Z 23
 1936 A model
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Z 23 was the first ship of the destroyer class 1936 A of the Kriegsmarine and was the first destroyer of the Kriegsmarine to be renamed. The boat wasdecommissionedafter a bomb hit in La Rochelle ( France ) on August 21, 1944 andscrappedin Brest after the war.
Construction and technical data
The keel was laid on November 15, 1938 at Deschimag in Bremen , and it was launched on December 15, 1939.
The eight boats of the 1936 A type were to be given 15 cm guns instead of the 12.7 cm guns that had been used until now - for the first time in German destroyers - and were therefore slightly longer and wider than their predecessors. However, since the delivery of the 15 cm twin tower intended for the forecastle was delayed, the Z 23 and the following sister ships were initially only completed with a 15 cm single mount on the forecastle and three 15 cm single mounts on the stern . It was not until the summer of 1942 that Z 23 received the planned 15 cm double tower on the forecastle, which significantly worsened the boat's seaworthiness. The displacement center of gravity was already too far forward on all destroyers of the Kriegsmarine, and after the installation of the double tower, which weighs 65 tons with a substructure, the forecastle took over even more water in rough seas. The speed therefore had to be reduced in heavy seas. In addition, the towers were not watertight, which resulted in frequent short circuits. Another disadvantage was that the 45 kg heavy 15 cm shell was loaded by hand, which significantly reduced the rate of fire compared to the 12.7 cm gun.
Mission history
The commissioning took place on September 15, 1940. After a two-month program of trial, test and training trips in the Baltic Sea , which was interrupted by a short stay in the shipyard with fore ship conversion, the boat formed together with the sister ships Z 24 and Z 25 in December 1940 the basis for the newly established 8th destroyer flotilla “Narvik” at that time . On March 21-23, 1941, Z 23 moved together with Z 24 from Kiel to Bergen . From there, the boat initially provided escort security for the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper from Bergen to the Skagerrak from March 26th to 28th and from March 30th to April 1st for the heavy cruiser Admiral Scheer from Bergen to Kiel. From 18 to 22 May 1941, Z 23 belonged to the escort of the Bismarck / Prinz Eugen combat group under the fleet chief Admiral Günther Lütjens, which was part of the Rhine exercise from Swinoujscie to the North Atlantic . Then Z 23 ran to Trondheim and from there on 25/26. May back to Wilhelmshaven together with Z 10 Hans Lody and Z 16 Friedrich Eckoldt . On June 10, 1941, Z 23 ran to Kiel and then in the evening with four other destroyers as escort for the damaged heavy cruiser Lützow from Kiel to Norway; the cruiser had to be directed back to Kiel after an aircraft torpedo hit received on June 12 before Lindesnes on the southwestern tip of Norway.
Z 23 and Z 24 moved from Kiel from June 16 to 19, 1941 to Brest , where the two boats were subordinate to the 5th destroyer flotilla until October 23, 1941 . During this time, the boat was part of the security forces of the battleship Scharnhorst , which had set sail for test drives and target practice, from July 20 to 24, and part of the escort for the returning auxiliary cruiser Orion into the Gironde estuary from August 21 to 23 . On October 23, 1941, the Z 23 and Z 24 were again relocated from La Pallice through the English Channel to Germany and to the 8th Z Flotilla; they reached Wesermünde on October 26th.
On 24./25. November 1941, Z 23 drove with the two destroyers Z 27 and Z 5 Paul Jacobi from Kiel to Aarhus ( Denmark ), where mines were loaded, which were then moved in several stages from Kristiansand along the coast of Norway to Kirkenes from November 30th . Kirkenes was reached on December 12th, and the boat took part in escort duties, reconnaissance trips and mine-laying operations from there. On December 17, Z 23 , Z 24 , Z 25 and Z 27 encountered the two British minesweepers HMS Speedy and HMS Hazard at an offensive mine laying company north of Cape Gorodeckij . The Speedy was damaged in the brief skirmish, but the destroyers broke off the skirmish because they had a full load of mines on board and ran back into Kirkenes the following day. On December 26 and 27, 1941, Z 23 was involved in two further advances from the Ofotfjord and towards Lofoten. On January 13, 1942 laid Z 23 and Z 24 , secured by Z 25 , four minefields near the Cape Kacovskij in the White Sea . On January 20, 1942, during a fog voyage from Kirkenes to Tromsø, shortly after sailing , Z 23 rammed the stern of the sister ship Z 24, which had been stuck due to grounding, and tore the forecastle open . Since the Z 24 was also no longer operational due to the damage suffered at the stern, all three boats ran back to Kirkenes. After the emergency repairs were carried out, they ran on 27/28. January to Tromsø. From there, Z 23 ran to Trondheim, where the boat went to the shipyard on February 2nd, and then, after emergency repairs, to Bremerhaven , where it was docked. There, the boat was the first destroyer to receive its 15 cm double turret instead of the 15 cm single gun on the forecastle.
Due to the conversion, the boat was not ready for use again until August 1942. It was reassigned to the 8th Destroyer Flotilla under Flotilla Chief Captain Gottfried Pönitz . From August 15 to 19, Z 23 escorted the mine ship Ulm from Swinoujscie to Narvik . From September 24th to 28th, the boat, together with Z 28 , Z 29 , Z 30 and the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper , undertook the mine throwing operation "Zarin" in the Barents Sea near the island of Novaya Zemlya and then entered the Altafjord . In October Z 23 was involved in securing a number of warship relocations in northern Norway. On 1st / 2nd October Z 23 and Z 28 accompanied the Admiral Hipper to Narvik. On October 20, the destroyer conducted together with Z 28 the Admiral Scheer from Altafjord in the Narviker Arch Bay . On October 23, the boat together with Z 28 , Z 29 , Z 4 Richard Beitzen and Z 16 Friedrich Eckoldt secured the relocation of the battleship Tirpitz and the heavy cruiser Admiral Scheer to Trondheim, where the Tirpitz stayed for repairs on October 24, and then together with Z 28 and Z 29 from November 7th the march back of Admiral Scheer to Germany, with Z 23 and Z 29 being released to Copenhagen on November 9th . A crack in the bunker and other damage were found there, which, however, could not be repaired at first, because from November 12th to 18th, Z 23 , Z 25 and Z 29 first had to guide the light cruiser Nuremberg , which left Swinoujscie on November 11, to Trondheim , where Z 23 then went to the shipyard.
From February 8 to 11, 1943, the 8th destroyer flotilla moved to Kiel with Z 23 , from where several training trips in the Baltic Sea were carried out. After that, the boat moved from March 3rd to 8th in the association of the 8th Destroyer Flotilla to Bordeaux in western France. On March 16, Z 23 , Z 24 and Z 32 moved to Royan . From there, the boats of the flotilla gave blockade breakers long-distance guidance and took part in the retrieval of submarines . The deployment on 28/29 is worth mentioning. March to conduct in the Bay of Biscay of for Japan given Siegebreaker Himalayas , which had, however, cancel after discovery by British reconnaissance plane on its way, and the inclusion of the Italian Siegebreaker Pietro Orseolo on April 1, 140 nautical miles west of Vigo , in which Z 23 by British torpedo - and bomber planes were attacked, five dead and 31 injured. The Pietro Orseolo suffered a torpedo hit in this attack , but was safely brought into the Gironde on April 2nd. On May 8, Z 23 went to La Pallice for an engine overhaul , where the boat was slightly damaged in the dock in a British air raid on July 4. However, since the dock was damaged, the boat could not undock again until August 7th and then on 10/11. Return to Royan August.
On the morning of December 25, 1943, Z 23 suffered a water ingress in the forecastle while hauling in the blockade breaker Osorno (Bernau company) in front of the Gironde estuary and had to be released from the formation; On the way back, four crew members were washed overboard by a breaker in the heavy seas . Only a few days later, five boats of the 8th Z flotilla, including the Z 23 , and the 4th torpedo boat flotilla came up against the unsuccessful attempt to bring the Alsterufer blockade breaker , which left Kobe on October 4, 1943, into the Gironde (Trave company), on December 28th in a battle with the British light cruisers HMS Glasgow and HMS Enterprise in the South Biscay . The German boats could not show their nominal artillery superiority because the heavy seas did not allow their full speed to be used and made effective use of the guns very difficult for the destroyers, and made it practically impossible for the torpedo boats. In the ongoing battle that then developed, the Z 27 (with the flotilla chief, Captain Hans Erdmenger ) and the two torpedo boats T 25 and T 26 were sunk.
In the following months, Z 23 continued to be involved in escort duties and hauling in submarines. Finally, the successful retrieval of the Japanese blockade-breaker submarine I 29 by Z 23 and ZH 1 as well as the two torpedo boats T 27 and T 29 to Lorient was also worth mentioning from March 9 to 11, 1944 . The submarine left Singapore on December 16, 1943 ; his cargo consisted - in addition to 16 high-ranking officers, diplomats and engineers - of 80 tons of raw rubber , 80 tons of tungsten , 50 tons of tin , 2 tons of zinc and 3 tons of quinine , as well as opium and coffee. It reached the Bay of Biscay on March 9th and was brought to Lorient undamaged by the German escort group despite two attacks by British squadrons.
Whereabouts
Since the beginning of the Allied invasion of northern France in June 1944, Z 23 was in the shipyard in La Pallice . There, on August 12, 1944, the boat was so badly damaged in a bomb attack on the port of La Rochelle that it could not be restored to operational readiness. It was decommissioned on August 21, 1944. A planned demolition or sinking as a block ship , however, no longer took place, so that the boat became French war booty. Although it was renamed Leopard and towed to Brest in October 1945, it was not repaired. In 1951 the boat was deleted from the warship list and scrapped.
Commanders
| September 15, 1940 to May 1942 | Corvette captain / frigate captain Friedrich Böhme |
| May 1942 to March 1944 | Corvette captain / frigate captain Heinrich Wittig |
| March 1944 to August 21, 1944 | Corvette Captain Helmut Mantey |
literature
- Hildebrand, Hans H. / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships . Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present . tape 8 : Ship biographies from Undine to Zieten . Mundus Verlag, Ratingen, S. 138–139 (Licensed edition by Koehler's Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg, approx. 1990).
- Harald Fock: Z-before . International development and war missions of destroyers and torpedo boats in World War II . 1940 to 1945 . Koehler Verlag, Hamburg 1998, ISBN 3-7822-0268-6 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Hans H. Hildebrand / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German Warships, Biographies - A Mirror of Naval History from 1815 to the Present , Vol. 8, Ratingen [1990], p. 138.
- ^ Hans Lody , Friedrich Eckoldt , Z 20 Karl Galster and Z 24 .
- ↑ a b Harald Fock: Z-before! International development and war missions of destroyers and torpedo boats , Vol. 2, Hamburg 2001, p. 80
- ↑ a b c Harald Fock: Z-before! International development and war missions of destroyers and torpedo boats , Vol. 2, Hamburg 2001, p. 81
- ↑ Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronicle of the Naval War 1939-1945 , Oldenburg 1968. ( online version )
- ↑ Jürgen Rohwer, Gerhard Hümmelchen: Chronicle of the Naval War 1939-1945 , Oldenburg 1968. ( online version )
- ^ Together with Z 24 , Z 32 and Z 37 .
- ↑ It involved Z 23 , Z 24 , Z 27 , Z 32 , Z 37 , ZH1 and the 4th Torpedo Boat flotilla.
- ↑ Jürgen Rohwer / Gerhard Hümmelchen: Chronicle of the Naval War 1939-1945 , Oldenburg 1968. ( online version )
- ↑ Hans H. Hildebrand / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships, biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present , Vol. 8, Ratingen [1990], p. 144.
- ↑ Jürgen Rohwer / Gerhard Hümmelchen: Chronicle of the Naval War 1939-1945 , Oldenburg 1968. ( online version )
- ↑ Hans H. Hildebrand / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships, biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present , Vol. 8, Ratingen [1990], p. 139.
Destroyer 1936: Z 17 Diether von Roeder | Z 18 Hans Lüdemann | Z 19 Hermann Künne | Z 20 Karl Galster | Z 21 Wilhelm Heidkamp | Z 22 Anton Schmitt
Destroyer 1936 A: Z 23 | Z 24 | Z 25 | Z 26 | Z 27 | Z 28 | Z 29 | Z 30
Destroyer 1936 A (Mob): Z 31 | Z 32 | Z 33 | Z 34 | Z 37 | Z 38 | Z 39