German ship Doggerbank
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{{Infobox ship image |Ship image= Speybank Doggerbank.jpg |Ship caption= }} {{Infobox ship career |Hide header = |Ship country = United Kingdom |Ship flag = {{shipboxflag|UK|civil}} |Ship name = Speybank |Ship namesake = |Ship owner = Andrew Weir & Co |Ship operator = 15px Bank Line |Ship registry = Glasgow |Ship identification= *UK official number 148902
|Ship route = |Ship ordered = |Ship awarded = |Ship builder = Harland & Wolff, Govan |Ship original cost = |Ship yard number = 686 |Ship way number = |Ship laid down = |Ship launched = 25 February 1926 |Ship sponsor = |Ship christened = |Ship completed = 20 April 1926 |Ship maiden voyage = |Ship renamed = Doggerbank, 1941 |Ship struck = |Ship nickname = |Ship honors = |Ship fate = Captured, 31 January 1941 |Ship notes = |Ship badge = }} {{Infobox ship career |Hide header = title |Ship country = Germany |Ship flag = {{shipboxflag|Nazi Germany|naval}} |Ship name = Doggerbank |Ship namesake = Dogger Bank |Ship ordered = |Ship builder = |Ship laid down = |Ship acquired = |Ship commissioned = |Ship in service = 1941 |Ship out of service = |Ship struck = |Ship renamed = |Ship homeport = |Ship motto = |Ship nickname = |Ship honours = |Ship fate = Sunk by torpedoes, 3 March 1943 |Ship notes = }} {{Infobox ship characteristics |Hide header = |Ship class = Inverbank-class cargo ship |Ship tonnage = {{GRT|5154}}, {{NRT|3154}} |Ship length = {{cvt|420.3|ft|abbr=on}} |Ship beam = {{cvt|53.9|ft|abbr=on}} |Ship draught = {{cvt|29|ft|2|in|abbr=on|1}} |Ship depth = {{cvt|26.5|ft|abbr=on}} |Ship power = 717 NHP |Ship propulsion = *2 × 4-stroke diesel engines
|Ship speed = {{convert|12|kn|km/h}} |Ship range = |Ship complement = 108 (1943) |Ship sensors = |Ship EW = |Ship armament = |Ship notes = }} |
The German ship Doggerbank (Schiff 53) was a British cargo ship that was built in Scotland in 1926, captured by the Kriegsmarine (German Navy) in 1941, renamed Doggerbank and converted into an auxiliary minelayer and blockade runner. The German {{GS|U-43|1939|2}} sank her by mistake in 1943, leading to the deaths of all but one of her 257 passengers and 108 crew.{{cite web |url= http://uboat.net/allies/merchants/ships/2707.html |last=Helgason |first=Guðmundur |title= Doggerbank |work= uboat.net |access-date= 16 May 2010}}
Doggerbank was built in Scotland in 1926 as Speybank, one of 18 Inverbank-class motor ships for Andrew Weir & Co's Bank Line.{{cite web |url= https://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck-search.aspx?encdaBxb4LVLbbPmLDRT9reRw== |title=Inverbank class cargo (br.) |work=Wrecksite |access-date=29 April 2022}} She was the first of three Bank Line ships that were called Speybank. The second was built in England in 1962 and sold in 1978.{{cite web |url= http://www.tynebuiltships.co.uk/S-Ships/speybank1962.html |title=Speybank |work=Tyne Built Ships |publisher=Shipping and Shipbuilding Research Trust |access-date=29 April 2022}} The third was built in 1983 as Okha, bought in 1995 and renamed Speybank, and was still in service in 2009.{{cite web |url= https://www.theshipslist.com/ships/lines/bank.shtml |last1=Swiggum |first1=Susan |last2=Kohli |first2=Marjorie |title=Andrew Weir & Co. / Bank Line |work=TheShipsList |access-date=29 April 2022}}
Building
Harland & Wolff built Speybank at Govan, Glasgow, launching her on 25 February 1926 and completing her on 20 April that year. Her registered length was {{cvt|420.3|ft|abbr=on}},her beam was {{cvt|53.9|ft|abbr=on}} and her depth was {{cvt|26.5|ft|abbr=on}}. Her tonnages were {{GRT|5154}} and {{NRT|3154}}. She had twin screws, each driven by a six-cylinder single-acting diesel engine. Between them the twin engines developed 717 NHP{{cite book |year=1930 |title=Lloyd's Register of Shipping |volume=II |place=London |publisher=Lloyd's Register of Shipping |url= https://plimsoll.southampton.gov.uk/shipdata/pdfs/30/30b1117.pdf |via=Southampton City Council |access-date=29 April 2022}} and gave her a speed of {{convert|12|kn|km/h}}.{{cite web |url= https://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?30842 |title= MV Doggerbank (ex-Speybank) (+1943) |work=Wrecksite.eu |access-date=29 April 2022}}
Andrew Weir & Co registered Speybank in Glasgow. Her United Kingdom official number was 148902 and her code letters were KTWS. By 1930 she was equipped for wireless telegraphy and in 1934 she was given the new call sign GLQF, which also superseded her code letters.{{cite book |year=1934 |title=Lloyd's Register of Shipping |volume=II |place=London |publisher=Lloyd's Register of Shipping |url= https://plimsoll.southampton.gov.uk/shipdata/pdfs/34/34b0790.pdf |via=Southampton City Council |access-date=29 April 2022}}
Capture
On 31 January 1941 the German commerce raider {{ship|German auxiliary cruiser|Atlantis||2}} captured Speybank in the Indian Ocean and put aboard a prize crew commanded by {{lang|de|Kapitänleutnant}} Paul Schneidewind. He took her to German-occupied France, reaching Bordeaux on 10 May 1941. The {{lang|de|Kriegsmarine}} renamed her Doggerbank – Schiff 53 (Ship 53) and converted to an auxiliary minelayer. She was disguised with false name Levernbank, which was another member of Bank Line's Inverbank class. She remained under Schneidewind's command. Doggerbank left France in January 1942 to lay mines off the coast of South Africa and then to proceed to Japan. She laid the mines in March and April 1942 and reached Japan later that year. On 13 March the Royal Navy cruiser {{HMS|Durban|I99|6}} stopped Doggerbank. Doggerbank identified herself as the Bank Line ship Levernbank, which satisfied Durban, who let her continue. The next day the armed merchant cruiser {{HMS|Cheshire}} challenged Doggerbank which again identified herself as a British freighter and Cheshire let her proceed.{{harvnb|Gibson|1965|p=}}{{page needed|date=April 2022}}
Final voyage
In Japan, Doggerbank took aboard many of the survivors of the auxiliary cruiser {{ship|German auxiliary cruiser|Thor||2}} and the German tanker Uckermark, the former Altmark, which had been destroyed in an accident in Yokohama on 30 November 1942. When she left the Far East, Doggerbank carried 365 men, her crew of 108, plus 257 men from the other two ships. She also carried a cargo of {{cvt|7000|LT}} of raw materials and rubber, fats and fish oil. Doggerbank travelled via Kobe, Saigon, Singapore and Jakarta, which she left on 10 January 1943, heading back to France. In mid-Atlantic on 3 March 1943, she was travelling ahead of schedule and the moving safety grid that protected it from inadvertent attack, when the U-boat {{GS|U-43|1939|2}} mistook her for a British ship "of the {{MV|Dunedin Star||2}} type". U-43 fired a spread of three torpedoes, all three of which hit her. She sank within two minutes, with perhaps 200 men killed instantly.{{sfn|Stilgoe|2003|p=257}}
Aftermath
U-43 saw Doggerbank launch five lifeboats, and tried to find the survivors, but failed to get close enough in the darkness. Doggerbank had been unable to transmit a distress signal {{lang|de|Oberkommando der Marine}} (Naval High Command) took days to realise she had been lost. The eventual survivor of the crew of 108 and the 257 others on board, Fritz Kürt, got aboard Doggerbank's jolly boat, together with fourteen survivors, including the captain, Schneidewind and Leo. the ship's dog. The crew put up a sail and headed for the South American coast, to exploit the trade winds, that was about three weeks' sailing away. Eleven days later, the boat capsized in a storm and eight men and Leo drowned. Four men asked Schneidewind to shoot them, which he did then shot himself. The boat was reduced to two occupants, Kürt and an old sailor by the name of Boywitt. Desperate for water and food, Boywitt drank sea water on the 19th day of their journey and died, while Kürt was too weak to even roll his body overboard.{{sfnm|1a1=Stilgoe|1y=2003|1p=258|2a1=Blair|2y=1997|2p=199}} Kürt was rescued on 29 March by the Spanish motor tanker Campoamor, which took him to the Dutch island of Aruba off the coast of Venezuela. U-43 was sunk on 30 July 1943 without survivors.{{cite web |url=http://www.uboat.net/boats/u43.htm |last=Helgason |first=Guðmundur |title=U-43 |work=uboat.net |access-date=16 May 2010}} Kürt was exchanged in a prisoner-of-war swap in 1944, reported to the German Navy and then hid in Hamburg until the end of the war, as he was about to be arrested.{{sfn|Stilgoe|2003|p=259}}
References
{{Reflist}}
Bibliography
- {{cite book |last=Blair |first=Clay |author-link=Clay Blair |title=Hitler's U-Boat War: The Hunters 1939–1942 |year=1997 |orig-year=1996 |publisher=Weidenfeld & Nicolson |location=London |isbn=0-297-84076-2}}
- {{cite book |last=Gibson |first=Charles |year=1965 |title=The Ship with Five Names |location=London |publisher=Abelard Schuman |oclc=1368775}}
- {{cite book |first=John R |last=Stilgoe |author-link=John R. Stilgoe |year=2003 |title=Lifeboat |location=Charlottesville |publisher=University of Virginia Press |isbn=0-8139-2221-6}}
Further reading
- {{cite book |last=Brice |first=Martin |title=Axis Blockade Runners of World War II |year=1981 |publisher=B. T. Batsford |location=London |isbn=0-7134-2686-1}}
- {{cite book |last=Gibson |first=Charles |year=1987 |title=Death of a Phantom Raider: The Gamble that Triumphed and Failed, Atlantic, 1942–43 |location=London |publisher=Robert Hale |isbn=978-0-70-902947-2}}
- {{cite book |first=Hans |last=Herlin |author-link=Hans Herlin |year=1994 |title=The Survivor: The true Story of the Sinking of the Doggerbank |trans-title=Der letze Mann der Doggerbank |publisher=Leo Cooper |url= https://archive.org/details/survivortruestor0000herl |url-access=registration |translator-first=John |translator-last=Brownjohn |via=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-85-052409-3}}
External links
- {{cite web |url= https://www.navegar-es-preciso.com/news/el-doggerbank-ex-speybank-y-su-tragico-final/ |title=El "Doggerbank", ex Speybank, y su trágico final |work= Navegar es Preciso |language=es}}
- {{cite web |url= http://www.clydesite.co.uk/clydebuilt/viewship.asp?id=5479 |title= Speybank (1926) |work=Clyde-Built Database |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20060516164830/http://www.clydesite.co.uk/clydebuilt/viewship.asp?id=5479 |url-status= usurped |archive-date= 2006-05-16}}
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{{March 1943 shipwrecks}}
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Category:Friendly fire incidents of World War II
Category:Maritime incidents in March 1943
Category:Ships built by Harland and Wolff
Category:Ships sunk by German submarines in World War II
Category:World War II auxiliary ships of Germany
Category:World War II merchant ships of the United Kingdom