Z 7 Hermann Schoemann was a class 1934 A destroyer of the German Navy in World War II , which was named after the naval officer Hermann Schoemann , who lost his life on May 1, 1915 as head of the Flanders torpedo boat flotilla when the A 2 was sunk .
history
The order to build the destroyer was given to Deschimag- Werft AG Weser on January 9, 1935. The commissioning took place in September 1937 by Corvette Captain Schulte Mönting . The boat had its first war mission in September 1939 when laying out the "Westwall" mine barriers in the North Sea in the association of the 2nd Destroyer Flotilla . This was followed by further deployments in the trade war, in the North Sea for outpost and security service and offensive mining companies. The Hermann Schoeman was in June 1940 at the company Juno involved to the German troops in Narvik relieve. This was followed by a training period in the Baltic Sea and the repair of a damaged turbine, after which the Z 7 was ordered back to Norway in June 1941. Mainly escort, security and reconnaissance tasks were carried out there.
In February 1942 Hermann Schoemann was involved in the Cerberus company. Then she moved back to Norway. In March 1942 she carried out an advance into the North Sea together with the battleship Tirpitz and the destroyers Friedrich Ihn , Paul Jacobi and Z 25 . 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) . On May 2, Z 7 met the ailing British cruiser HMS Edinburgh after repeated attempts to attack the Northern Sea Convoy QP 11 . Due to icing, only a single torpedo of a torpedo fan came loose, whereupon the Edinburgh in turn opened fire and destroyed the main steam pipe of Hermann Schoemann . The crew had the now motionless destroyers left and put him at 8:30 am with two depth charges itself. The parts of the team, which had previously not heard of Z 24 were taken were later U 88 on boats rescued drifting and rafting. A total of eight men were killed. After further damage by a torpedo hit by Z 24, the crew of the Edinburgh sank the ship by opening the flood valves.
↑ a b c d e Hildebrand, Hans H.; Röhr, Albert; Steinmetz, Hans-Otto: Biographies: a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present. Volume 4: Historical overview. Ship biographies from Greif to Kaiser. Essen: Mundus, [1997] (The German Warships). Licensed edition by Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg, undated, pp. 118–122