Z 8 Bruno Heinemann

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Z 8 Bruno Heinemann
The sister boat Paul Jakobi
The sister boat Paul Jakobi
Ship data
flag German EmpireGerman Empire (Reichskriegsflagge) German Empire
Ship type destroyer
class Destroyer 1934 A
Shipyard AG Weser ( Deschimag ), Bremen
Build number 902
Launch September 15, 1936
Commissioning January 8, 1938
Whereabouts Sunk January 25, 1942
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

Z 8 Bruno Heinemann was a class 1934 A destroyer of the German Navy . The destroyer was lost in the Second World War on January 25, 1942 in the English Channel after two mine hits.

The destroyer was named after Corvette Captain Bruno Heinemann, first officer of the liner SMS König , who died on November 5, 1918 while defending the imperial war flag during the Kiel sailors' uprising .

Building history

The Bruno Heinemann was a destroyer of the 1934 A type ordered at the beginning of 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 of 3110 t with full equipment. The Wagner turbines had a maximum output of 70,000 hp, which gave the boat a maximum 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 . Like the other boats in the class, she could hold up to 752 tons of fuel, which should give her a range of 4400 nautical miles at 19  knots (kn). But the boats of the class turned out to be top-heavy in service and 30% of the fuel remained unused to serve as necessary ballast. This reduced the usable range to 1825 nm at 19 kn.

The Bruno Heinemann was not armed until May 1938 with five 12.7 cm C / 34 cannons in stand-alone configuration 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 allowed the Bruno Heinemann 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 1934 A class boats took place on January 14, 1936 at Deschimag at the AG Weser plant in Bremen with hull number 902 as the last of the class 1934 boats to be delivered by this shipyard A after Paul Jacobi , Theodor Riedel and Hermann Schoemann . The Bremen shipyard then built all six boats of the 1936 class and all eight boats of the 1936A class . The Bruno Heinemann was christened and launched on September 15, 1936, and on January 8, 1938, she was put into service as the fourth boat of the class, as the other two shipyards had not yet completed a boat of their newbuildings previously launched.

When it was commissioned, the Bruno Heinemann carried four 15 cm guns from old stocks in order to test the planned stronger armament of German destroyers. From May 1938, the boat was then equipped with its standard armament of five 12.7 cm guns C / 34.

Mission history

The Bruno Heinemann was assigned to the newly established 6th Destroyer Division in March 1938, with the tactical number 63 . In April 1938, still equipped with four old 15 cm Utof L / 45 C 16s from the First World War, she sailed to Norway with her sister boat Paul Jakobi to test the possibility of arming such heavy weapons on future destroyers off Ålesund . After the return, the original armament was reinstalled.

In August 1938, the Bruno Heinemann took part in the parade in honor of Hitler and Horthy on the occasion of the launch of the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen and was used in the autumn maneuvers that followed. She was assigned to the newly formed 4th Destroyer Flotilla in autumn 1938 and was now given the identification number 61 .

War effort

At the beginning of the war, the Bruno Heinemann was one of the units deployed in the Baltic Sea. From September 4, 1939, she was involved with the other destroyers and torpedo boats in the deployment of the so-called Westwall mine barriers in the North Sea. The chief of the 4th Destroyer Flotilla, Frigate Captain Bey on the Bruno Heinemann , tried several times in November together with the Erich Steinbrinck and Friedrich Eckoldt to wage a trade war in the Skagerrak and Kattegat , but could not find any ships of the war opponents. On December 12th to 13th, 1939, Bruno Heinemann was involved in an offensive mining company of the FdZ (Commodore Bonte ) with Hermann Künne , Friedrich Ihn , Erich Steinbrinck and Richard Beitzen against the mouth of the Tynes . A fire broke out in the starboard engine room of the Bruno Heinemann , which forced the boat to remain in sight of the English coast for 1½ hours before it could start the return march with only one engine. The boat was only secured by the Erich Steinbrinck . On the march back, the not fully operational destroyer was attacked several times by British aircraft. He was then ordered to secure the torpedoed light cruiser Leipzig and supported by Richard Beitzen , who arrived later . After this mission, the Bruno Heinemann went to the shipyard.

Already on 10/11. On January 1st , 1940, the Bruno Heinemann was able to successfully carry out another mining operation off Cromer with the Wolfgang Zenker and the Erich Koellner as the guide boat of the flotilla boss Erich Bey , which was followed by another at the Haisborough Sands on 9/10. February with the same boats followed.

At the Weser Exercise Company , the Bruno Heinemann and the sister boats Paul Jacobi , Theodor Riedel and Friedrich Eckoldt (replacing the Hermann Schoemann, who had failed at the last moment ) and the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper, formed Warship Group 2, which occupied Trondheim . Like all the boats in the group, she suffered considerable sea damage on the way to Trondheim. After they had deposited the embarked troops, the insufficient fuel supply caused by the loss of the large ships of the tanker squadron (especially the Stedingen ), the difficult sea conditions and the poor condition of the boats did not allow the planned withdrawal of the four boats, so on April 14th only the Bruno Heinemann and the Friedrich Eckoldt left the Norwegian port and returned to Wilhelmshaven on the 16th.

In the course of the reorganization of the destroyer associations after the heavy losses in Norway, the Bruno Heinemann was assigned to the 6th destroyer flotilla. From April 29 to May 1, the boat with the Richard Beitzen and three torpedo boats were involved in the laying of a new large mine barrier in the Skagerrak by the mine ships Roland , Kaiser , Prussia and Cobra , in which the torpedo boat Leopard collided with the Prussia got lost. Further mining operations followed, until the Bruno Heinemann visited the technical operations of the NDL at the end of May during a layover in the shipyard .

The boat was repaired by mid-October; it received a tripod mast, a radio measuring device and nine more modern 20 mm anti-aircraft guns. After the first test voyages in the Baltic Sea, further work on the boat was carried out from November 1940 to March 1941 at Deschimag's Weser plant in Bremen.

From April 4 to 6, 1941, the destroyer moved together with the Friedrich Ihn and the Erich Steinbrinck (both shipyard stays since November) from Wilhelmshaven to Brest and on the 19th to La Pallice . The destroyers were supposed to secure the last leg of German ships calling into occupied France. So the returning auxiliary cruiser Thor , then the supply ship Nordmark and finally the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen going to Brest were secured. In June 1941, the Bruno Heinemann moved to Bordeaux, and later to Bremen for a further layover at Deschimag. From December 1941 it was brought back into the Baltic Sea.

On January 14, 1942, the Bruno Heinemann was one of the security destroyers when the battleship Tirpitz was moved to Trondheim . She immediately ran back to Kiel and through the Kiel Canal towards France to take part in the relocation of the heavy units from Brest to Norway. In the English Channel , she received two bottom mine hits at Dover and Calais, which she broke. Paul Jacobi and Richard Beitzen , who also ran west, were able to save 34 and 188 shipwrecked people, respectively, despite air raids. Nevertheless, 93 people died in the sinking of the Bruno Heinemann .

Commanders

Surname Period
Frigate Captain Fritz Berger January 8, 1938 to December 3, 1939
Corvette Captain Georg Langheld December 4, 1939 to May 14, 1940
Corvette Captain Hermann Alberts April 1940 (previous year) to January 25, 1942

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 d Hildebrand: Die Deutsche Kriegsschiffe , vol. 1, p. 177
  6. ^ Rohwer: Seekrieg, p. 12
  7. ↑ Rohwer, p. 13
  8. ^ Rohwer, p. 26
  9. ↑ From the security group for the destroyers, the British submarine HMS Salmon torpedoed not only the Leipzig , but also the Nürnberg , both of which could be brought in.
  10. ↑ Rohwer, p. 30
  11. ↑ Rohwer, p. 31
  12. ↑ Rohwer, p. 35
  13. ↑ a b c d e f g h Hildebrand, Vol. I, p. 178

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 , Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, 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 .

Web links

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