German destroyer Z20 Karl Galster

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Drawing of Z20 Karl Galster as of 1945
History
Nazi Germany
NameKarl Galster
NamesakeKarl Galster
Ordered6 January 1936
Builder
Deschimag), Bremen
Yard numberW922
Laid down14 September 1936
Launched15 June 1937
Completed21 March 1939
FateAllocated to the
war prize
History
Soviet Union
NameProchnyy
Acquired6 February 1946
RenamedPKZ 99, 28 November 1954
Reclassified
  • As a training ship, 1950
  • As an
    accommodation ship
    , 28 November 1954
FateScrapped, 1958
General characteristics (as built)
Class and type
Type 1936 destroyer
Displacement
  • 2,411 long tons (2,450 t) (standard)
  • 3,415 long tons (3,470 t) (
    deep load
    )
Length125.1 m (410 ft 5 in) (
o/a
)
Beam11.8 m (38 ft 9 in)
Draft4.5 m (14 ft 9 in)
Installed power
Propulsion
Speed36 knots (67 km/h; 41 mph)
Range2,050 nmi (3,800 km; 2,360 mi) at 19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph)
Complement323
Armament
Service record
Commanders:
  • Theodor von Bechtolsheim
    March 1939 – August 1942
  • Harmsen August 1942 – January 1945
  • Kuno Schmidt January – May 1945

Z20 Karl Galster was one of six

minefields off the English coast that claimed one British destroyer, a fishing trawler, and twenty merchant ships. After a refit that prevented her from participating in the German invasion of Norway
in April, the ship was sent to Norway for escort duties. Later that year Z20 Karl Galster was transferred to France, where she made several attacks on British shipping.

The ship returned to Germany in early 1941 for a refit and was transferred to Norway in June as part of the preparations for

Spitzbergen, well north of the Arctic Circle
, in September 1943. Plagued by engine problems, the ship was under repair from November to August 1944 and then spent the next six months on convoy escort duties in southern Norway when not laying minefields.

Around March 1945, Z20 Karl Galster was transferred to the Baltic Sea where she helped to escort convoys of refugee ships and also rescued evacuees herself in May, around the time that Germany surrendered. When the surviving German warships were divided between the Allies after the war, the ship was eventually allocated to the Soviet Union. Z20 Karl Galster was handed over in 1946 and renamed Prochnyy. The ship was converted into a

accommodation ship in 1954. She was scrapped
four years later.

Design and description

Z20 Karl Galster had an

kW; 69,000 shp) using steam provided by six Wagner boilers for a designed speed of 36 knots (67 km/h; 41 mph).[1] During Z20 Karl Galster's sea trials on 16–May 1939, she reached 39 knots (72.2 km/h; 44.9 mph) from 76,500 PS (56,300 kW; 75,500 shp).[2] The ship carried a maximum of 739 metric tons (727 long tons) of fuel oil which gave a range of 2,050 nautical miles (3,800 km; 2,360 mi) at 19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph). Her crew consisted of 10 officers and 313 sailors.[1]

The ship carried five

2-centimeter (0.8 in) C/30 guns in single mounts. The ship carried eight above-water 53.3-centimeter (21.0 in) torpedo tubes in two power-operated mounts.[1] Two reloads were provided for each mount. She had four depth charge launchers and mine rails could be fitted on the rear deck that had a maximum capacity of 60 mines.[3] 'GHG' (Gruppenhorchgerät) passive hydrophones were fitted to detect submarines and an active sonar system was installed by the end of 1939.[4]

Modifications

In 1942, the ship had a FuMO 24/25 radar installed above the

midships 2 cm guns replaced by a pair of 3.7 cm Flak M42 gun in single mounts and that four twin 2 cm mounts had probably been added in the forward superstructure.[5]

Construction and career

Z20 Karl Galster was named after

yard number W922 on 14 September 1937, launched on 15 June 1938, and commissioned on 21 March 1939. She visited Åndalsnes, Norway, in July and then participated in a torpedo training exercise the following month.[6]

When World War II began in September, Z20 Karl Galster was initially deployed in the

Thames estuary. Once again unaware of the minefield's existence, the British lost the destroyer Blanche and thirteen merchant ships of 48,728 GRT. The ship spent the rest of the year patrolling in the German Bight.[8]

Bonte and Z21 Wilhelm Heidkamp led a minelaying sortie to the Newcastle area together with Z16 Friedrich Eckoldt, Z20 Karl Galster, and Z22 Anton Schmitt on the night of 10/11 January 1940. The destroyers Z14 Friedrich Ihn and Z4 Richard Beitzen were also supposed to participate, but the former had problems with her boilers that reduced her maximum speed to 27 knots (50 km/h; 31 mph) and she had to be escorted back to Germany by the latter ship. The minefield only claimed one fishing trawler of 251 GRT.[9]

In retaliation for the

Shetland Islands. Z20 Karl Galster and Z21 Wilhelm Heidkamp escorted the battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau as well as the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper during the sortie on 18 February. Upon her return Z20 Karl Galster began a refit that lasted until 27 May.[10]

After the catastrophic destroyer losses in the Battles of Narvik in April, the Kriegsmarine reorganized its surviving destroyers and Z20 Karl Galster became the flagship of the FdZ. In June the ship was tasked to lead the escort force for Scharnhorst, Gneisenau, and Admiral Hipper during Operation Juno, a planned attack on Harstad, Norway, to relieve pressure on the German garrison at Narvik. The ships sortied on 8 June and sank the troop transport Orama, the oil tanker Oil Pioneer and the minesweeping trawler Juniper en route, Z20 Karl Galster assisting in the rescue of Orama's survivors. The German commander, Admiral Wilhelm Marschall, then ordered Admiral Hipper and all four destroyers to Trondheim because of the heavy weather, where they arrived in the morning of 9 June. Z20 Karl Galster remained there until she had to help screen the crippled Gneisenau as she returned to Kiel on 25 July. After a brief refit, the ship helped to lay minefields in the North Sea between 14 August and 7 September.[11]

Z20 Karl Galster, now the flagship of KzS

Wesermünde that lasted until 9 June 1941.[13]

Arctic service

Two days later, the ship was one of the escorts for the heavy cruiser

survey ship and a flying boat and they were repeatedly attacked by Soviet aircraft to no effect before their return on the 24th. When the British aircraft carriers Victorious and Furious attacked Petsamo and Kirkenes on 29 July, the destroyers were far to the east and could not catch the British ships before they left the area. Z20 Karl Galster was now assigned to escort convoys between Tromsø and Kirkenes; during one of these missions, the submarine Trident sank two troop-carrying freighters, Bahia Laura and Donau II despite the destroyers. Z20 Karl Galster rescued over 500 survivors from the two ships. When Z10 Hans Lody required a refit in late September, Schulze-Hinrichs transferred his flag to Z20 Karl Galster until she had engine problems of her own and sailed for Germany on 23 November to begin a refit that lasted until 5 May 1942.[15]

The ship, now flagship of KzS Gottfried Pönitz, commander of the 8. Zerstörerflottile (8th Destroyer Flotilla), sailed for Trondheim on 11 June. She was one of four destroyers assigned to escort the battleship Tirpitz during Operation Rösselsprung, an attack on the Russia-bound Convoy PQ 17. The ships sailed from Trondheim on 2 July for the first stage of the operation, although three of the destroyers, including Z20 Karl Galster, assigned to Tirpitz's escort ran aground in the dark and heavy fog and were forced to return to port for emergency repairs. The destroyer had damaged her port turbine and buckled the port propeller shaft. Escorted by two other destroyers, Z20 Karl Galster sailed for Kiel on 12 July, steaming only on one turbine. Permanent repairs were finished by mid-November, but the ship was working up until 8 December when she was one of the escorts for Lützow's voyage to Norway, although storm damage en route forced the destroyer to put into Trondheim for repairs that lasted until 9 January 1943. Boiler damage put her back into the dockyard there until 27 February.[16]

On 11 March Z20 Karl Galster screened Tirpitz en route to Bogen Bay, and continued onward to Altafjord with Tirpitz, Scharnhorst, and Lützow. Several weeks later, Z20 Karl Galster, and the destroyers Z5 Paul Jacobi and Z6 Theodor Riedel, sailed for Jan Mayen island on 31 March to rendezvous with the blockade runner, MV Regensburg. They searched for several days before increasingly heavy weather forced them to return to port with storm damage. Unbeknownst to the Germans, Regensburg had been intercepted and sunk by a British cruiser on 30 March. Z20 Karl Galster took part in the raid on the island of Spitsbergen in 6–9 September, during which she landed troops on the island. Two months later the ship sailed for Bremen to begin an overhaul.[17]

Further service

Problems with her starboard turbine, after the overhaul was finished in April 1944, put Z20 Karl Galster back in the dockyard for further work until about August when she began escorting convoys in southern Norway and helping to lay minefields in the Skagerrak. The ship continued to perform those duties until she began a brief refit in Oslo, Norway, between 20 December and 13 January 1945. Z20 Karl Galster helped to lay a minefield in the North Sea on 8 March. Afterwards, she was transferred to the Baltic and assigned to escort and patrol duties.[18]

In May, the ship was assigned to evacuate civilians and troops trapped in ports along the Baltic Sea by advancing Soviet forces. The survivors were transported to

Grand Admiral (Großadmiral) Karl Dönitz asking "everybody to "Curry" who can make it until dawn on the 8th". Dönitz had chosen the word "Curry" to obscure the fact that he wanted the ships to go on a rescue mission. The German captains knew "Curry" to be the nickname of their former naval academy instructor, Admiral August Thiele, commander in Hela on the Hel Peninsula.[19]

So the ship's final mission led back to the Peninsula, which was one of the few remaining footholds on the coast under German control on 8 May. At 22:00, two hours before the surrender became effective, Z20 Karl Galster, Z14 Friedrich Ihn, the destroyer

decommissioned on 10 May.[21]

Postwar activities

After the war Z20 Karl Galster sailed to Wilhelmshaven while the Allies decided how to divide the surviving ships of the Kriegsmarine amongst themselves as war reparations. The ship was allotted to the Soviet Union in late 1945 and turned over to the Soviets on 6 February 1946 in Liepāja, Latvia. She was renamed Prochnyy and assigned to the Red Banner Baltic Fleet on 5 November. Prochnyy was converted into a training ship in 1950 and was then reclassified as an accommodation ship, designated PKZ 99, on 28 November 1954. The ship was scrapped in 1958.[22]

Notes

  1. ^ a b c Gröner, p. 202
  2. ^ Koop & Schmolke, pp. 99–100
  3. ^ Whitley, p. 68
  4. ^ Whitley, pp. 71–72
  5. ^ Koop & Schmolke, pp. 35, 40, 101, 165; Whitley, pp. 26, 73
  6. ^ Koop & Schmolke, pp. 24, 99–100; Whitley, p. 82
  7. ^ Rohwer, pp. 2, 5
  8. ^ Hervieux, p. 112; Koop & Schmolke, p. 100; Rohwer, p. 11; Whitley, pp. 86–92
  9. ^ Hervieux, p. 113; Koop & Schmolke, p. 100; Whitley, p. 92
  10. ^ Koop & Schmolke, p. 100; Rohwer, p. 15
  11. ^ Koop & Schmolke, p. 100; Rohwer, p. 26; Whitley, pp. 105–06
  12. ^ Whitley, pp. 106–107
  13. ^ Koop & Schmolke, p. 100; Whitley, pp. 107–114
  14. ^ Whitley, pp. 122–24
  15. ^ Koop & Schmolke, p. 100; Whitley, pp. 124–129
  16. ^ Koop & Schmolke, p. 100; Whitley, pp. 141–142
  17. ^ Koop & Schmolke, p. 100; Whitley, pp. 165–167
  18. ^ Koop & Schmolke, pp. 100–101; Rohwer, pp. 347, 394; Whitley, pp. 168, 170–171
  19. ^ "Immer die Angst im Nacken". Hamburger Abendblatt (in German). 30 January 1981.
  20. ^ Becker, p. 360
  21. ^ Koop & Schmolke, p. 101; Müller & Kramer, p. 24
  22. ^ Koop & Schmolke, p. 101; Whitley, pp. 191–192, 198

References

External links
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