HNoMS Olav Tryggvason
{{Short description|1931 Norwegian/German minelayer}}
| {{Infobox ship begin}}
{{Infobox ship image |Ship image=Olav-Tryggvason-370 58332a.jpg |Ship caption=Olav Tryggvason in her pre-war role as a training ship }} {{Infobox ship career |Hide header= |Ship country=Norway |Ship flag={{shipboxflag|Norway|navy}} |Ship name=Olav Tryggvason |Ship namesake= Olaf I of Norway |Ship ordered= |Ship builder=the Royal Norwegian Navy's shipyard at Horten |Ship laid down= |Ship launched=21 December 1932 |Ship acquired= |Ship commissioned=21 June 1934 |Ship decommissioned= |Ship in service= |Ship out of service= |Ship struck= |Ship reinstated= |Ship honours= |Ship captured=By the Germans on 9 April 1940 |Ship fate= |Ship notes= }} {{Infobox service record |is_ship=yes |is_multi=yes |partof= |commanders=Kommandørkaptein T. Briseid |operations=Opposing the German invasion of Norway |victories=*1 warship (120 tons) sunk
|awards= }} {{Infobox ship career |Hide header=title |Ship country=Nazi Germany |Ship flag={{shipboxflag|Nazi Germany|naval}} |Ship name=Albatros II |Ship ordered= |Ship builder= |Ship laid down= |Ship launched= |Ship acquired=9 April 1940 |Ship commissioned=11 April 1940 |Ship decommissioned= |Ship in service= |Ship out of service= |Ship reclassified= |Ship renamed=Brummer on 16 April 1940 |Ship struck= |Ship reinstated= |Ship honours= |Ship captured= |Ship fate=Wrecked in Royal Air Force bombing raid on Kiel 3 April 1945 |Ship notes= }} {{Infobox service record |is_ship=yes |is_multi=yes |partof= |commanders= |operations=*Operation Barbarossa |victories=*1 destroyer (2,380 tons) and
|awards= }} {{Infobox ship characteristics |Hide header= |Header caption=as built |Ship class= |Ship displacement=1,596 tons standard |Ship length={{convert|97.3|m|ft|2|abbr=on}} |Ship beam={{convert|11.45|m|ft|2|abbr=on}} |Ship draft={{convert|3.5|m|ft|2|abbr=on}} |Ship propulsion=Two De Laval turbines with 4,600 hp and two Sulzer Marsch eight cylinder diesel engines of 1,400 hp |Ship speed={{convert|20|kn|km/h|2|lk=in}} |Ship range={{convert|3000|nmi|km|2}} at {{convert|14|kn|km/h|2}} |Ship complement=175 men |Ship armament=*4 × 12 cm (4.72 inch) Bofors gunsJohannesen 1988: 55
|Ship armour= |Ship armor= |Ship aircraft= |Ship notes=All the above listed information, unless otherwise noted, was acquired from Abelsen 1986: 140 }} {{Infobox ship characteristics |Hide header= |Header caption=after 1943 rebuild |Ship class= |Ship displacement=1,860 tonsAnttonen, Harri: [https://web.archive.org/web/20051004164157/http://www.geocities.com/finnmilpge/fmpg_schiffe41_42.html German Navy vessels on the Northern Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Finland, seasons 1941 and 1942] |Ship length={{convert|97.3|m|ft|2|abbr=on}} |Ship beam={{convert|11.45|m|ft|2|abbr=on}} |Ship draft={{convert|3.5|m|ft|2|abbr=on}} |Ship propulsion=Two De Laval turbines with 4,600 hp and two Sulzer Marsch eight cylinder diesel engines of 1,400 hp |Ship speed={{convert|20|kn|km/h|2|lk=in}} |Ship range={{convert|3000|nmi|km|2}} at {{convert|14|kn|km/h|2}} |Ship complement=175 men |Ship armament=*3 × 10.5 cm SK C/32 naval gun guns
|Ship armour= |Ship armor= |Ship aircraft= |Ship notes=All the above listed information, unless otherwise noted, was acquired from Abelsen 1986: 140 }} |
HNoMS Olav Tryggvason was a minelayer that was built by the naval shipyard at Horten in the early 1930s with the yard number 119. She served in the Royal Norwegian Navy until captured by the Germans in 1940. The Germans renamed her first Albatros II, and a few days later Brummer. She was wrecked in a British bombing raid in northern Germany in April 1945.
Description
The Olav Tryggvason was considered a well armed and balanced ship, with an engine plant consisting of both steam turbines and diesel engines. Olav Tryggvason was the first Norwegian warship equipped with a basic gun computer, allowing all four main guns to be fired at the same time at one target with some degree of accuracy.
Pre-war service
Before the outbreak of the Second World War, the Olav Tryggvason served as a cadet training ship in the summer season, taking aboard 55 cadets and showing the flag around Western Europe on training cruises.Johannesen 1988: 60-65 One of the cadets serving on board in the 1930s was Crown Prince Olav of Norway.Bratli 1995, p. 93
Second World War
=Norwegian service=
==''City of Flint'' incident==
File:HNoMS Olav Tryggvason (1934).jpg
At the outbreak of the Second World War, the Olav Tryggvason took part in neutrality protection duties. Her first armed action came on 3 November 1939,Sivertsen 2001: 230 when the US merchant ship City of Flint entered Norwegian territorial waters. The City of Flint had been taken as a prize by the German pocket battleship Deutschland in the Atlantic and was on its way to Germany with the American crew as prisoners. According to public international law, the ship could have passed through Norwegian waters without interference, but when she stopped and anchored in the port of Haugesund, the Germans broke Norwegian neutrality regulations. The German prize crew had brought the City of Flint into Haugesund to escape the British naval forces which searched for them. When the British cruiser {{HMS|Glasgow|C21|6}} approached the City of Flint on 2 November the escorting Olav Tryggvason had confronted the British warship and made it leave Norwegian waters.{{Cite web |last=Don Kindell |date=17 September 2008 |title=Naval Events, November 1939, Part 1 of 2 |url=http://www.naval-history.net/xDKWW2-3911-08NOV01.htm |access-date=11 December 2010 |website=Naval-History.Net |archive-date=2 January 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110102004431/http://naval-history.net/xDKWW2-3911-08NOV01.htm |url-status=live }} Olav Tryggvason boarded the City of Flint with one officer and thirty armed sailors, who returned control of the ship to the American captain, Joseph H. Gainard, on 6 November. He unloaded his cargo in Bergen and set sail in ballast for the US. The German prize crew was interned at Kongsvinger Fortress. In response, the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs received several strongly worded and threatening notes from its German counterpart.
==Battle of Horten harbour==
{{main|Battle of Horten Harbour}}
The Olav Tryggvason was at Horten for minor engine repairs,Kristiansen 2006: 25 manned only by a skeleton crew, when the Germans invaded on 9 April 1940. Along with the minesweeper {{HNoMS|Rauma|1940-1963|6}}, she defended the harbour against the German torpedo boats Albatros and Kondor, and two 120-ton räumboot minesweepers; the R 17 and the R 27.German-navy.de: [http://german-navy.de/kriegsmarine/ships/minehunter/rboat/index.html R-boat (Minenräumboot)] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071101044545/http://www.german-navy.de/kriegsmarine/ships/minehunter/rboat/index.html |date=2007-11-01 }}Brown, David: [https://books.google.com/books?id=pt2ci58xTRMC&pg=PA19&dq=minelayer+Olav+Tryggvason&ei=HqO6R5ibNpjWyASF18nABA&sig=9M6J7vuMbSTtvB-2JRZcr0c9dlQ Naval Operations of the Campaign in Norway, April-June 1940, p. 19]Williamson 2009: 15
"All through the chilly night of April 8–9 a happy welcoming party from the German legation had stood at quayside in Oslo Harbor waiting for the arrival of a German fleet troop transport. It was the strongest naval force sent to Norway, led by the pocket battle ship Lützow (its name changed from Deutschland because Hitler didn't want to risk losing a ship by that name), with six eleven-inch guns, and the new 10,000-ton heavy cruiser Blucher, flagship of the squadron, carrying 8 eigh- inch guns. The happy little party waited in vain. The big ships never arrived. They had been challenged at the very entrance to Oslo Fjord, where the Norwegian mine layer, Olav Trygverson, sank a German torpedo boat and damaged the light cruiser Emden"{{Cite book |last=Shirer |first=William |title=The Nightmare Years |publisher=Little, Brown and Company |year=1984 |isbn=0-316-78703-5 |location=Canada, US |pages=482}}
The minelayer's commander, kommandørkaptein T. Briseid, had received warning of the intruding foreign naval forces and at 0215hrs anchored his ship to a buoy in the inner harbour to cover the harbour entrance with her guns.Berg 1997: 14 At 0435hrs two ships with no lights entered to harbour. At a range of {{convert|60|m|yd|}} the Reichskriegsflagge was spotted and the ships identified as German. Much of the Norwegian defensive advantage was however lost as Briseid then decided to continue following neutrality protection guidelines and first blew a steam horn, then fired a blank shot, then two live warning shots at the foreign warships before opening up on them in earnest.
During the confusing battle at close range, R 17 was sunk by the Olav Tryggvason's 12 cm guns off Apeneskaia quay. Of the forty-five strong German landing unit on board R 17, only fifteen made it ashore unwounded. Despite the best efforts of the Norwegian ships, the R 27 managed to get to the cover of a peninsula and land her force of forty-five infantry in the harbour, having suffered several hits in the process. After landing her infantry the R 27 ran aground, then dislodged herself and suffered more hits before making her escape from the area. At the same time as the German minesweepers made their charge into the harbour, the Albatros tried to engage the Norwegian ships, but suffered hits from Olav Tryggvason and was forced to take cover behind some nearby islands.Berg 1997: 14-15 The cruiser Emden also tried to interfere from a distance out in the Oslofjord, but without result.Abelsen 1986: 135Churchill, Winston: [https://books.google.com/books?id=9b9oloarcxIC&pg=PA531&dq=minelayer+Olav+Tryggvason&ei=kaK6R_W3EpbWzAS8y6iKBQ&sig=J6arPFW8kewXLKMydXUR-D9PXlY The Second World War, p. 531]
At 0735hrs, after threats of aerial bombardment of the naval base and the adjacent city, as well as a misguided impression of the size of the 60-strong German landing party, the Norwegian land and naval forces surrendered. During the battle Olav Tryggvason fired almost sixty 12 cm shells,Kristiansen 2006: 30 suffered at least thirty-five hits from the 20 mm guns aboard the räumboots and had two sailors wounded.Abelsen 1986: 134-135
=German service=
File:Brummer, the former HNoMS Olav Tryggvason.jpg]]
The Olav Tryggvason was taken into the Kriegsmarine and renamed Albatros II on 11 April, to commemorate the torpedo boat she had damaged. Five days later, on 16 April, she was renamed again, as the Brummer, after an artillery training ship torpedoed in the Kattegat 14 April 1940.
After capture, the ship was rearmed with new main and secondary guns. Her original four 12 cm main guns were at first stored by the Germans before being installed in a coastal artillery battery at Hundvåg in Vestlandet in May 1945, only days before VE day.Fjeld 1999: 264
==Western Europe==
File:Brummer's mine launching doors.jpg
Brummer spent her first year as a Kriegsmarine minelayer on the coasts of the Netherlands and Belgium as part of the naval contingent for the planned invasion of England.
After the cancellation of the invasion of the UK she was transferred to the Baltic Sea in time to participate in Operation Barbarossa, carrying out mining operations in the Gulf of Finland.
==Northern Baltic==
Brummer arrived at Utö in Finland together with the German minelayers Tannenberg and {{ship|German minelayer|Hansestadt Danzig||2}} on 14 June 1941, and was concealed in the Nagu area in preparation for the outbreak of war eight days later.Finnish Navy in World War II: [http://users.tkk.fi/~jaromaa/Navygallery/index.html Time line - before Continuation War] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080412002907/http://users.tkk.fi/~jaromaa/Navygallery/index.html |date=2008-04-12 }}
On 22 June the minelayers, designated Mine Group Nord, laid a minefield in the Gulf of Finland, west of Hanko.Saunalahti.fi: [http://www.saunalahti.fi/ility/Bengtskar/Opening.html The Battle for Bengtskär - Opening moves] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110607100051/http://www.saunalahti.fi/ility/Bengtskar/Opening.html |date=2011-06-07 }} The mine barrage, codenamed Apolda,Åselius, Gunnar:
[https://books.google.com/books?id=kLxfdAvEFcsC&pg=PA225&dq=German+minelayer+%22Brummer%22&sig=tP7SGZ7f9YXSGAKSAVg_TtZnDZY#PPA225,M1 The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Navy in the Baltic, 1921-1941, p. 225] channelled shipping in the Gulf either to the north, within reach of Finnish coastal artillery, or to the south, where German guns were in range. For most of the mining operation, which was initiated in the early hours of the day, the minelaying group worked unchallenged even though the ships were spotted by Soviet naval forces. Only at 0228hrs did Brummer and an escorting E-boat came under unsuccessful attack from two Soviet Beriev MBR-2 flying boats. The attack on Brummer was the first engagement between the Baltic Fleet and German forces during the Second World War.
In addition to forcing Soviet shipping into vulnerable bottlenecks, Brummer's mines accounted for the loss of a Soviet destroyer and one submarine. The {{sclass|Gnevny|destroyer}} destroyer Gnevny hit one of the Apolda mines on 23 June. On 1 July the Baltic Fleet M class submarine M-81 struck one of the mines laid by BrummerRohwer, Jürgen and Monakov, Mikhail S.: [https://books.google.com/books?id=xxRlzgYz2eoC&pg=RA16-PA263&dq=German+minelayer+%22Brummer%22&ei=L0e6R7WrLZHCzATdw6mbBQ&sig=0EPhrZSu-BIFCppvAbCvrxii2XI Stalin's Ocean-Going Fleet: Soviet Naval Strategy and Shipbuilding, p. 262-2633] and sank off the island of Vormsi in Estonia.Uboat.net: [http://uboat.net/allies/warships/ship/4956.html M-81] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071022202931/http://uboat.net/allies/warships/ship/4956.html |date=2007-10-22 }}
Of the total of six German-controlled minelayers operating in the Northern Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Finland in 1941-1942 Brummer was the only vessel purpose-built for minelaying.
Amongst the operations that Brummer took part in while stationed in the Baltic was the joint German-Finnish Operation Nordwind in September 1941, a naval deception operation to divert Soviet attention from the German landings on the Estonian islands Hiiumaa and Saaremaa. Brummer was part of the German contingent in the operation's II Group. The operation was meant to be carried out by a diversionary naval manoeuvre during daytime on 13 September, with the force turning back towards their base at Utö by 2030hrs. In the end, the operation failed to attract Soviet interest and saw the loss of the Finnish coastal defence ship Ilmarinen to naval mines.Finnish Navy in World War II: [http://users.tkk.fi/~jaromaa/Navygallery/Coastal/Nordwind.htm Operation Nordwind] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080308003814/http://users.tkk.fi/~jaromaa/Navygallery/Coastal/Nordwind.htm |date=2008-03-08 }}
==Norway and the North Sea==
After spending close to a year in the Baltic she was again deployed in Western Europe, serving between 1942 and 1944 mainly in the North Sea and off Norway. On 9 April 1943 the Soviet submarine K-21 fired six torpedoes at Brummer off Båtsfjord in Finnmark. The minelayer was not hit.{{Cite web |last=Helgason, Gudmundur |title=K-21 |url=http://uboat.net/allies/warships/ship/5126.html |access-date=6 April 2010 |website=U-boat.net |archive-date=27 May 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100527100213/http://www.uboat.net/allies/warships/ship/5126.html |url-status=live }}
==Back to the Baltic – Operation Hannibal==
In 1944 Brummer resumed mining operations in the Baltic. She was used for mining until the spring of 1945 when she was employed as part of the armada that evacuated German troops and civilians from the path of the Red Army.
==Destruction==
The end of Brummer came on 3 April 1945, when she was wrecked by RAF bombers while dry docked for repairs at the Deutsche Werke shipyard in the Baltic port of Kiel.
After the war, the wreck was scrapped between 1945 and 1948.
Footnotes
{{Reflist|2}}
Bibliography
- {{Cite book |last=Abelsen |first=Frank |title=Norwegian naval ships 1939-1945 |publisher=Sem & Stenersen AS |year=1986 |isbn=82-7046-050-8 |location=Oslo |language=no, en}}
- {{Cite book |last=Berg |first=Ole F. |title=I skjærgården og på havet – Marinens krig 8. april 1940 – 8. mai 1945 |publisher=Marinens krigsveteranforening |year=1997 |isbn=82-993545-2-8 |location=Oslo |language=no}}
- {{Cite book |last=Bratli |first=Kjell Arne |author-link=Kjell Arne Bratli |url=http://urn.nb.no/URN:NBN:no-nb_digibok_2008021100041 |title=Sjøoffiser og samfunnsbygger : Vernepliktige sjøoffiserers forening: 100-års jubileumsbok: 1895-1995 |last2=Øyvind Schau |publisher=Sjømilitære Samfund ved Norsk Tidsskrift for Sjøvesen |year=1995 |isbn=82-91008-09-4 |location=Hundvåg |language=no}}
- {{Cite book |last=Fjeld |first=Odd T. |title=Klar til strid - Kystartilleriet gjennom århundrene |publisher=Kystartilleriets Offisersforening |year=1999 |isbn=82-995208-0-0 |location=Oslo |language=no}}
- {{Cite book |last=Johannesen |first=Folke Hauger |author-link=Folke Hauger Johannessen |title=Gå på eller gå under |publisher=Faktum Forlag AS |year=1988 |isbn=82-540-0113-8 |location=Oslo |language=no}}
- {{Cite book |last=Kristiansen |first=Trond |title=Fjordkrigen – Sjømilitær motstand mot den tyske invasjonsflåten i 1940 |publisher=Forlaget Kristiansen |year=2006 |isbn=82-997054-2-8 |location=Harstad |language=no}}
- {{Cite book |title=Sjøforsvaret dag for dag 1814-2000 |publisher=Sjømilitære Samfund ved Norsk Tidsskrift for Sjøvesen |year=2001 |isbn=82-92217-03-7 |editor-last=Sivertsen |editor-first=Svein Carl |location=Hundvåg |language=no}}
- {{Cite book |last=Williamson |first=Gordon |author-link=Gordon Williamson (writer) |title=Kriegsmarine Coastal Forces |publisher=Osprey Publishing |year=2009 |isbn=978-1-84603-331-5 |location=Oxford}}
External links
- [http://navalhistory.flixco.info/G/288608x9/8330/a0.htm Naval history via FLIX: KNM Olav Tryggvason], retrieved 15 March 2006 {{in lang|en}}
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20110514030247/http://hem.fyristorg.com/robertm/norge/Norw_navy_ships.html Ships of the Norwegian navy], retrieved 15 March 2006 {{in lang|en}}
- [http://www.feldgrau.com/norwegian.html The Invasion of Norway (Operation Weserübung), by Mike Yaklich, Jason Pipes, and Russ Folsom], retrieved 15 March 2006 {{in lang|en}}
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20080526153820/http://navycollection.narod.ru/ships/Norway/Mine_Ships/Olav_Truggvason/history.html A Russian site with photos and drawings of Olav Tryggvason] {{in lang|ru}}
{{Norwegian minelayers}}
{{April 1945 shipwrecks}}
{{coord missing|Baltic Sea}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Olav Tryggvason}}
Category:Naval ships of Norway captured by Germany during World War II
Category:Training ships of the Royal Norwegian Navy
Category:Ships built in Horten
Category:Minelayers of the Royal Norwegian Navy
Category:World War II minelayers of Norway
Category:World War II minelayers of Germany
Category:World War II shipwrecks in the Baltic Sea