MV Mar Negro
MV Mar Negro
| |
History | |
---|---|
Spain | |
Name | Mar Negro |
Namesake | Black Sea |
Owner | Compañía Marítima Del Nervión |
Builder | Euskalduna of Bilbao |
Launched | 1930 |
Fate | Requisitioned by the Republican Navy in 1936, later defected to the Nationalist faction in 1937 |
Nationalist Spain | |
Name | Mar Negro |
Operator | Spanish Nationalist Navy |
Builder | SECN, Bilbao |
Acquired | September 1937 |
Commissioned | 20 May 1938 |
Out of service | 19 October 1939 |
Reclassified | Auxiliary cruiser , 1937 |
Fate | Returned to original owner in 1939, later sold to various owners, scrapped in 1973 |
General characteristics | |
Displacement | 6,632 tn |
Length | 123.39 m (404.8 ft) |
Beam | 16.61 m (54.5 ft) |
Draught | 7.8 m (26 ft) |
Propulsion |
|
Speed | 15 knots (28 km/h) |
Range | 60,000 nmi (110,000 km) at 10 knots (19 km/h) |
Armament |
Mar Negro was an
Civilian career
Mar Negro was built in 1930 along with her
Under Republican flag
At the beginning of the war in 1936, Mar Negro was moored at Barcelona, a city which remained under the control of the Government. She was fitted out as a troop transport, and was one of the Republican ships which took part of the abortive landing on Mallorca in August 1936. Months later, she became involved in the maritime traffic between the Soviet Union and the Spanish Republic, and survived the attack of an Italian submarine.[2]
Career as Nationalist auxiliary cruiser
In September 1937, the ship, bound to Barcelona from
Completed in May 1938, the auxiliary cruiser joined the maritime blockade on Republican ports in the Mediterranean.
She landed the 105
After the fall of Catalonia, the cruiser led a naval parade off Tarragona with General Franco aboard on 22 February 1939.[2][9]
Mar Negro took part of the aborted landing on Cartagena on 6 March, when she assisted her sister ship Mar Cantábrico in the rescue of a German flying boat damaged by Republican aircraft and the capture of an armed tug.[10]
End of the war
On 8 March 1939, Franco's government decreed a ban on shipping around three miles from the coast of
Incident with HMS Sussex
On 16 March 1939, two incidents between Mar Negro and the British heavy cruiser HMS Sussex took place off Valencia, with the result of a British steamer captured and another damaged. The Spanish auxiliary cruiser also suffered some scratches on her stern in the aftermath.
Mar Negro and the
Mar Negro was also mentioned in the House of Commons on 20 March 1939 in connection with the confinement of seven British subjects on board the cruiser. They were members of the crew of the small British steamer Stangrove, of 550 tons. The vessel had been captured in February off Cap de Creus by the Nationalist gunboat Dato, which was patrolling Catalonia's coast from Palamós to the French border assisted by the minelayer Vulcano. Stangrove was sent first to Barcelona and then to Palma, where she was lost under suspicious circumstances, wrecked by a gale. Her master, Captain William Richards, died in the incident. The ship was saved by the Spanish right after the war, and subsequently renamed Castilla del Oro and later Condestable.[16][17][18] Stangate was the last merchantman captured on the high seas during the Spanish Civil War.[19] The cargo ship and her crew were held by the Spanish authorities several weeks after the end of the war at Palma,[20] where she remained under the supervision of the British consul until her release.[21]
Fall of Gandía
On 25 March 1939, Mar Negro rotated duties with her sister ship Mar Cantábrico as usual. Meanwhile, on the political front, secret negotiations between Franco and
On 26 March there were three minor incidents with units of the
Last years
After being handed back to her original owners, Mar Negro operated on the route between Spain and North American ports until 11 September 1962, when the ship was partially destroyed by an accidental fire at Port Arthur, Texas. Rebuilt in 1968 as Rio Pisueña and successively sold to several Spanish companies from Bilbao, she ended her days owned by the Mexican Navimex S.A. as Rio Frio. Her hull was eventually scrapped at Kaohsiung, Taiwan, on 5 January 1973.[26]
See also
Notes
- ^ Compañía Marítima del Nervión (in Spanish)
- ^ a b c d e Vida Marítima Archived 2009-10-12 at the Wayback Machine (in Spanish)
- ^ González Etchegaray, p. 203
- ^ Moreno, p. 2589
- ^ Moreno, p. 2725
- ^ Coll Pujol, Josep (Spring 1996). "Las peripecias del mercante inglés Lake Lugano durante la Guerra Civil española". Revista de Historia Naval - Año XIV - 1996 (in Spanish).
- ^ de Trijueque, Pere (17 September 2006). "Un pobre vaixell anomenat "Lake Lugano"" (PDF) (in Catalan). Retrieved 14 April 2016.
- ISBN 84-321-2340-4(in Spanish)
- ISBN 84-7823-348-2(in Spanish)
- ^ Moreno, page 2998
- ISBN 84-7140-224-6. (in Spanish)
- ^ a b Moreno, page 3196
- ^ Moreno, pp. 3129-3131
- ^ Canberra’ s Times, 20 March 1939
- ISBN 84-87398-35-9(in Spanish)
- ^ Moreno, p. 3064
- ^ "FOREIGN OFFICE". Parliamentary Debates (Hansard). 20 March 1939. Retrieved 2021-05-16.
- ^ "VESSEL SEIZED". Canberra Times (ACT : 1926 - 1995). 1939-02-20. p. 1. Retrieved 2021-05-16.
- ^ Moreno, p. 3264
- ^ "Oral Answers to Questions — Spain". TheyWorkForYou. Retrieved 2021-05-16.
- ^ Gretton, p. 469
- ISBN 84-95379-09-0(in Spanish)
- ^ Moreno p. 3197
- ^ a b Moreno, p. 3198
- ISBN 0950771457
- ^ "Río Frío". www.histarmar.com.ar. Retrieved 2017-12-18.
References
- Moreno de Alborán y de Reyna, Salvador (1998). La guerra silenciosa y silenciada: historia de la campaña naval durante la guerra de 1936-39, Volume 4, Part 2. Ed. Alborán. ISBN 84-923691-0-8(in Spanish)
- González Etchegaray, Rafael (1977). La Marina Mercante y el Trafico Maritimo en la Guerra Civil. Editorial San Martin, Madrid. ISBN 84-7140-150-9(in Spanish)