa Lines have offered Safari vacation and special trips through their own travel agency . In 1939 the Watussi and her sister ship were also used on Hansa voyages, which had been developed for the new passenger ships Windhoek and Pretoria . As part of an eight-day advance trip, the ships took cargo in Rotterdam and Antwerp . The guests of the "Hansafahrten" were offered trips to Delft , The Hague , Scheveningen and Amsterdam or Mechelen , Leuven , Tervuren , Brussels and Ghent as well as visits to the battlefields of Ypres and even a three-day trip to Paris . After returning to Hamburg, he left for South Africa.
The Watussi was in Mozambique when the war broke out in 1939 . On November 22, 1939, she tried to break through from there to South America.
Downfall
On December 2, a Junkers Ju 86 reconnaissance aircraft of the South African Air Force spotted the Watussi south of the Cape of Good Hope . The British units Force 'K' ( Ark Royal and Renown ) and Force 'H' ( Sussex and Shropshire ) in search of Admiral Graf Spee had set sail from Simonstown after refueling and were running to their surveillance line south of Cape Agulhas . Sussex was the first to discover the fleeing ship, which was preparing to sink and was set on fire by the crew. The Renown , which also arrived , fired one of the guns in the B tower at the Watussi , around the sinking of the burning ship 50 nm south of Cape Agulhas ( 34 ° 10 ′ 0 ″ S , 12 ° 0 ′ 0 ″ E ) to accelerate. The Sussex picked up the crew of the Watussi who had entered the boats and brought the 193 people to Simonstown for internment.
Sister ship at the DOAL
| Surname | Construction no. | GRT | Launched in service |
further fate |
| Ubena | No. 482 | 9554 | 31.03.1928 07.31.1928 |
Extended in 1934 , reached 15.8 knots in a test drive in July 1934 , reached Hamburg on August 30, 1939, accommodation ship of the 7th submarine flotilla, August 1941 in the same function with the 21st flotilla in Pillau; from February 2, 1945 mobile again as a wounded transporter, brought over 27,000 refugees and soldiers from the eastern regions of the German Reich to Kiel and Copenhagen on seven journeys . 30 children were born on these trips; the captain had everyone baptized with the middle name "Ubena". At the end of the war in Travemünde; Taken over as British troop transport Empire Ken in July 1945 , operational in December 1945, troops transported to the Suez Canal in 1956 , scrapped in Dalmuir and Troon from late 1957 . |
literature
- Arnold Kludas : The ships of the German Africa Lines 1880 to 1945 . Verlag Gerhard Stalling, 1975, ISBN 3-7979-1867-4 .
- Arnold Kludas: The History of German Passenger Shipping Volume IV Destruction and Rebirth 1914 to 1930 , Writings of the German Shipping Museum, Volume 21
- Arnold Kludas: The History of German Passenger Shipping Vol. V An era comes to an end from 1930 to 1990 , writings of the German Maritime Museum, volume 22
- Claus Rothe: German ocean passenger ships 1919 to 1985 . Steiger Verlag, Moers 1987, ISBN 3-921564-97-2 .
- Hans Georg Prager: Blohm & Voss Koehler Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford 1977, ISBN 3-78220-127-2 .
- Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronicle of the Naval War 1939-1945 , Manfred Pawlak VerlagsGmbH (Herrsching 1968), ISBN 3-88199-0097
- Reinhart Schmelzkopf: Die deutsche Handelsschiffahrt 1919–1939 , Verlag Gerhard Stalling, Oldenburg, ISBN 3-7979-1847-X
Web links
- Page on the history of the shipping companies Deutsche Afrika-Linien, John T. Essberger, u. a. as well as the trading house C. Woermann under construction
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kludas, Passenger Shipping, Vol. IV, pp. 130f.
- ^ Kludas: Passenger Shipping , Vol. IV, p. 133.
- ↑ Kludas: Passenger Shipping , Vol. IV, p. 132.
- ↑ Kludas: Passenger Shipping , Vol. IV, p. 131.
- ^ Kludas: Passenger Shipping , Vol. IV, p. 134.
- ↑ Schmelzkopf: Handelsschiffahrt , p. 172
- ↑ Kludas: Passenger Shipping , Vol. V, p. 98.
- ^ Kludas: Passenger Shipping , Vol. V, p. 143.
- ↑ Uwe Jenisch: May 1945. End of the war on the Kiel Fjord . Marineforum 5-2015, pp. 42-45.
- ↑ Kludas: Afrika-Linien , p. 95.