Westphalia (ship, 1905)
 The Westphalia
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The Westphalia was a cargo ship of the Franken-class , which to a catapult ship was rebuilt. The ship was built in 1906 by Joh. C. Tecklenborg in Geestemünde for the North German Lloyd . After appropriate reconstruction, the Westphalia was used by Lufthansa as a catapult ship for flying boats from 1933 to 1939 . Lufthansa’s regular postal service to South America began in February 1934. The flying boats were catapulted from the deck and landed on the water. After their use, they were hoisted back on board. The ship was stationed in the South Atlantic , about 100 km from Natal in Brazil to handle the mail traffic (together with the Swabian country stationed off Bathurst ( Gambia ) ).
From 1941, the Westphalia was used by the Luftwaffe as a troop and material transporter and aircraft tender. On September 8, 1944, she ran into two mines and sank in heavy seas near Stora Pölsan in the Kattegat .
Civil use
Delivered on December 30, 1905, the Westphalia was used on the Bremen – Australia line. When the First World War broke out in 1914 , she called at the port of Valparaíso in Chile in August . It was confiscated and the team interned there. However, the crew had destroyed the machine and so the ship could not be used. On May 5th, 1920, the Westphalia left Valparaíso and was towed to Bremerhaven , where the ship was repaired and modernized. As part of the Columbus Agreement of autumn 1921 (like the Reichspostdampfer Seydlitz , Yorck and the freighters Gotha , Göttingen and Holstein ) the Westphalia did not have to be handed over to the victorious powers.
On January 3, 1922, the ship made its first voyage to East Asia. On July 1, 1932, it was chartered to Deutsche Lufthansa AG and converted into a catapult ship by Deschimag in Bremen and Kiel. After that, it served as a floating base for the Lufthansa flying boats that carried mail between Europe and South America.
Mail transport
On May 3, 1933, the Westphalia ran from Kiel via France and Spain to the South Atlantic to rehearse their task as a relay station in transatlantic mail. On May 19, she arrived with the 8-ton Dornier Walen D-2068 Passat and D-2069 Monsun off Bathurst (Gambia) and carried the flying boats on the Atlantic Ocean and in front of the ports of Bathurst and Natal until June 28 Tests through. They showed that the conditions in the middle of the Atlantic were not as easy as one had imagined and that it was not so easy to board the flying boats. In addition to a number of improvements, it was already decided to procure a second catapult ship in order to carry out all launches from this, as water launches with a high take-off weight were very difficult in the tropical conditions.
On October 31, the Westfalen was again in Bathurst to carry out a second series of tests. In addition to the trade winds and monsoons , the first 10-ton whale D-2399 Taifun was also used this time. The machines transferred by air arrived one after the other and were delayed due to minor defects en route. On December 10th, the ship marched back to Germany with the Passat and Taifun on board.
On January 20, 1934, the Westfalen was back in Bathurst and after a few tests in See and Natal, the first Lufthansa mail flight to South America took place on February 5. The mail from Germany came from Stuttgart-Böblingen Airport via Seville and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria to Bathurst (Gambia). From there it went with flying boats across the South Atlantic to Natal in Brazil. About 1500 km from Bathurst, halfway, was on the Atlantic watered . The Dornier Wal- type flying boat slid onto a towing ramp consisting of a landing sail at the stern of the ship, in order to be taken on deck. It was serviced, refueled, reloaded with mail and started the onward flight. While the planes were underway, the ship maintained about 4 ° north latitude and 26 ° west longitude. When the planes returned with new mail, they were hoisted on deck by ship's crane and refueled. Until mid-May, all flights were carried out according to plan in a 14-day cycle.
Flight operations were resumed in July. By the end of the year, a total of four 10-ton whales were in use and the traffic density was reduced to one return flight per week.
From September 26, 1934, a second catapult ship, the Schwabenland, was available. The ships were now stationed on both sides of the South Atlantic. They took the flying boats on board in Bathurst or Fernando de Noronho after crossing the Atlantic, waited for them and ran out into the Atlantic for the next post flight with a Dornier Wal on board and started the flying boats from a safe position for the rest of the overflight. The Westphalia was last used in 1938 when it first replaced the Ostmark in Bathurst in April and then relocated to South America after its return, as the Friesenland was withdrawn from there for the North Atlantic tests. The last catapult take-off of a postal plane from Westphalia took place on November 4, 1938 in front of Fernando de Noronha by the Dornier Do 18 D-ARUN Zephir , which exceptionally flew directly 4050 km to Las Palmas.
Long distance world record in 1938
In March 1938, Westfalen was involved in setting a new long-distance world record. A Do 18 D , D-ANHR, had been modified for this purpose into a Do 18 W (W for world record). It did not belong to Lufthansa, but remained with Dornier-Werke GmbH as a Reich-owned aircraft , where it was prepared for the record attempt and provided with special equipment. Since the Dornier-Werke did not have an aircraft crew with transocean experience, flight captain Hans-Werner von Engel, radio operator Helmut Rösel and aircraft radio operator Hans-Joachim Stein from Lufthansa temporarily worked for the company, from which flight captain Gundermann joined as the second pilot.
From Bremerhaven on the way to her location Bathurst in Gambia, the Westfalen , with the D-ANHR on board, anchored briefly on March 27, 1938 southeast of the English port of Dartmouth . There she catapulted the flying boat loaded with additional fuel into the air at 14:05 GMT . The launch point was chosen so that the entire distance to Brazil could be flown over the sea at all times. Two days later, on March 29, 1938, at 10:05 a.m., after 43 hours, the flying boat landed at the small town of Caravelas in Brazil. The 8,392 kilometers covered meant a new world record.
War effort
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On February 1, 1940, the ship was confiscated by the German Air Force and assigned to the Hörnum Seefliegerhorst on Sylt . During the invasion of Norway in April, it was used to transport troops and materials.
On May 1, 1941, the Westphalia was relocated to Trondheim , 1942 to the Altafjord and 1943 again to Trondheim; During this time she served as the mother ship for long-range reconnaissance aircraft of the Blohm & Voss BV 138 type .
The End
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On September 7, 1944, Westphalia left Norway with around 200 German soldiers and around 50 captured Norwegians and 25 German prisoners. The prisoners were to be transported to Germany and were housed deep down in the ship; The chief of the transport was SS-Scharführer Wilhelm Heinze.
On September 8, 1944, the ship ran into heavy seas in the Kattegat . At 11:15 a.m. there was a severe explosion in the forecastle , and a minute later a second aft. The Westphalia ran on two mines . It broke apart and quickly sank in the stormy seas. The prisoners were released from inside the ship when the ship began to sink. There was panic on deck and everyone was trying to get a place in a lifeboat . Later there were only five Norwegian prisoners among the survivors. In total, only 78 people survived. 35 of the Norwegians who died were found and buried near Gothenburg Cathedral , among them the resistance fighters Petter Moen Reidar Olaf Østlid , Erling August Moi , Sverre Lid and Ansgar Sørlie .
today
The wreck can be dived today (position 57 ° 46 ′ 47 ″ N , 11 ° 27 ′ 22 ″ E, ). It is an attractive destination as it is only 34 meters deep. The wreck is broken in the middle and the two parts are on top of each other. The bow is on the port side , the stern on the starboard side. Amidships, the wreckage is about 20 meters above each other.
literature
- Simon Mitterhuber: The German catapult planes and slingshots . Bernard & Graefe, Bonn, 2004, ISBN 3-7637-6244-2 .
- Friedrich, Frhr. v. Buddenbrock: Atlantico - Pacifico, years of apprenticeship in overseas mail . GFW-Verlag, 1965
- Graue / Duggan: DEUTSCHE LUFTHANSA, South Atlantic Airmail Service 1934–1939 , Zeppelin Study Group, 2000
- Jörg-M. Hörmann: Flugbuch Atlantik, German catapult flights 1927–1939 . Delius Klasing Verlag, 2007
- Wilhelm Küppers: Start free - Atlantic, longing - conquest - mastery . Hoffmann & Campe Verlag, 1955
- M. Michiel van der Mey: Dornier Wal a Light coming over the Sea . LoGisma editore, 2005, English, ISBN 88-87621-51-9 .
Web links
- Article about catapult ships of the Luftwaffe (with photo of Westphalia )
- Westphalia in the Historical MarineArchive
- Air Force Catapult Ships
Footnotes
- ↑ Stora Pölsan
- ↑ whose diary Edzard Schaper translated: The lonely man. Petter Moen's diary , 1950.