Z 29

Z 29

Z 29 in 1945

Ship data flag  German Empire Ship type destroyer class Destroyer 1936 A Shipyard Deschimag , Bremen Keel laying March 21, 1940 Launch October 16, 1940 Commissioning June 25, 1941 Whereabouts Butchered and sunk on December 16, 1946

Ship dimensions and crew length 127.0 m ( Lüa ) 121.9 m ( KWL ) width 12.0 m Draft Max. 4.62 m displacement Standard : 2,657 tn.l. Maximum: 3,691 tn.l.   crew 332 men

Machine system machine 6 × water tube boiler 2 × geared turbine Machine performance 70,000 PS (51,485 kW) Top speed 38.5 kn (71 km / h) propeller 2 ⌀ 3.2 m

Armament 4 × Sk 15.0 cm L / 48 (single mounts) 4 × Flak 3.7 cm (double mounts) 5–7 × Flak 2.0 cm L / 65 C / 30 (single mounts) 8 × torpedo tube ⌀ 53.3 cm in two sets of four (12 shots) Water bombs in four drain ramps in the stern up to 60 sea ​​mines Sensors 1 × group listening device 1 × Atlas echo sounder 1 × sonar (160 ° swiveling) 1 × FuMO 21Ge

The destroyer Z 29 was a warship of the destroyer 1936 A type of the German navy .

General

Z 29 was the seventh of eight boats of the type 1936 A, the longer and wider than the destroyers in 1936 were, with a stronger Fla were equipped -Bewaffnung and significantly altered artillery armament had. Instead of five 12.7 cm single mounts, three single mounts and one double mount on the back with 15 cm each were provided. However, since the double mounts were not completed until later, the boats were initially equipped with four 15-cm guns in single mounts. Z 29 only received the twin tower at the beginning of 1945, along with a "Hohentwiel" radio measuring device . In the course of the war, the anti-aircraft armament of the boats was reinforced several times. At the end of the war, the anti-aircraft armament of the Z 29 consisted of eleven 3.7 cm anti-aircraft guns (4x2, 3x1) and 21 2 cm anti-aircraft guns (3x4, 4x2, 1x1).

history

1941-1942

Z 29 was on 21 March 1940, the Deschimag -Werft AG "Weser" in Bremen on down Kiel . The launch took place on October 16, 1940, the commissioning on June 25, 1941 with the 8th destroyer flotilla. First in command was Corvette Captain Curt Rechel . After practice and test drives in the Baltic Sea, the boat provided security services in the North Sea and off Norway. In January 1942, the boat was part of the escort of the battleship Tirpitz when it was moved from Wilhelmshaven to Trondheim . In February 1942, Z 29 was escorting the battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen for the " Cerberus Company ", the breakthrough from Brest through the English Channel to Germany.

In May 1942, Z 29 moved in association with the heavy cruiser Lützow , three other destroyers and the Flottentender Jagd to Norway. There the ship first took off on 17./18. May on a minelaying company in the western Skagerrak extending the Western Wall - minefields in part, before the bandage over Trondheim (May 19) and the Ofotfjord (May 25), where the heavy cruiser Admiral Scheer added thrust, in the Alta Fjord (July 3) drove on. There the association met with a combat group under General Admiral Schniewind with the battleship Tirpitz , the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper and other destroyers and torpedo boats, in order to then attack the northern sea convoy PQ 17 in " Operation Rösselsprung " . Since the convoy had already been crushed by submarines and the air force, the operation was canceled and the combat group ran back to Narvik .

In September 1942, Z 29 , in association with other ships, laid mines off the northern Norwegian coast, in Kara Strait and near Novaya Zemlya . In October, the Z 29 and other destroyers escorted the Admiral Scheer to Narvik, then the Admiral Scheer and Tirpitz to Trondheim. In November, Z 29 was part of the escort of Admiral Scheer from Trondheim to Copenhagen and then the light cruiser Nürnberg from Copenhagen via Trondheim to the bow bay near Narvik. Z 29 returned to the Altafjord on December 9th . The ship was then one of the units that set out on December 30, 1942 under the command of Vice Admiral Kummetz for "Operation Rainbow" , the attack on the convoy JW 51B . On December 31, there was heavy fighting with the British escort until Kummetz, following the instruction not to take unnecessary risks, broke off the fight and returned to the Altafjord.

1943

On January 24, 1943, the Z 29 and two other destroyers escorted the Admiral Hipper and the light cruiser Köln from the Altafjord to Kiel , where they arrived on February 8, 1943. The next day the boat went to the Norddeutscher Lloyd shipyard in Wesermünde for overhaul . During this time the commandant changed: Corvette Captain Theodor von Mutius took over the ship on April 1, 1943 and commanded it until the end of the war. After being in the shipyard and subsequent training trips in the Baltic Sea, the boat went back to Northern Norway on July 22nd. Trondheim was reached on July 26th and the Altafjord on August 3rd.

From September 6th to 9th, Z 29 took part with the battleships Tirpitz and Scharnhorst and nine boats of the 4th, 5th and 6th destroyer flotilla in the raid on Spitsbergen (" Enterprise Sicily ", also "Enterprise Zitronella"), The Tirpitz and the 4th Destroyer Flotilla with Z 29 fired at the Barentsburg weather station and the surrounding area. The Z 29 received four hits with a caliber of 10 cm, two of them in the hull, and suffered three deaths. The boat had to go on the march back because of the holes in the hull and the resulting reduced seaworthiness in the lee of the two battleships.

On the evening of December 25, 1943, the battleship Scharnhorst and the destroyers Z 29 , Z 30 , Z 33 , Z 34 and Z 38 of the 4th destroyer flotilla under Captain Rolf Johannesson left for the North Sea to take the convoy JW 55B to attack. After the Scharnhorst's front radio measuring device was destroyed in a short artillery duel with the British cruisers HMS Belfast , HMS Sheffield and HMS Norfolk on December 26th and it was therefore not possible to get to the convoy, the operation was terminated around noon. In the evening the Scharnhorst , which marched back separately from the destroyers, was captured and sunk by a British association with the battleship HMS Duke of York ( naval battle off the North Cape ). The destroyers were no longer able to come to the aid of the Scharnhorst . They entered the Altafjord on December 27th.

1944

Almost the entire 1944 served Z 29 continues in the North Sea and the Arctic Ocean , interrupted only by a repair stay with the Maureb in the sheet at bay Narvik from 28 September to 8 October. Then the boat, with the other four boats of the 4th destroyer flotilla ( Z 31 , Z 33 , Z 34 and Z 38 ) in the Kirkenes - Nordkapp area in support of the XIX. Mountain Infantry Corps, which has been pushed back from the birch position on the Sapadnaja Liza since October 7th by a strong Soviet offensive in the Petsamo-Kirkenes area . From October 23 to 31, the flotilla was in daily use to cover retreat and evacuation guides, to evacuate German troops from Vardø and Honningsvåg and to serve as an outpost in the Tanafjord . From November 6th to 18th, the flotilla provided flank security for “Operation Northern Lights” , clearing the Tana section of the Arctic Front and gradually withdrawing the German 20th Mountain Army to Lyngen . On November 18, the destroyers returned to the Altafjord. On November 24th, Z 29 went to Tromsø to repair bilge pumps . The destroyer then moved to the Lafjord south of Honningsvåg. On December 16, Z 29 and Z 31 threw a mine lock at Honningsvåg.

1945

Z 29 left the Lafjord on December 23, 1944 and reached Kiel on January 1 and Wesermünde on January 4, 1945. There the boat went to the dock for overhaul . By the end of the war the boat was no longer operational. On May 10, 1945 it was taken over by a British command. In the fall, Z 29 was awarded to the US Navy as spoils of war, which, however, gave up the boat. It was cannibalized by the Royal Navy and sunk on December 16, 1946 - loaded with gas ammunition - at the western exit of the Skagerrak .

Commanders

• June 25, 1941-31. March 1943: Corvette Captain / Frigate Captain Curt Rechel
• April 1, 1943-7. May 1945: Corvette Captain Theodor von Mutius

Known crew members

• Uwe Sörensen (1920–2006) was from 1971 to 1979 as a flotilla admiral in the Naval Office Admiral Naval Armament

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 978-3-7637-6215-6 .
• Wolfgang Harnack: Destroyers under the German flag: 1934 to 1945. Koehler, Hamburg, 1997 (3rd, revised edition), ISBN 3-7822-0698-3 .
• 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 978-3-88189-637-5 .
• Heinz Ciupa: The German warships 1939-1945 . Moewig, 1988, ISBN 3-8118-1409-5 .
• Ulrich Elfrath: German Destroyers, 1934–1945 . Podzun-Pallas, 1990, ISBN 3-7909-0161-X .

Notes and individual references

1. ↑ The Kriegsmarine referred to all vehicles up to and including their destroyers as “boats”, regardless of the fact that they were mostly ships. See: boat / ship
2. ↑ Z 23 received the tower in February 1942, Z 24 at the end of 1942 and Z 25 in the second half of 1943. Z 26 and Z 27 were both lost before the tower was installed. Z 29 was the last unit to be equipped with it at the beginning of 1945, and Z 30 no longer received one. The double tower did not prove itself. The displacement center of gravity was too far forward in all German destroyers, and after the installation of the heavy twin tower, the foreships took over a great deal of water. This hindered the use of weapons and made it necessary to reduce the speed in heavy seas. The 15-cm armament also proved to be a handicap, as it was loaded by hand with a 15-cm grenade weighing 45 kg and thus the rate of fire was considerably lower than that of the 12.7-cm gun.
3. ↑ Rechel was promoted to frigate captain on March 1, 1942.
4. ↑ Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronicle of the Sea War 1939–1945, April 1940. Retrieved on April 2, 2020 .  
5. ↑ http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/ksp/nordpolarmeer/spitzbergen.htm
6. ↑ http://www.warcovers.dk/greenland/zitronella.htm
7. ↑ Marine equipment and repair shop.