Z 14 Friedrich Ihn
 Crew of the "Friedrich Ihn" at an award ceremony
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Z 14 Friedrich Ihn was aclass 1934 A destroyer ofthe German Navy in World War II . It was named after the commander of the torpedo boat S 35 , Kapitänleutnant Friedrich Ihn, who was killed in the Battle of the Skagerrak on May 31, 1916.
In 1946 the destroyer came to the Soviet Union and was there as Zorkyj in the Baltic Red Banner Fleet .
history
The destroyer, built by Blohm & Voss in Hamburg , was put into service on April 9, 1938. Practice and training trips in the North and Baltic Seas followed.
When the war began, the Z 14 was ready for use in Swinoujscie . On September 1, the boat belonging to the 3rd Destroyer Flotilla left for blockade service in the eastern Baltic Sea, but was relocated to the North Sea on September 7, where it was involved in the laying of mines. The boat was damaged on December 8, 1939 when the mine transporter Lauting came alongside ; the outer skin on the port side was torn open about 4 m; repairs lasted until the morning of December 10th. Until the end of 1939, the Friedrich Ihn and other destroyers waged a trade war in the Kattegat and Skagerrak .
In January 1940, Z 14 was involved in mining companies off the British coast and was damaged in the process. The Friedrich Ihn was then in the Kriegsmarinewerft Kiel until June and was therefore not involved in the occupation of Norway in April 1940. The destroyer left for Norway on June 20 and reached Trondheim on July 23 . From there, Z 14 directed the battleship Gneisenau, which had been damaged by the Juno company, to Kiel . After a layover in the shipyard in Hamburg, the Z 14 was relocated to France in September, where it was involved, among other things, in an advance into the Bristol Channel .
On the night of October 18, 1940, the leader of the destroyers (FdZ), Captain Erich Bey , attempted an advance to the Bristol Canal against Allied shipping on the Friedrich Ihn with the destroyers Erich Steinbrinck , Hans Lody and Karl Galster stationed in Brest , which the 5th torpedo boat flotilla stationed in Cherbourg was supposed to support. The departure of the German destroyers was discovered early by the British Air Force and the British cruisers Newcastle and Emerald with the destroyers Jackal , Jupiter , Kashmir , Kipling and Kelvin were sent from Plymouth to meet the Germans. The German destroyers discovered the British very early and broke off their advance. The British cruisers opened fire from a great distance, but only Galster received two light hits. The British also broke off the battle because Newcastle had a boiler collapse . The 5th flotilla was at sea with sea eagles , falcon , griffin , jaguar , condor and wolf , but did not reach the battlefield.
The Friedrich Ihn was relocated to Hamburg in November 1940 and was there in the Blohm & Voss shipyard until April 1941. Until the next scheduled shipyard layover in Stettin in July 1941 , the destroyer then operated from La Pallice , Brest and Bordeaux in the Bay of Biscay .
In February 1942, Z 14 was involved in the Cerberus company in the English Channel (return of the battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen to Germany). Then took Friedrich him on companies Sports Palace (laying of the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen and Admiral Scheer of Brunsbüttelkoog (Elbe) in part to Norway). This was followed in March 1942, together with the battleship Tirpitz and the destroyers Paul Jacobi , Hermann Schoemann and Z 25 , an advance into the North Sea . The ships just missed the northern sea convoys PQ 12 and QP 8 . Friedrich Ihn was only able to sink the straggler Izora (2815 GRT) . Z 14 also took part in the Rösselsprung operation in the North Sea (advance against the allied northern sea convoy PQ 17 ).
In 1943 and 1944, the destroyer was mainly used for escort service and mine throwing in Norwegian waters. Due to technical problems, the operations were repeatedly interrupted by longer stays in the shipyard. The crew has meanwhile been assigned to other destroyers, so that it first took a few practice runs before the boat was fully operational again after being in the shipyard.
At the beginning of 1945, Z 14 was involved in escorts in the Skagerrak and the Oslofjord . On May 8, 1945, the Friedrich Ihn sailed to Hela to take refugees on board. The destroyer reached Kiel on May 10 and was decommissioned on the same day.
The boat was awarded to the USSR as spoils of war. In February 1946 it was brought to Libau and incorporated as Zorkyj into the Baltic Red Banner Fleet . The destroyer was scrapped from 1955.
Commanders
| April 9, 1938 to October 25, 1938 | KK Claus tramp roof | 1900–1940 † | KK |
| October 26, 1938 to March 31, 1939 | FK Erich Bey | 1898–1943 † | Rear admiral |
| April 9, 1939 to October 25, 1939 | KK / FK Rudolf von Pufendorf | 1900–1943 † | KzS |
| October 25, 1939 to November 10, 1942 | Corvette Captain Günther Wachsmuth | 1906– | KzS |
| November 11, 1942 to April 29, 1944 | Corvette Captain Gerhard Fromme | 1908-1967 | KzS |
| April 30, 1944 to May 10, 1945 | Corvette Captain Carl-August Richter-Oldekop | 1911– | KK |
literature
- Erich Gröner , Dieter Jung [arr.]: The ships of the German Navy and Air Force 1939–1945 and their whereabouts. Bernard & Graefe, Bonn 2000 (9th, revised and expanded edition), ISBN 978-3763762156 .
- Wolfgang Harnack: Destroyers under the German flag: 1934 to 1945. Koehler, Hamburg 1997 (3rd, revised edition), ISBN 3-7822-0698-3 .
- Koop, Gerhard / Klaus-Peter Schmolke: The German Destroyers 1935–1945 (= ship classes and ship types of the German Navy . Volume 6 ). Bernard & Graefe, Bonn 1995, ISBN 3-7637-5940-9 .
- Volkmar Kühn: Torpedo boats and destroyers in action 1939–1945. The fight and destruction of a weapon. Flechsig, Würzburg 2006 (6th, ext. A. special edition), ISBN 978-3881896375 .
- Mike J. Whitley: Destroyers in World War II: Technique - Class - Types. Motorbuchverlag, Stuttgart 1991, ISBN 978-3613014268 .
Footnotes
- ↑ Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronik des Maritime War 1939–1945, March 1942 , accessed on August 6, 2013
- ↑ Jürgen Rohwer, Gerhard Hümmelchen: Chronicle of the Sea War 1939–1945 Index of Enterprises in the Württemberg State Library , accessed on April 19, 2012
- ^ Koop / Schmolke: Ship classes and ship types of the German Navy. Vol. 6, 1995, p. 102.
Destroyer 1934: Z 1 Leberecht Maass | Z 2 Georg Thiele | Z 3 Max Schultz | Z 4 Richard Beitzen
Destroyer 1934A: Z 5 Paul Jacobi | Z 6 Theodor Riedel | Z 7 Hermann Schoemann | Z 8 Bruno Heinemann | Z 9 Wolfgang Zenker | Z 10 Hans Lody | Z 11 Bernd von Arnim | Z 12 Erich Giese | Z 13 Erich Koellner | Z 14 Friedrich Ihn | Z 15 Erich Steinbrinck | Z 16 Friedrich Eckoldt