Admiral Graf Spee returned to the Atlantic between 17 and 26 November to refuel from Altmark. Lützow in Kiel after being torpedoed on her way back from Norway. Admiral Scheer was the second of the three Deutschland class heavy cruisers ordered and funded by the Reichsmarine of the Weimar Republic in 1926. Deutschland was ordered by the Reichsmarine from the Deutsche Werke shipyard in Kiel as Ersatz Preussen, as a replacement for the old battleship Preussen. The ship participated in a major fleet exercise into the Atlantic with her sister Admiral Graf Spee, the light cruisers Köln, Leipzig, and Nürnberg, and several destroyers, U-boats, and support vessels. The torpedo boats Seeadler and Albatross escorted Deutschland to the island of Ibiza on 24 May. Admiral Graf Spee inflicted heavy damage on the British ships, but she too was damaged, and was forced to put into port at Montevideo, Uruguay. Two days later, she encountered and sank the merchant ship Ashlea. Believing the British reports, Langsdorff discussed his options with commanders in Berlin. Admiral Graf Spee had fired much of her ammunition in the engagement with Harwood's cruisers. [17] The British crew later reached the Brazilian coast in their lifeboats. Their top speed of 28 knots (52 km/h; 32 mph) left only the few battlecruisers in the Anglo-French navies fast enough and powerful enough to sink them.[1]. The ship conducted five non-intervention patrols during the Spanish Civil War in 1936–1938, and participated in the Coronation Review of King George VI in May 1937. The ship carried a secondary battery of eight 15 cm (5.9 in) SK C/28 guns in single turrets grouped amidships. Following fleet maneuvers and a brief visit to Sweden, the ship conducted a fifth and final patrol in February 1938. The torpedo destroyed Lützow's stern, causing it to collapse and nearly fall off, and blew off her steering gear. The vessel was named after Admiral Maximilian von Spee, commander of the East Asia Squadron who fought the battles of Coronel and the Falkland Islands, where he was killed in action, in World War I. The ship accidentally started sliding down the slipw… [1] The ship was launched on 19 May 1931; at her launching, she was christened by German Chancellor Heinrich Brüning. By 10 May 1942, the ship was finally pronounced ready for action. [17] In 1940, the ship underwent a major overhaul, during which a raked clipper bow was installed to improve the sea-keeping qualities of the ship. This ship served with the Kriegsmarine of Nazi Germany during World War II. She began a brief set of trials starting on 30 October. By the afternoon of 9 April, most of the Norwegian fortresses had been captured and the commander of the remaining Norwegian forces opened negotiations for surrender. [13] By this time, Deutschland had moved south to hunt in the Bermuda-Azores sea lane. The ship was seized by Norway when she anchored in Haugesund, however, and control of the ship was returned to the original crew. [32] Lützow inadvertently came alongside Sheffield and Jamaica, and after identifying them as hostile, engaged them, though her fire remained inaccurate. This battleship / Admiral Graf Spee was a Deutschland-class "Panzerschiff", nicknamed a "pocket battleship" by the British. [8], Deutschland on non-intervention patrol in 1938, In May 1937, the ship was docked in the port of Palma on the island of Majorca, along with several other neutral warships, including vessels from the British and Italian navies. [2] The ship also carried a pair of quadruple 53.3 cm (21 in) deck-mounted torpedo tubes placed on her stern. [29] The ship's disguise was removed, so it would not hinder the ship in battle. This battleship / Admiral Graf Spee was a Deutschland-class “Panzerschiff”, nicknamed a “pocket battleship” by the British. [23], The damage Lützow sustained prompted the Kriegsmarine to order her to return to Germany for repairs. The prisoners aboard Huntsman were transferred to Altmark and Langsdorff then sank Huntsman on the night of 17 October. Thats often cited as the reason and may or may no be true but theres also another, more practical reason for the name change. Her anti-aircraft battery originally consisted of three 8.8 cm (3.5 in) L/45 guns, though in 1935 these were replaced with six 8.8 cm L/78 guns. [24] On 15 November, the ship sank the tanker MV Africa Shell, and the following day, she stopped an unidentified Dutch steamer, though did not sink her. [22], On 22 October, Admiral Graf Spee encountered and sank the steamer Trevanion. [27], She was recommissioned for service on 31 March 1941, after which the Kriegsmarine initially planned to send the ship on the commerce raiding operation planned the previous year. [29], On 30 December, Lützow, the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper, and six destroyers left Narvik for Operation Regenbogen, an attack on convoy JW 51B, which was reported by German intelligence to be lightly escorted. [1] Her keel was laid on 5 February 1929,[2] under construction number 219. Bidlingmaier, Gerhard (1971). The ships weighed in at 13,200 tons standard, and 14,218 tons under full load. The Deutschland class armored ship were popularly called "pocket battleships". Sunk in the Kaiserfahrt in April 1945 by Royal Air Force (RAF) bombers, Lützow was used as a gun battery to support German troops fighting the Soviet Army until 4 May 1945, when she was disabled by her crew. This handsome volume provides a complete pictorial history and timeline of the first member of the class, Deutschland. [19], On the same day as the formation of the Anglo-French hunter groups, Admiral Graf Spee captured the steamer Newton Beech. The ship's top speed was 28 knots (52 km/h; 32 mph), at 54,000 shaft horsepower (40,000 kW). The ship's remaining ammunition supply was dispersed throughout the ship, in preparation for scuttling. In 1937, while anchored off the Balearic island of Ibiza, the Deutschland was bombed by a Loyalist Spanish plane. [7] Deutschland participated in fleet maneuvers in German waters in early 1936. Additionally, the Chesneau book has scrap view drawings and side view profiles of … [3] Admiral Graf Spee was powered by four sets of MAN 9-cylinder double-acting two-stroke diesel engines. "KM Admiral Graf Spee". She then turned north to the Halifax route, where on 9 October, she encountered the American ship City of Flint. ", Shipwrecks and maritime incidents in December 1939, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=German_cruiser_Admiral_Graf_Spee&oldid=1006060275, Military units and formations of Nazi Germany in the Spanish Civil War, World War II shipwrecks in the Atlantic Ocean, World War II shipwrecks in the South Atlantic, Short description is different from Wikidata, Wikipedia articles with WorldCat-VIAF identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 10 February 2021, at 20:43. Burnett quickly decided to withdraw in the face of superior German firepower; his ships were armed with 6 in (150 mm) guns, while Admiral Hipper and Lützow carried 20.3 cm (8.0 in) and 28 cm (11 in) guns, respectively. The propulsion system proved to be so problematic that repairs in Germany were necessary. This ship became a legend with its own demise. [37] In the aftermath of the scuttling, the ship's crew were taken to Argentina, where they were interned for the remainder of the war. During the deployment, her gun turrets were painted with large black, white, and red bands to aid in identification from the air and indicate her neutral status. Meanwhile, on 14 October, Deutschland encountered and sank the Norwegian transport Lorentz W Hansen,[10] of some 1,918 GRT. The force left Germany on 8 April and passed through the Kattegat. On 10 October, she captured the steamer Huntsman, the captain of which had not sent a distress signal until the last minute, as he had mistakenly identified Admiral Graf Spee as a French warship. On the German side was the pocket battleship Graf Spee, while on the British side were HMS Ajax, HMS Exeter, HMNZS Achilles. British torpedo bombers attacked the ship off Egersund and scored a single hit that disabled her electrical system and rendered the ship motionless. She was made the flagship of the now Vizeadmiral Kummetz, the commander of Kampfgruppe 2. [39] The historian Hans Georg Prager examined the former Soviet archives in the early 2000s, and discovered that Lützow actually had been sunk in weapons tests in July 1947.[40]. She then participated in Operation Weserübung, the invasion of Norway. Kongsdal would eventually report to the British Royal Navy the incident and confirm Deutschland as the raider operating in the North Atlantic. [5], Deutschland was 186 meters (610 ft) long overall and had a beam of 20.69 m (67.9 ft) and a maximum draft of 7.25 m (23.8 ft). Kummetz then turned back north to draw the destroyers away. [25] Despite the setback, KzS August Thiele, Lützow's commander, was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross for his actions during the Battle of Drøbak Sound, during which he took command of the task force after the loss of Blücher. The Americans met the German crewmen, who were still in Montevideo. [2] The ship was launched on 30 June 1934; at her launching, she was christened by the daughter of Admiral Maximilian von Spee, the ship's namesake. Actually, they are equivalent to armoured cruisers of an exceptionally powerful type." Book Summary: The exciting account of the famous German battle cruiser which sank 152,000 tons of Allied shipping. The ship accidentally started sliding down the slipway while Brüning was giving his christening speech. The main battery turrets had 140 mm (5.5 in) thick faces and 80 mm thick sides. [30], At 05:30 on the morning of 13 December 1939, lookouts spotted a pair of masts off the ship's starboard bow. Langsdorff decided not to flee from the British ships, and ordered his ship to battle stations and to close at maximum speed. [6], Admiral Graf Spee was ordered by the Reichsmarine from the Reichsmarinewerft shipyard in Wilhelmshaven. [10] In the summer of 1936, following the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, she deployed to the Atlantic to participate in non-intervention patrols off the Republican-held coast of Spain. [34], After arriving in port, the wounded crewmen were taken to local hospitals and the dead were buried with full military honors. The quarry was the Allied convoy JW51B on its way to deliver supplies to the USSR and protected by now fewer than six British destroyers. [11] On the return voyage from Spain, Admiral Graf Spee stopped in Great Britain to represent Germany in the Coronation Review at Spithead for King George VI on 20 May. The heavy damage forced Lützow and the rest of the squadron to reverse course and exit the fjord. [41] On 10 February 2006, the 2 m (6 ft 7 in), 400 kilograms (880 lb) eagle and swastika crest of Admiral Graf Spee was recovered from the stern of the ship;[42] it was stored in a Uruguayan naval warehouse following German complaints about exhibiting "Nazi paraphernalia". [9], Deutschland quickly weighed anchor and left port. [14] The same day, she stopped the neutral Danish steamer Kongsdal, though when it became apparent that she was headed for a neutral port, the prisoners from Lorentz W Hansen were placed aboard her and she was allowed to proceed. Repairs were completed by March 1941, Lützow returned to Norway to join the forces arrayed against Allied shipping to the Soviet Union. [28] Based on that information, Langsdorff decided to head for the seas off Montevideo. Four days later Admiral Graf Spee's Arado located Booth Steam Ship Co's cargo ship Clement off the coast of Brazil. Admiral Graf Spee encountered her last victim on the evening of 7 December: the freighter Streonshalh. [32], On 13 April 1945, twenty-four Avro Lancaster bombers attacked Lützow and Prinz Eugen without success due to cloud cover. Kampfgruppe 2 was assigned to Operation Rösselsprung, a planned attack on the Allied convoy PQ 17, which was headed to the Soviet Union. Long range was critical, as Germany had no overseas bases. Raised by the Soviet Navy in 1947, she was subsequently sunk as a target in the Baltic. [38] A crowd of 20,000 watched as the scuttling charges were set; the crew was taken off by an Argentine tug and the ship was scuttled at 20:55. She returned to Norway in early November with a destroyer escort, arriving in Narvik on the 12th. [11] In 1938, KzS Hans Langsdorff took command of the vessel;[8] she conducted a series of goodwill visits to various foreign ports throughout the year. [35], Lützow, sunk in the Kaiserfahrt, on 26 April, Hitler was furious over the failure to destroy the convoy, and ordered that all remaining German major warships be broken up for scrap. [lower-alpha 1] In 1940, she was renamed Lützow, after the Admiral Hipper class heavy cruiser Lützow was handed over to the Soviet Union. [11] Deutschland was ordered to strictly observe prize rules, which required raiders to stop and search ships for contraband before sinking them, and to ensure that their crews are safely evacuated. The work was completed in Kiel by January 1944, after which she remained in the Baltic Sea to conduct training cruises for new naval personnel. Gardiner, Robert; Chesneau, Roger, eds (1980). [33] Most of the hits scored by the British cruisers caused only minor structural and superficial damage but the oil purification plant, which was required to prepare the diesel fuel for the engines, was destroyed. [11], On 5 October, she found and sank the British transport ship Stonegate, though not before the freighter was able to send a distress signal informing vessels in the area of Deutschland's presence. Hildebrand, Hans H.; Röhr, Albert; Steinmetz, Hans-Otto (1993). At 09:15 on the 31st, the British destroyer Obdurate spotted the three destroyers screening for Admiral Hipper; the Germans opened fire first. The Deutschland-class battleships were similar in design to the earlier Braunschweig-class battleships, and had general dimensions of 127.6 meters long, 22.2 meters beam, and 8.21 meters draught. [9], Deutschland spent the majority of 1938 and 1939 conducting training maneuvers with the rest of the fleet and making goodwill visits to various foreign ports. Even before the outbreak of WW2, 21 U-boats and the pocket-battleships Admiral Graf Spee and Deutschland had sailed into the Atlantic Ocean to wait for a conflict with Great Britain and France in this large sea area. At a cruising speed of 20 kn (37 km/h; 23 mph), the ship could steam for 10,000 nautical miles (19,000 km; 12,000 mi). The Allied press coined the moniker "pocket battleship," which stuck. The British aircraft carriers HMS Hermes, Eagle, and Ark Royal, the French aircraft carrier Béarn, the British battlecruiser Renown, and French battleships Dunkerque and Strasbourg, and 16 cruisers were committed to the hunt. Ten days later, however, Hitler ordered the men be exhumed and returned for burial in Germany. [22][23] Lützow was hit three times by 15 cm shells from Oscarsborg's Kopås battery, causing significant damage.[24]. She rendezvoused with Admiral Scheer to take on additional doctors before proceeding to Gibraltar where the dead were buried with full military honors. The pocket battleships played an important role in the Second World War at sea – perhaps a disproportionately large role relative to their power and the cost of building and maintaining them. The RAF made another failed attack two days later, but on 16 April, a force of eighteen Lancasters scored a single hit and several near misses on Lützow with Tallboy bombs in the Kaiserfahrt. Save money and get a big ship POCKET battleship James Taylor has smashed Kevin Pietersen's claims that he is too small for international cricket over the fence ahead of his return to the big stage. [14] On 26 September, the ship finally received orders authorizing attacks on Allied merchant shipping. The ship's wounded men were also evacuated in Gibraltar for treatment. The Deutschland class was a group of five pre-dreadnought battleships built for the German Kaiserliche Marine. Her crew rigged scuttling charges to destroy the hull, but a fire caused the explosives to detonate prematurely. Deutschland was ordered by the Reichsmarine from the Deutsche Werke shipyard in Kiel as Ersatz Preussen, as a replacement for the old battleship Preussen. The Deutschland was the first ship of a new type known as Panzerschiff (armoured ship), referred to as "pocket battleship" by the British. Force G was reinforced by the light cruisers Ajax and Achilles; Harwood detached Cumberland to patrol the area off the Falkland Islands while his other three cruisers patrolled off the River Plate. The supply ship Westerwald was assigned to support Deutschland during the operation. The ship was equipped with two Arado Ar 196 seaplanes and one catapult. She next saw action at the Battle of the Barents Sea with the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper, which ended with a failure to destroy the convoy JW 51B. The German force was strong with the heavy cruiser KMS Admiral Hipper and pocket battleship Lutzow. [21] The delay had, however, allowed enough time for the Norwegian government and royal family to flee Oslo. [9] Two bombs struck the ship; the first penetrated the upper deck near the bridge and exploded above the main armored deck while the second hit near the third starboard 15 cm gun, causing serious fires below decks. See more. The next day, she met with Altmark and transferred 140 prisoners from Doric Star and Tairoa. [31], Lützow meanwhile steamed toward the convoy from the south, and at 11:42 she opened fire. [43], Coordinates: .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}34°58′S 56°17′W / 34.967°S 56.283°W / -34.967; -56.283, German Deutschland-class cruiser of World War II, FMG stands for Funkmess Gerät (radar equipment). [36][37] On 17 December 1939, Langsdorff ordered the destruction of all important equipment aboard the ship. The Admiral Graf Spee was instructed to strictly adhere to prize rules, which required raiders to stop and search ships for contraband before sinking them, and to ensure that their crews are safely evacuated. The ship was equipped with two Arado Ar 196 seaplanes and one catapult. Regardless, the British submarine HMS Spearfish attacked the ship and scored a serious hit. [5][38] Historians Hildebrand, Röhr and Steinmetz, in their book Die Deutschen Kriegsschiffe, state that she instead sank off Kolberg, claiming that the Lützow broken up in the late 1940s was instead the Admiral Hipper-class cruiser Lützow that had been sold to the Soviet Union in 1940. At the outbreak of World War II, she was cruising the North Atlantic, prepared to attack Allied merchant traffic. The German Navy worked around the Treaty of Versailles limitations to create this special group of steel warships. [8] After joining the fleet, Admiral Graf Spee became the flagship of the German Navy. She was laid down at the Reichsmarinewerft shipyard in Wilhelmshavenin October 1932 an… Between September and December 1939, the warship sank nine vessels totaling 50,089 gross register tons (GRT), before being confronted by three British cruisers at the Battle of the River Plate on 13 December. She was part of the celebrations for the reintegration of the port of Memel into Germany,[11] and a fleet review in honor of Admiral Miklós Horthy, the Regent of Hungary. While en route, she was torpedoed and seriously damaged by a British submarine. This handsome volume provides a complete pictorial history and timeline of the first member of the class, Deutschland. The cruisers engaged Admiral Hipper, which had been firing to port at the destroyer Obedient. Find out why the Deutschland Class Pocket Battleship makes our top ten list! [17] Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, the commander in chief of the Kriegsmarine, made the decision to rename the ship, for several reasons. At a cruising speed of 18.69 knots (34.61 km/h; 21.51 mph), the ship had a range of 16,300 nautical miles (30,200 km; 18,800 mi). The Admiral Hipper-class cruiser Lützow was designated for sale to the Soviet Navy, and it was hoped that the usage of her name for Deutschland would hide the transaction. Pocket-battleship ‘Admiral Graf Spee’ pre-war in port. [12] On 21 August 1939, Admiral Graf Spee departed Wilhelmshaven, bound for the South Atlantic. Admiral Scheer [ˌatmiˈʁaːl ʃeːɐ̯] was a Deutschland-class heavy cruiser (often termed a pocket battleship) which served with the Kriegsmarine of Nazi Germany during World War II.The vessel was named after Admiral Reinhard Scheer, German commander in the Battle of Jutland.She was laid down at the Reichsmarinewerft shipyard in Wilhelmshaven in June 1931 and completed by … [20] Lützow embarked over 400 of the soldiers for the voyage to Norway. Soon after the outbreak of the conflict in 1939, the Lutzow and Graf Spee were dispatched to the Atlantic to begin hunting the merchant vessels carrying vital supplies to sustain Britain during the war, and after surviving a British air attack that cost the RAF four bombers and did minimal dam… The ship was launched on 19 May 1931; at her launching, she was christened by German Chancellor Heinrich Brüning. A second shell struck the ship's deck and penetrated the upper and main armored decks; starting a fire in the cruiser's hospital and operating theater, killing two soldiers and severely wounding six others. In 1938, the 8.8 cm guns were removed, and six 10.5 cm (4.1 in) L/65 guns, four 3.7 cm (1.5 in) SK C/30 guns, and ten 2 cm (0.79 in) C/30 guns were installed in their place. Deutschland's armored belt was 60 to 80 mm (2.4 to 3.1 in) thick; her upper deck was 17 mm (0.67 in) thick while the main armored deck was 17 to 45 mm (0.67 to 1.77 in) thick. 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