Weddigen (ship, 1917)
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The Weddigen was an outpost boat of the Imperial Navy . At the beginning of February 1918 she was the leader of an escort flotilla for submarines and got into a German mine lock with the flotilla off Heligoland , with seven boats sank and most of the crews fell within two days. The fish steamer was named after Otto Weddigen .
history
The Weddigen belonged to a series of fish steamers specially designed by the Imperial Navy for outpost service. In May 1917 she was assigned to the Ems outpost flotilla and served in the 2nd half flotilla.
On February 3, 1918, the Weddigen guide boat was part of the escort group of the 2nd half flotilla of the outpost flotilla of the Ems. Commander and at the same time leader of the escort group was lieutenant at sea of the Steiger reserve. The task was to lock the submarines UB 65 and U 104 through the so-called Blue Route through the German mine barriers at Hornsriff . The escort group got into a minefield on the same day off Heligoland . Within two days, seven boats sank at the smuggling company due to contact with mines; the Weddigen on February 3 at 6.30 p.m. at position 55 ° 21 ' N , 7 ° 30' E ; the 28 dead were apparently the entire crew. Overall were affected:
1) The Ems outpost flotilla (109 dead):
- Weddigen
- Rheinfels
- Anneliese
- Brockeswalde
2) Auxiliary minesweeping half-flotilla of the North Sea (31 dead):
The reasons for the accident were described in the official naval war history of 1965 as follows:
Strong and unsafe current transfer in unsightly weather, difficulties in navigating slowly moving escort boats and the urge to bring the submarines to their combat area even in unsightly weather, had been the driving force to put aside certain navigational safeguards required in peacetime and to pave the way to pave the way for the enemy with full commitment. The bad experiences with the own barrier at Hornsriff pushed the important problem of preventing the enemy mine blocking with protective barriers in a generous way into the background. (Groß, p. 236f).
literature
- Gerhard P. Groß (ed.): The war at sea 1914–1918. The War in the North Sea , Volume 7. From the summer of 1917 to the end of the war in 1918. Critical Edition , Hamburg / Berlin / Bonn (Verlag ES Mittler & Sohn), 2006. ISBN 3-8132-0855-9 . The original edition was by Admiral a. D. Walter Gladisch and was published in Frankfurt am Main in 1965.
- Erich Gröner , Dieter Jung, Martin Maass: The German warships 1815-1945 , Volume 8/1: River vehicles, Ujäger, outpost boats, auxiliary minesweepers, coastal protection associations (Part 1), Bonn 1993, ISBN 3-7637-4807-5 , p. 194f ., Volume 2, p. 533.