Type 1936 destroyers

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Z21 Wilhelm Heidkamp underway, about 1939
Class overview
NameType 1936 destroyer
Builders
DeSchiMAG, Bremen
Operators
Preceded by
Type 1934A destroyer
Succeeded byType 1936A destroyer
Built1936–1939
In service1938–1958
In commission1938–1954
Planned6
Completed6
Lost5
Scrapped1
General characteristics
TypeDestroyer
Displacement
  • 2,411 long tons (2,450 t) (standard)
  • 3,415 long tons (3,470 t)
    deep load
Length123.4 or 125.1 m (404 ft 10 in or 410 ft 5 in)
o/a
Beam11.75 m (38 ft 7 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

The Type 1936 destroyers, also known as the Z17 class, were a group of six destroyers built for Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during the late 1930s, shortly before the beginning of World War II. All six sister ships were named after German sailors who had been killed in World War I.[1] They were engaged in training for most of the period between their completion and the outbreak of war, although several did participate in the occupation of Memel in Lithuania, in early 1939.

When the war began in September 1939, the sisters helped to lay

scuttled during the naval Battles of Narvik except Z20 Karl Galster which was refitting at the time. She was transferred to France in September where she engaged British ships several times. After a refit, the destroyer was transferred to Norway in preparation for Operation Barbarossa, the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union, in June 1941. Z20 Karl Galster mostly spent the rest of the year escorting convoys. After another refit, the ship briefly returned to Norway in mid-1942 until she was badly damaged in July when she ran aground and had to return home for repairs. The destroyer returned to Norway in December and remained there until November 1943, participating in Operation Zitronella
in September.

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 and laying minefields. Z20 Karl Galster was transferred to the Baltic Sea in early 1945 where she escorted refugee convoys and also evacuated refugees herself from the advancing Soviet forces before the German surrender in May. The ship was allotted to the Soviets after the war and she was converted into a training ship in 1950 before she was scrapped in 1958.

Design and description

These six ships were improved and enlarged versions of the

head sea. These changes improved their seakeeping ability in comparison to the previous destroyer classes. They still retained the over-complicated and troublesome boilers of the earlier ships.[2][3]

The first three ships built had an

double bottom. Active stabilizers were initially fitted to reduce roll, but they proved to be ineffective and were replaced by bilge keels on all the destroyers except Z20 Karl Galster before April 1940. They had a complement of 10 officers and 313 enlisted men, plus an additional 4 officers and 19 enlisted men if serving as a flotilla flagship.[5]

The Type 1936s were powered by two Wagner geared

turbogenerators plus two 80-kilowatt (110 hp) and a single 40-kilowatt (54 hp) diesel generators.[7] The ships 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).[2]

The Type 1936 ships were armed with five

amidships.[2] Four depth charge throwers were mounted on the sides of the rear deckhouse and they were supplemented by six racks for individual depth charges on the sides of the stern. Sufficient depth charges were carried for either two or four patterns of sixteen charges each.[8] Mine rails could be fitted on the rear deck that had a maximum capacity of sixty mines.[2] 'GHG' (Gruppenhorchgerät) passive hydrophones were fitted to detect submarines and an active sonar system was installed by the end of 1939.[9]

Z20 Karl Galster had a

search radar installed in 1942 and her anti-aircraft suite was upgraded several times over the course of the war. By the end, it consisted of six 3.7 cm guns and fifteen 2 cm weapons.[10]

Ships

List of Type 1936 destroyers
Ship Builder[11]
Laid down[11]
Launched[11] Commissioned[11] Fate[12]
Z17 Diether von Roeder DeSchiMAG, Bremen 9 September 1936 19 August 1937 29 August 1938 Beached and destroyed during the Battles of Narvik, 13 April 1940
Z18 Hans Lüdemann 1 December 1937 8 October 1938
Z19 Hermann Künne 5 October 1936 22 December 1937 12 January 1939
Z20 Karl Galster 14 September 1937 15 June 1938 21 March 1939 Transferred to the USSR, 1946; scrapped, 1958
Z21 Wilhelm Heidkamp 14 December 1937 28 August 1938 20 June 1939 Sunk by torpedo during the Battles of Narvik, 10 April 1940
Z22 Anton Schmitt 3 January 1938 20 September 1938 24 September 1939

Service history

Z17 Diether von Roeder and Z19 Hermann Künne were two of the destroyers that escorted Adolf Hitler when Germany occupied Memel in March 1939. When the war began in September, Z21 Wilhelm Heidkamp and Z22 Anton Schmitt were still

minefields off the German coast. They were soon transferred to the Skagerrak where they inspected neutral shipping for contraband goods and were joined there by Z21 Wilhelm Heidkamp by the end of the month.[1]

Beginning in mid-October and continuing through February 1940, the Kriegsmarine began using its destroyers to lay offensive minefields off the British coast on dark nights with little to no moonlight. The sisters (Z22 Anton Schmitt became operational in January) participated in five of the eleven sorties and their mines helped to sink a British destroyer and 121,348 gross register tons (GRT) of merchant shipping.[13]

Norwegian Campaign

A map of the Ofotfjord

Z21 Wilhelm Heidkamp was the

Wesermünde and set sail the next day.[14]

On 9 April, Z22 Anton Schmitt and Z18 Hans Lüdemann landed troops at the entrance to the

captain to surrender failed. All of the destroyers were short on oil; fueling proceeded very slowly and only three destroyers had completed doing so by the following morning, although Z18 Hans Lüdemann and Z19 Hermann Künne were in the process of doing so when the five destroyers of the British 2nd Destroyer Flotilla appeared shortly after dawn. Caught totally by surprise, the initial torpedo salvo sank Z21 Wilhelm Heidkamp and Z22 Anton Schmitt and lightly damaged Z19 Hermann Künne. British shells also damaged Z18 Hans Lüdemann and crippled Z17 Diether von Roeder. The German destroyers unsuccessfully returned fire with several torpedoes passing underneath the British ships.[15]

Z19 Hermann Künne burning on 13 April 1940

On the night of 12/13 April, the Germans received word to expect an attack the following day by British

star shells; her depth charges were rigged for demolition and they were set off once the crew had abandoned ship. A pair of British destroyers followed her into the fjord and put a torpedo into the wreck for good measure, breaking off her stern.[16]

Z18 Hans Lüdemann still had some ammunition and torpedoes left and took up position at the Straumen narrows with Z2 Georg Thiele to give the two other remaining destroyers time to scuttle themselves at the head of the fjord. The pursuing British destroyers initially engaged Z18 Hans Lüdemann, which had opened fire at a range of about 3 miles (4,800 m) to little effect. Her four remaining torpedoes were fired blindly, one of which was observed to pass under a destroyer and all missed. Shortly afterwards the British ships hit the German destroyer twice, destroying No. 4 and No. 5 guns and damaging No. 3 gun, the only ones that could bear on the British ships. Z18 Hans Lüdemann's captain decided to withdraw as she could no longer fight the British ships and beached the ship at the head of the fjord. He ordered her rigged for demolition and abandoned ship while Z2 Georg Thiele continued to fight. Several hours later, after the latter ship was destroyed, British destroyers approached and found Z18 Hans Lüdemann still intact, the demolition charges having failed. Following their orders to destroy all of the German destroyers, they torpedoed her wreck.[17]

patrol boats
.

When the British appeared at the harbor mouth they initially thought that they were being fired upon by coastal artillery in the smoke and confusion, but a

freighters to investigate and opened fire at point-blank range. She set the German ship's stern aflame, but Z17 Diether von Roeder's return fire was devastating. The British destroyer was hit at least seven times that caused her to run aground. Other British ships returned fire, but the gunners had abandoned ship once their ammunition was exhausted and only the three-man demolition party was still aboard when a British destroyer approached. They lit the fuses and ran ashore and the depth charges blew her apart before she could be boarded.[18]

The sole survivor

After a refit that prevented Z20 Karl Galster from participating in Operation Weserübung, the ship was sent to Norway for escort duties. Later that year she was transferred to France later as the flagship of the 5th Destroyer Flotilla (5. Zerstörerflotille), where she conducted anti-shipping patrols and laid a minefield in the English Channel with little success.[19]

The ship returned to Germany at the end of the year 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.[20]

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.[21] 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.[22]

Notes

  1. ^ Funkmess-Ortung (Radio-direction finder, active ranging)

Citations

  1. ^ a b Koop & Schmolke, pp. 98–102
  2. ^ a b c d e f Gröner, p. 202
  3. ^ Koop & Schmolke, p. 33; Whitley, p. 25
  4. ^ Koop & Schmolke, p. 26
  5. ^ Koop & Schmolke, pp. 26, 33
  6. ^ Koop & Schmolke, pp. 98–100
  7. ^ Whitley, p. 201
  8. ^ Whitley, p. 215
  9. ^ Whitley, pp. 71–72
  10. ^ Koop & Schmolke, p. 33; Whitley, p. 26
  11. ^ a b c d Koop & Schmolke, p. 24
  12. ^ Whitley, pp. 205–206
  13. ^ Hervieux, pp. 110, 112–114; Koop & Schmolke, p. 102
  14. ^ Whitley, p. 96
  15. ^ Haarr, pp. 324–326; 328–329, 334–335, 339–342, 349; Rohwer, pp. 18–20; Whitley, pp. 97–100
  16. ^ Haarr, pp. 357, 360–364
  17. ^ Haar, pp. 366–369
  18. ^ Haarr, pp. 364–365
  19. ^ Koop & Schmolke, p. 100; Whitley, pp. 106–114
  20. ^ Koop & Schmolke, pp. 100–101; Whitley, pp. 124–129, 141–142, 165–168, 170–171
  21. ^ Koop & Schmolke, pp. 100–101; Rohwer, pp. 347, 394; Whitley, pp. 168, 170–171
  22. ^ Koop & Schmolke, p. 101; Whitley, pp. 191–192, 198

References

  • .
  • Haarr, Geirr H. (2009). The German Invasion of Norway, April 1940. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. .
  • Hervieux, Pierre (1980). "German Destroyer Minelaying Operations Off the English Coast (1940–1941)". In Roberts, John (ed.). Warship. Vol. IV. Greenwich, England: Conway Maritime Press. pp. 110–117. .
  • Koop, Gerhard & Schmolke, Klaus-Peter (2003). German Destroyers of World War II. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. .
  • .
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