Z 6 Theodor Riedel

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Z 6 Theodor Riedel
The Theodor Riedel as an adhesive
The Theodor Riedel as an adhesive
Ship data
flag German EmpireGerman Empire (Reichskriegsflagge) German Empire France
FranceFrance 
Ship type destroyer
class Destroyer 1934 A
Shipyard AG Weser ( Deschimag ), Bremen
Build number 900
Launch April 22, 1936
Commissioning July 2, 1937
Whereabouts Scrapped in 1957
Ship dimensions and crew
length
119.3 m ( Lüa )
114.4 m ( KWL )
width 11.3 m
Draft Max. 4.23 m
displacement 3415  t
 
crew 323 men
Machine system
machine 6 Wagner-Deschimag steam boiler

2 sets of Wagner-Deschimag steam turbines

Machine
performance 		70,000 PS (51,485 kW)
Top
speed 		36 kn (67 km / h)
propeller 2
Armament

Air defense 1945:

  • 2 × 2 37 mm M42 flak
  • 1 × 2 cm Flak Quad 38
  • 2 × 2 cm anti-aircraft twin M44
  • 6 × 1 2 cm Flak 38

Z 6 Theodor Riedel was a class 1934 A destroyer of the German Navy . The destroyer survived the Second World War and entered the French Navy as Kléber . Decommissioned in 1953, the former Theodor Riedel was canceled in 1957.

The destroyer was named after Korvettenkapitän Theodor Riedel, the chief of the 6th torpedo boat semi-flotilla, who died on May 31, 1916 in the Skagerrak battle on his guide boat V 48 .

Building history

The Theodor Riedel was a destroyer of the 1934 A type ordered in early 1935 and had a length of 119 m over all and 114 m in the waterline. She was up to 11.3 m wide and had a maximum draft of 4.23 m. The standard displacement was 2171 t and 3110 t with full equipment. The Wagner turbines produced a maximum output of 70,000 hp, which enabled the boat to reach a top speed of 36 knots. The steam generation for the turbines took place in six high-pressure boilers from the Wagner system, a further development of the Benson boiler . The Theodor Riedel could hold up to 752 t of fuel oil, which should give her a range of 4400 nautical miles at 19 knots (kn). However, the boats of the class proved to be top-heavy in service and 30% of the fuel had to remain unused to serve as the necessary ballast. This reduced the usable range to 1825 nm at 19 kn.

Rear gun assembly

The Theodor Riedel was armed with five 12.7 cm type C / 34 guns in stand-alone installation with protective shields, two of which were arranged one above the other at the front and rear. The fifth gun was on the aft deckhouse. The anti- aircraft armament consisted of four 3.7 cm Flak C / 30 in twin mounts next to the rear funnel and six 2 cm Flak C / 30 in single mounts. The torpedo armament consisted of eight 53.3 cm torpedo tubes in two sets of four. Four depth charges stood by the aft deckhouse. There were also six mounts for depth charges in the stern area. This enabled the Theodor Riedel to throw volleys of up to 16 depth charges. The stock of depth charges could be up to 64. In addition, the boat had rails on the rear deck for the transport of up to 60 mines.

The keel-laying of the boat ordered on January 9, 1935 with a total of twelve boats of the 1934 A class took place on July 18, 1935 at Deschimag in the AG Weser plant in Bremen with hull number 900 shortly after the sister boat Z 5 Paul Jacobi . The Bremen shipyard built four of the twelve boats in the class. Christening and launching took place on April 22, 1936 and on July 2, 1937, the Theodor Riedel was put into service as the second boat of the class.

Mission history

The Theodor Riedel was assigned to the 2nd Destroyer Division. On June 8, 1938, the boat ran aground on rocky ground near Helgoland and had to be towed to Wilhelmshaven. This accident turned out to be momentous for the boat, as she had frequent engine problems up to a long time in the shipyard in the second half of 1942. Only then was the machine foundations replaced.
As early as August 1938, the Theodor Riedel was on a trip to Norway by the 2nd Destroyer Division, then took part in the parade in honor of Hitler and Horthy on the occasion of the launch of the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen , was used in the autumn maneuvers and went with them the ironclad Admiral Graf Spee and the sister boats Paul Jacobi and Hermann Schoemann from October 6 to 23, 1938 on an Atlantic voyage. Here she suffered a machine failure and had to call Lough Swilly together with Hermann Schoemann for repairs. However, it was able to follow the association again and was then with the other German units in front of Tangier and Ceuta . From February to August 1939, the boat's first major layover time followed, so that it was ready for use again at the beginning of the war.

War effort

In the first three weeks of the Second World War, the Theodor Riedel was involved with the sister boats of the 2nd Destroyer Flotilla and the other destroyers and torpedo boats in the deployment of the so-called Westwall mine barriers in the North Sea.

On 22./23. In February 1940 she was used in the association of the FdZ (Commodore Bonte ) with five other destroyers at the Wikinger company against British fish steamers in the North Sea. A Heinkel He 111 of the II./ KG 26 erroneously attacked the marching destroyers and scored three bomb hits on the Leberecht Maass . During evasive maneuvers, the Leberecht Maaß and the Max Schultz then got into a British mine barrier and sank after being hit by mines. Only 60 men from Leberecht Maass could be saved, none of them survived the sinking of Max Schultz . A total of 578 crew members lost their lives.

The " operation weserübung " which formed Theodor Riedel with its sister boats Paul Jacobi , Bruno Heinemann and Friedrich Eckoldt (as a replacement for the failed at the last moment Hermann Schoeman ) and the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper , the warship group 2, Trondheim occupied. The port engine, which had been vulnerable since the accident off Heligoland, already failed on the march. Like all the boats in the group, the Theodor Riedel suffered considerable sea damage on the way to Trondheim. In addition, she damaged herself by hitting the ground. After she had deposited the embarked troops, the Theodor Riedel was set aground in the Strömmenbucht to serve as an artillery battery in an expected British attack. In fact, there was only an unsuccessful attack by British Fairey Swordfish - torpedo planes from which one of the torpedoes used by the British could be recovered for the first time. On April 20, the boat was lifted again and towed into the port of Trondheim. During the repairs on site, the Theodor Riedel was the first German destroyer to receive a radio measuring device . From June 6, 1940, the boat was ready to sail again and was relocated to Wilhelmshaven for final repairs, from where it was transferred to France on September 9 to the 6th destroyer flotilla.

On 28/29 September formed the Theodor Riedel with the Friedrich Eckoldt the cover group for a mining operation carried out by the FdZ ( Captain to the Sea  Bey ) with five other destroyers against Falmouth Bay . After minor damage from air raids and continued frequent machine problems, the Theodor Riedel relocated from Brest back home on November 5th to be repaired at the German works in Kiel . Due to further accidents during the run-in, the destroyer was only able to leave Kiel for northern Norway on August 9, 1941.

Three days later, the ship ran aground in the Skateströmmen and had to be towed to Bergen , where it had to be repaired by December 6, 1941. The boat was then sent back home for another layover period, which could not be completed until May 10, 1942. The flak armament had meanwhile been reinforced: instead of the six old 2 cm guns, the boat now carried a quadruple gun and seven single guns of the newer Type 38 .

On June 11, 1942, Theodor Riedel started moving again to Northern Norway. She was assigned to Combat Group I around the Tirpitz in Trondheim and was supposed to move with them to the Altafjord . On July 3, 1942, she ran aground with the heavy cruiser Lützow and the destroyers Karl Galster and Hans Lody in Grimsöystraumen , so that they were all canceled for use against the northern sea convoy PQ 17 . The Theodor Riedel and the Hans Lody were so badly damaged that after the emergency repairs in the Lofjord near Trondheim , both boats were towed back to Kiel at the end of August 1942 to be thoroughly repaired there.

Drawing of Z6 under construction and camouflage from 1943

In December 1942 the Theodor Riedel was relocated again to Northern Norway; she arrived in the Altafjord on December 17th . She took on 30./31. December 1942 took part in Operation Rainbow against the Allied convoy JW 51B . Even after that, Theodor Riedel remained in Northern Norway. With the mine ship Brummer and the destroyer Z 31 she carried out a mining operation against Kildin at the beginning of February 1943 and then ran out in vain with the Paul Jacobi and the Karl Galster at the end of March to pick up the blockade breaker Regensburg , where the boat suffered severe sea damage. It had to call at Trondheim again to carry out the necessary repairs and did not return to the Kåfjord until June 19, 1943 .

The boat took part from September 6 to 9, 1943 in the Sicily operation of the German combat group with the battleships Tirpitz and Scharnhorst and nine destroyers against the Allied facilities on Spitsbergen . In November 1943, Theodor Riedel was relocated to southern Norway. There she laid new mine barriers in the Skagerrak with three mine ships and the destroyers Z 31 and Hans Lody at the beginning of December.

Another layover period began in December 1943. During this the light anti-aircraft armament was changed again. From the summer of 1944, the Theodor Riedel carried a 2 cm quadruplet, two new 2 cm twin guns and six 2 cm single guns. After being in the shipyard, she was used in the Baltic Sea and between Germany, Denmark and Norway from the summer of 1944. On November 18, she rammed the outer pier in Frederikshavn . The damage was supposed to be repaired in Oslo, where she had to wait until the end of December for the dock to be cleared.

On January 7, 1945 the Theodor Riedel was operational again and was used for security tasks between Denmark and Norway.

On May 5th, the destroyer from the Skagerrak was deployed to Hela in order to transport as many soldiers and refugees as possible to the west. Theodor Riedel could no longer carry out a planned second voyage from Copenhagen . She went to Kiel on May 9, where the crew went into captivity on May 10.

Commanders

Surname Period
Corvette Captain Max Fechner July 6, 1937 to October 30, 1938
Corvette Captain Gerhardt Böhmig October 31, 1938 to November 25, 1940
unoccupied November 1940 to April 1941
Frigate Captain Walter Riede April 9, 1941 to September 19, 1943
Corvette Captain Lothar Freiherr von Hausen September 20, 1943 to January 3, 1944
Corvette Captain Rudolf Quantity January 4 to June 9, 1944
Corvette Captain Hans Blöse June 10, 1944 to May 21, 1945

Use after the war

In June 1945 the destroyer moved under British command to Wilhelmshaven, where almost all of the remaining destroyers were assembled. Overtaken by German personnel, he ran with the Paul Jacobi to Rosyth in January 1946 and from there to Cherbourg , where these two destroyers as well as the Z 25 and Z 31 were handed over to France on February 2.
On the 4th the Theodor Riedel was named Kléber after the French general Jean-Baptiste Kléber . In the years 1948 to 1951 the destroyer was overhauled in Cherbourg, received an American radar and six individual 40 mm Bofors anti-aircraft guns . The three higher 12.7 cm guns were removed. From December 1951, the Kléber was part of the French Mediterranean fleet. The former German boat remained in service with the French Navy until December 20, 1953. In 1957 the boat was painted and sold for scrapping.

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 .
  • Hans H. Hildebrand / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships: Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present. Koehler's publishing company, Herford,
  • 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 .
  • Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronicle of the naval war 1939-1945. Manfred Pawlak VerlagsGmbH (Herrsching 1968), ISBN 3-88199-009-7
  • Mike J. Whitley: Destroyers in World War II: Technique - Class - Types. Motorbuchverlag, Stuttgart 1991, ISBN 978-3-613-01426-8
  • Harald Fock: Z - before. Volume 2, Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft Hamburg, 2001.

Web links

Commons : Destroyer 1934  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Groener, p. 199
  2. ^ Whitley 1983, p. 26
  3. ^ Whitley 1983, p. 23
  4. ^ Whitley 1983, p. 299
  5. ↑ a b c Hildebrand: The German warships. Vol. 5, p. 144.
  6. ↑ Nauticus 1939, p. 13.
  7. ^ Rohwer: Seekrieg, p. 13.
  8. ↑ Rohwer, p. 32.
  9. ↑ Rohwer, p. 35.
  10. ↑ a b c d e f g Hildebrand, Vol. 5, p. 145.
  11. ^ Rohwer, p. 258.
  12. ↑ Rohwer, p. 315.
  13. ↑ Hildbrand, p. 76.
  14. ^ Rohwer, p. 326.
  15. ^ Rohwer, p. 381.
  16. ^ Rohwer, p. 406.
  17. ^ Rohwer, p. 551.
  18. ↑ 15 German destroyers left