The shame of the Tirpitz, the Bismarck and the headache of the entire British fleet
Probably, in the first lines it is worth immediately revealing everything written in the title, and there is no intrigue here: those who are knowledgeable in naval affairs will immediately understand who will be discussed. In my time I wrote quite a large number of articles about the cruisers of that war, and this trough was also called a cruiser, albeit an auxiliary one.
Who is to blame for the fact that the effectiveness of this pirate vessel turned out to be higher than that of the multi-thousand-ton giants, encased in armor and armed with guns of monstrous calibers? Who is to blame that two super battleships of the Kriegsmarine sank one ship with a displacement of 40 tons between them, and this misunderstanding sent ships with a displacement of 000 tons to the bottom?
And British fleet with its dozens of cruisers and hundreds of destroyers, it shouldn't stand aside either, since it was their ships that were being sunk. And all this "royal cavalry and royal army" couldn't do anything to counter... but who, actually?
The dry cargo ship Santa Cruz was launched in March 1938 and almost immediately purchased for its own needs by the Kriegsmarine. And in early 1940, it was converted into an auxiliary cruiser and given its own name, Thor.
In general, everything is like in the song from the cartoon: "What will you name the yacht..." The name turned out to be on topic, and one of the smallest raiders (only "Komet" was smaller) became one of the most terrible opponents of the allies.
But let's digress a little and try to imagine ourselves in the place of those who went to sea on these ships.
They left, knowing that they would most likely not return. To areas that are thousands of miles from their native shores, where there is no hope for any help, where the empire's fleet reigns, and whose ships they will have to hunt. And if something happens, you can only count on your crew.
Spiritual and romantic? Oh yes. One can only guess what kind of scumbags manned the crews that Germany called auxiliary cruisers and the rest of the world called raiders. And we'll go through history the most terrible of them.
Where Thor Began
The dry cargo ship Santa Cruz was launched on March 16, 1938 at the Deutsche Werft shipyard in Hamburg, and was one of two similar transport ships, but her sister ship was luckier: she was immediately bought by the Kriegsmarine and served as the submarine base Erwin Wassner.
Santa Cruz entered service in late 1939 - early 1940, and was converted into an auxiliary cruiser, receiving the designation "HSK 4" and the proper name "Thor".
The auxiliary cruiser Thor was commissioned on 15 March 1940. At that time, she was given the operational call sign Schiff 10. The British referred to Thor as Raider E, as she was the fifth raider discovered by British services.
The choice was quite good: Thor was a new ship, which meant that there were practically no problems with the machines and mechanisms. Yes, it was a steam-turbine ship, but even this turned out to be a plus: the raider did not consume scarce diesel fuel, its boilers ran on oil, freeing up fuel for submarines and units of the Deutschlands.
We had sorted out the basics, the new boilers and turbines could give the ship a speed of 17 knots, and the oil tanks provided a range of 40 miles. The large interior spaces of the dry cargo ship allowed for a lot of supplies, water, weapons and comfortable accommodation for the crew.
weaponry
As for the armament, there was no chic here. Naturally, such a phenomenon as a raider was armed on a residual basis. That is, they took from the arsenals the guns removed from the ships of the Kaiser's fleet.
In the case of the Thor, these were six 150 mm SK L/45 guns, model 1906, which had seen action in World War I. Most of the guns were pretty worn out, so the actual range of the barrels that had reached the end of their service life did not exceed 10 meters.
A 150mm gun on the deck of the Thor, disguised as a cable reel.
The ammunition complement of 300 high-explosive shells per gun consisted of shells with a base and head fuse. The shells also differed in the amount of explosives: with the same weight of 15,3 kg, shells with a base fuse carried 3,05 kg, and with a head fuse - 3,9 kg. A total of 1 high-explosive shells, 500 high-explosive tracer shells with a head fuse and 250 50-mm illumination shells were placed in the magazines.
Since Thor was smaller than its sister ships, the guns on it were placed slightly differently than on other ships:
- two were installed under the superstructure in front of the bridge;
- two - on the upper deck behind the superstructure;
- two - camouflaged in the extremities.
That is, the Thor could fire four guns simultaneously.
For the second voyage, the worn-out old guns were replaced with rapid-fire Tbk C/36 L/48 guns on a C/36 torpedo mount with a barrel length of 48 calibers, as on the Project 1936A destroyers.
Well, there was one more weapon: a 60 mm signal gun openly mounted on the forecastle, designed to give warning signals. It was a completely old gun with a firing range of no more than 4 meters. It was generally assumed that this gun and a searchlight were used to give signals to stop ships. And if the order was not followed, normal guns would fire to kill. But it turned out that the 000 mm boom gun was completely ineffective, and in the future, warning shots were fired from 60 mm guns.
Attention was also paid to anti-aircraft artillery. In the aft superstructure, a twin 37-mm anti-aircraft machine gun and four single-barrel 20-mm S/30 anti-aircraft machine guns with 2000 rounds per barrel were hidden. In general, small-caliber artillery, in addition to fighting aircraft, could normally make a hole in the radio room from which the ship under attack would begin transmitting, or a wooden sailing schooner (there were precedents).
In addition to the artillery, there were two twin-tube rotating 533-mm torpedo tubes, hidden behind the bulwark on the upper deck under the boats in the rear part of the superstructure. The torpedoes were steam-gas torpedoes, type S7a, capable of traveling 6 m at 000 knots, 44 m at 8 knots or 000 m at 40 knots. The warhead contained 14 kg of explosives. The torpedoes were equipped with a contact or magnetic detonator, but with both, they were extremely unreliable.
Unlike other first-wave raiders, Thor was not equipped to lay mines. Frankly, the ship was too small for a normal mine storeroom, but that was for the best: it is unknown what the Thor's list of victories would have been if it had also laid mines.
There is very little information about the composition of the SUAO. There is information that the "Thor" was equipped with two 3-meter rangefinders, which were located on each side above the radio room and the navigation room, in the rear part of the bridge. In principle, this was more than enough to fire at a distance of 15 km.
Well, the last thing that Thor was equipped with were two standard Arado Ar-196 sea reconnaissance floatplanes. The planes were lowered into the water one at a time by a lift behind the hold on the left side.
Disguise
This was one of the most important points. The later the raider was identified, the more chances he had for a successful outcome. Everything was decided by the images in Lloyd's reference books, so for the "stealth" mode the raider had to resemble a specific ship of another country.
The whole problem was that German merchant ships had a very specific appearance and it was difficult to camouflage them. It was not like attaching an additional funnel to a light cruiser, everything was much more complicated.
The Thor had two "doubles": the Soviet steamship Orsk and the Yugoslav Vir. The raider was more or less similar to them, and before going out to sea it was disguised as the obstacle breaker Sperrbrecher 26.
But even the relative external similarity was only half the story. Then the ship's silhouette was changed with the help of wooden shields and canvas. The smokestack was lengthened, the fan bells were moved, in addition to the real ones, large false ones were installed, it was possible to play well with the crane booms, turning them into different positions. Plus, each German raider had enough paint in the holds so that the crew could quickly repaint the ship if necessary.
A few words about rescue equipment. The peaceful steamship had two lifeboats for its crew, each for 50 people. The boat deck was located at the stern, the boats were placed on both sides. Since the raider's tasks were somewhat different, which required a larger crew, the boat deck was reconfigured and one boat was added to it on the left side, and a cutter appeared on the right, which was used by the boarding team. This was a very nimble watercraft, since its main task was to take the boarding team away from the ship, on which the fuse cords of the demolition charges were burning. The cutter could accommodate up to 30 people.
In addition to the boats and the launch, there were 20 inflatable rubber rafts measuring 5 x 2,5 m on board the Thor. Each raft could carry about 20 people. In general, considering that the raider's crew consisted of 350 people, then 580 places on life-saving equipment was a serious claim that it would be possible to be saved if something happened.
This is how the banana ship turned into an auxiliary, or as they were called then, commercial cruiser.
"Thor" at anchor in Kiel, behind it "Penguin", on the left is the training ship "Brummer".
Now that the ship has been introduced, we must also talk about its captain.
The captain of the Thor was the experienced 45-year-old Kapitan zur See (Captain First Rank in our language) Otto Koehler, who had fought in the First World War, during which he first served on the armored cruiser Roon, and then transferred to the submarine fleet and fought on the submarines UB-30 and UB-112. This, in general, testifies to certain qualities of Koehler, since people with a very specific mentality went to submarines. After the war, Koehler remained in the navy and was absolutely unpretentious in those conditions: he commanded a minesweeper, a tender, torpedo boats, even a training sailboat - but he did not go into the commercial navy.
Köhler was considered a very competent captain and navigator (he was a navigator on the light cruiser Karlsruhe for 3 years), and was famous for his truly Nordic calm, straightforwardness, and practicality. Köhler very quickly got along with the crew and gained the authority that allowed them to accomplish what the Thor crew accomplished.
By the way, the name "Thor" for the ship was chosen by Kohler himself. Until the flag was raised in March 1940, the ship was called HSK-4.
So, on March 15, 1940, the ship raised its flag and entered service with the Kriegsmarine as the auxiliary cruiser Thor. For three months, camouflaged as Sperrbrecher 26, the cruiser underwent sea trials and artillery firing, after which it went to Kiel for assembly. In Kiel, everything unnecessary was thrown off the ship (including the 60 mm cannon), everything necessary was loaded, and on June 6, 1940, Thor set out on its first voyage.
Step into the unknown
At 21:30, under cover of bad weather, Thor, still disguised as Sperrbrecher 26, escorted by the destroyers Falke, Jaguar and the real breakthrough ship Sperrbrecher IV, set out to sea and headed for the Danish Straits.
Then, having replaced the escort with the more effective submarine hunters Uj-A, Uj-C and Uj-D in those waters, on June 8, Thor entered the secluded Sørgulen Fjord, 50 miles north of Bergen. There, in two days of hard work, the crew turned Thor into the Soviet ship Orsk from Odessa, painting the hull and funnel black, all the superstructures white and raising the Soviet flag on the mast.
On the night of June 12, in the fog, accompanied by minesweepers, the raider went out to sea. And, literally the next morning, "Tor"-"Orsk" passed the first checks, since the weather improved and the raider was flown several times by aircraft from different countries, including a German reconnaissance aircraft. But without incident, "Tor" went out into the North Atlantic and headed for the Azores.
In general, the main area of activity for the raider was defined as the southern part of the Atlantic Ocean, with the Indian and Pacific Oceans as backup. Therefore, after June 20, the "Thor" changed its appearance once again, turning into the Yugoslav "Vir": the presence of a Soviet steamship in those waters would have looked more than strange.
First victories
The first ship that the Germans stopped was the Dutch steamer Kertosono (9 GRT), which with its name painted over was sailing from New Orleans to Freetown. This happened on July 289, 1. The Dutch surrendered without any problems, and the cargo found in the holds (1940 tons of wood, 1300 tons of paper, 800 tons of steel, 280 tons of asphalt, 250 tractors, gasoline and machine oil in barrels, machine tools and spare parts for them) was considered so valuable by Kohler that he sent the steamer to Lorien under the command of a 12-man prize crew. Kertosono successfully arrived in Lorien (France) and was subsequently used as a submarine base.
On July 5, Thor crossed the equator, and on July 7, observers spotted a steamship, which they identified as British because of the easily recognizable 102mm deck gun mounted on the stern.
Having seen the pursuer, the British vessel turned east, increased speed and tried to escape. The chase lasted for two hours, after which, from a distance of about 8 kilometers, the Germans fired three salvos from four starboard guns. After the third, the British steamer stopped. The crew did not try to report the attack by radio and did not fire back from the cannon. The prize crew reported that the steamer "Delambre" (7032 GRT) was indeed British, traveling from Rio de Janeiro to Liverpool with a cargo of cotton and skins. The prize crew destroyed the steamer with demolition charges, the crew was taken to the "Thor".
On board the raider, Koehler learned some interesting details from the captain of the Delambre, Pratt: it turns out that Pratt did not give the order to send an SOS by radio and open fire from the gun, because he mistook the Thor for a British ship! Interesting fact: Pratt had already been in a similar situation during the First World War, when his transport was sunk by the German raider Mowe. But according to the British captain, he could not even imagine that such a small ship would turn out to be a German raider!
On July 9, after the third warning shot, another candidate for sinking was stopped. The Belgian steamship Bruges (4983 GRT) with a cargo of wheat, en route from Mar del Plata to Freetown, was unlucky. A piquant detail: the Germans captured the former German ship Kybfels, captured by the British in 1914 and sold to a Belgian company. The former German steamship was also sunk using explosive charges.
On July 14, the British transport Gracefield (4631 GRT) was stopped, sailing from Montevideo to Freetown and London with a cargo of 7 tons of wheat. The ship was stopped almost at the end of the day, it was decided not to arrange for the delivery of explosive charges to the British, but to sink the transport with a torpedo. But one torpedo was not enough for Gracefield, so Koehler spent another 400 shells.
First blood
If all the previous attacks were bloodless, then the next incident, alas, was not.
On July 16, Thor crept up to the heavily smoking steamship almost unnoticed in its own smoke. But, approaching the ship, the Germans discovered two guns on the stern. Koehler ordered to open fire to kill without warning shots, in order to avoid an unnecessary battle. With the third salvo, the German gunners achieved coverage, and with the fourth they set the ship on fire, hitting the stern. Only after this did the radio of the attacked steamship start working, sending the signal "QQQQ" (I am under attack by an unknown ship) and a man was seen running to the stern guns. Koehler ordered to continue firing, the attacked steamship received two more hits, including one in the wheelhouse. The steamship stopped, the transmission stopped and the crew began to abandon the ship.
The boarding party found out that the British coal carrier Wendover (5489 GRT), heading from Great Britain to Buenos Aires with 7250 tons of coal, had been attacked. Of the forty crew members, two were killed in the shelling, including the radio operator. Two more died of wounds on board the raider. The Germans buried the dead with full honors, and sent the steamship to the bottom with explosive charges.
The day after this battle, fortune smiled on the Germans: the Dutch dry cargo ship Tela (3777 GRT) was stopped, sailing from Rosario (Argentina) to Liverpool with 489 tons of wheat, 2407 tons of corn and 2 tons of millet, but the most valuable were 555 tons of frozen poultry: turkeys, chickens and ducks. After all the food was transferred to the raider (and the number of people wanting to eat there was constantly increasing), the ship was sunk with explosive charges.
In his diary, Köhler noted that the ship had become a bit crowded: the number of prisoners had reached almost two hundred people (194), but overall the raider's actions were successful. In 17 days, sinking 6 ships with a total tonnage of over 35 thousand tons, and, apart from the collier, all were carrying food to Britain - this was a serious move. The command also held the same opinion and awarded 30 people from the crew with the Iron Cross of the 2nd class. A radiogram about this arrived on July 20, and on the same day a second one arrived, which spoke of sending the tanker Rekum to the Thor.
From the documents found on the Tela, the Germans received a description of the trade "Route 211", on which, in fact, the "Thor" was. And it was on this route that the raider met the last four ships. Naturally, Koehler decided to stay in this area and continue the search, but the ocean seemed to have died out, and for 10 days the search was fruitless. Even the first seaplane raised on the ship could not find anyone.
Fight in earnest
After 11 days of searching, masts finally appeared on the horizon. With great enthusiasm, the Thor approached, but, alas, the catch was not quite what the Germans had expected.
In fact, on July 17, having realized that ships were disappearing in the ocean, and also having received information from sailors who were captured on another raider (the “Widder” was operating in approximately the same area, only further north), the commander of the South American Division of the American-West Indies Station, British Rear Admiral Henry Harwood, realized that there was at least one more German raider on the communications.
In general, this is an unusual case: usually, the Kriegsmarine leadership very clearly placed the raiders across the oceans so that they would not interfere with each other. Perhaps, the episode with the Thor and the Widder is the only one in the entire war when the operations of one ship affected the actions of another.
But nevertheless: the auxiliary cruiser Alcantara (22 GRT), a former ocean liner with 209 passengers, was sent to patrol the Pernambuco - Trinidad Island area. It was a relatively new (1219) steamship, with a maximum speed of 1928 knots and armed with eight 22 mm guns and two 152 mm anti-aircraft guns.
Auxiliary cruiser Alcantara
The ships were comparable in terms of combat capabilities, but the British had a very large (5 knots) advantage in speed. When Koehler realized that he was facing a British auxiliary cruiser, he gave the command to "go away" according to instructions. "Thor" turned around and began to move away at full speed, but it was not to be. "Alcantara", using its speed advantage, began to catch up with the German raider.
With no other options, Koehler decided to give battle, hoping to damage the British ship enough to break away and escape. Slowing down to 15 knots so that the vibrations would not interfere with his fire, Thor turned to starboard, raised her battle flag and fired her first salvo from a range of approximately 13 metres. This happened at 800:13. At this point, Alcantara began making radio and searchlight inquiries, as Captain Igram was not sure that it was a raider. There was also the possibility that the panicked crew of the small steamer was simply trying its best to escape from a larger pursuer.
In general, a battle between two completely unarmored ships is a risk for both sides. And a question of military luck, multiplied by the training of the crew.
The Germans had better training and luck. When the Thor fired the first salvo, the Alcantara turned to the right to fire a full broadside. And it came under the German shells, which covered the target. Plus, the clearly more experienced Koehler positioned the ship so that the sun would blind the British gunners. And the Thor began to pound the Alcantara, and with direct hits. A shell hit the stern, then between the bridge and the smokestack, breaking the steam line, the third broke the control cables for gun #4, but the fourth hit the bow right in the area of the waterline. That is, it caused flooding. Well, another salvo again damaged the fire control system of the British cruiser.
The Alcantara crews could do little in such conditions, so, in fact, the only decent damage was caused by a shell that destroyed a motor launch and damaged a torpedo tube. At 13-13 the ships were at the minimum distance from each other during the entire battle - 9 kilometers. This is a pistol range by ship standards, so Koehler turned his ship by the stern, continuing to fire from the stern gun and began to put up a smoke screen with the aim of getting away from sin under its cover. But after a series of maneuvers, the ships were again in sight of each other and at 13.29 Thor opened fire again, and Alcantara did so a little later.
The result of the exchange of fire was that the Alcantara lost its speed and stopped, listing slightly to port. As much as Koehler wanted to win by finishing off the British ship, reason prevailed, and the captain zur See ordered a ceasefire and to start laying a smoke screen again for the retreat.
Kohler's practicality was justified by two things: first, even one shell that hit "where it shouldn't" could have put an end to the entire campaign of the Thor. Second, the Alcantara had probably already reported the German raider by radio, and there was a possibility that the Admiralty would send ships to help its auxiliary cruiser.
And here Kohler turned out to be absolutely right: the British command assessed the threat posed by the German raider and sent TWO heavy cruisers at once to intercept: the Dorsetshire left Freetown, and the Cumberland left Simonstown.
Heavy cruiser Dorsetshire
Any of these ships would have reduced Thor to rubble, so the Kriegsmarine command approved Kohler's decision, recognizing it as absolutely correct.
In the end, Thor, having fired 284 shells during the battle, calmly left under the cover of smoke, and Alcantara remained at the scene of the battle. But in the end, the British sailors were able to get going and the cruiser limped to Rio de Janeiro, where it was stopped for repairs. The most unpleasant thing in the situation was that one of the German shells disabled the pump control system, because of which Alcantara might not have reached Rio. But if the British shot so-so, then they fought for the life of the ship quite successfully, and they dragged the cruiser, beaten by the Germans, to the port.
And Thor calmly went to the latitude of the Tristan da Cunha islands, from where it turned east, into the “dead zone”, where the team began repairs.
Holidays in the South Seas
Throughout August 1940, Thor did not participate in combat operations, dealing with pressing issues: repairs, cleaning boilers, painting, and another change of appearance. On August 25, there was a meeting with the tanker Rekum. The meeting was somewhat overshadowed by the news that the tanker would not be able to pick up three hundred prisoners who were "guests" on the raider, and would have to share food supplies with the tanker's crew (like, you'll still loot, gentlemen pirates).
Transport "Rekum"
The Thor's floatplane flew around the meeting area and, finding no one, the ships spent two days pumping fuel to the Thor. Having taken on 1500 tons of oil, handed over mail and a copy of the combat log, the Thor left for Brazilian waters. On August 30, a radiogram arrived announcing that Kähler had been awarded the Iron Cross 1st Class and another 50 people had been awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class.
But the raider's "vacation" lasted until September 26, when the crew of the scout "Arado" noticed a large vessel, which the raider stopped an hour later, firing two warning shots. It was the Norwegian whaling base "Kosmos" (17 GRT), heading from Walvis Bay to Curacao with 801 tons of whale oil on board.
The prize was very valuable (Kohler received a reprimand from the command for sinking the Kosmos), but the captain of the raider decided to sink it: the whaler's destination port was very close, the ship would be missed very soon, there was little fuel on the Kosmos, it was not enough to get to Europe, and the question of camouflage arose. Therefore, the Kosmos went to the bottom, and Koehler was criticized by the command. The Kosmos became the largest ship destroyed by the raider in all time.
On October 8, the refrigerator ship Natia (8 GRT), sailing from Southampton to Buenos Aires (apparently for food), happened to be on the Thor's way. Due to rough seas and the loss of a boat, Koehler ordered the ship to be torpedoed, but it took several more shells for the refrigerator ship to sink to the bottom.
Torpedo hits Natia
For the next month, Thor was looking for two things at once: enemy ships and a place to take prisoners, the number of which had reached 368 people, i.e. exceeded the number of crew members. Plus, constant breakdowns in the boilers required spare parts.
The command sent the blockade runner Rio Grande to meet Thor, which the raider met only on November 9.
The supply company provided the necessary tubes, pressure gauges, valves and other spare parts, various supplies and 246 tons of fuel. Kahler happily sent all the prisoners to the Rio Grande, leaving only the wounded and four captains from the British ships on the raider. To guard such a large number of prisoners, fifteen people led by a non-commissioned officer had to be transferred to the Rio Grande.
On November 16, the blockade runner left and reached Bordeaux on December 13. And "Thor" headed south to operate on the route from the mouth of the La Plata to the Cape of Good Hope.
But the trade routes were empty. The British were not fools and changed the usual routes of single ships. Plus the Admiralty decided to restore order in the waters there, on November 24 Kohler received a report from the Kriegsmarine headquarters, which stated the presence in the area of 1 battleship, 4 heavy, 6 light and 11 auxiliary cruisers. Plus, at the beginning of December, three more auxiliary cruisers, transferred from Australia, joined the British ships.
And these actions played their role: on the foggy morning of December 5, at 5.31, German signalmen spotted a very large vessel at a distance of about 4 miles. Koehler recognized the ship as a British auxiliary cruiser and gave the order to sound the alarm, turn left to the southwest and go full speed, hoping to hide in the fog. "Thor" began to flee, but the British were not fools and in the thick fog they followed the raider, gradually catching up with the German ship.
And when the ships emerged from the fog, Kohler and his crew were able to assess the size of their pursuer: it was a ship with a displacement of about twenty thousand tons (five times more than the Thor) and was clearly faster than the German raider.
It was the Carnarvon Castle (20 GRT), a former cargo-passenger liner, and the fastest on the pre-war route to South Africa. Its maximum speed was about 122 knots. The armament was standard for British auxiliary cruisers: eight old 20 mm guns, two 152 mm anti-aircraft guns and six Lewis machine guns. In principle, the opponents were equal, the only question was the condition of the guns and the training of the crew.
The Castle began to signal with its searchlight, demanding that the ship stop and identify itself. The Thor continued on its course. Around 7 a.m., English Captain Hardy got fed up with all this and ordered the flag signal to be raised, demanding that the ship stop and fire a warning shot.
It was a usual thing, Kohler changed course, set the Thor to the sun and fired a salvo at the Castle from 13 km. The British expected such a turn of events, because they fired a salvo almost simultaneously with the Germans. A carousel began at a distance of 8-10 kilometers, the ships went in a circle, showering each other with shells. At 7.30, the German torpedomen fired two torpedoes at the British ship, but they missed.
At 8.03, the British auxiliary cruiser suddenly ceased firing, turned north and began to withdraw, dropping three smoke buoys for cover. The Germans fired at the retreating ship, after which Thor turned south and also began to withdraw.
It was later discovered that during the hour of combat, trained German gunners had fired nine 150mm shells into Carnarvon Castle, which had caused several inconvenient fires. BUT the main damage had come from the last one, which had hit the bridge and destroyed the fire control instruments. In addition, one of the shells had made a hole through which water had flooded the artillery magazine.
Damage to Carnarvon Castle
If Thor had wanted to finish off the enemy, it would have been very easy to do. The damaged Carnarvon Castle crawled for two days to Montevideo, where it stopped for repairs.
Carnarvon Castle listing as it approaches Montevideo
But "Thor" did not receive any damage, the fire of the British gunners was unusually inaccurate. The only damage can be considered that the recoil mechanisms of some guns began to jam due to frequent (some fired more than a hundred shells) shooting. After all, in an hour of battle, the German gunners fired 593 shells.
There was about a third of the ammunition left in the magazines, and the Kriegsmarine command, although congratulating Kohler on his victory, hinted that engaging in such naval battles twice was clearly too much. But the reproach was indeed light, since, to be fair, the Thor simply could not escape from its faster opponents both times.
Merry Christmas
The shell consumption forced Koehler to request replenishment of the ship's supplies. And on December 21, at the secret point F, "Thor" met with a supply tanker, from which it took on fuel, shells and food. The heavy cruiser "Admiral Scheer" also came to the meeting point for fuel. A short propaganda film was even made about this meeting.
On December 27, the festivities continued: the naval tanker Nordmark approached the meeting point, towing the Scheer prize, the British refrigerated vessel Duquesa, with a cargo of 15 million eggs and 3500 tons of meat, which became a nice New Year's gift for the crews.
"Duquesa"
At Christmas, Köhler received a special gift: he was awarded the Knight's Cross.
The ship commanders held a meeting to discuss their future plans. Koehler rejected the proposal of the Scheer commander and his old friend Kapitän zur See Kranke regarding joint action, since in such a duet the Thor would be destined to be a floating prison, and no medals are given for such service. In addition, the Thor was significantly inferior to the Scheer in speed, so the Scheer went to plunder north of the 30th parallel, and the Thor went south.
January 1941 turned out to be absolutely unsuccessful, and the Thor, having replenished its supplies and finally got rid of all the prisoners, went beyond the equator, once again changing its appearance and turning into the non-existent Yugoslav steamship Vrats.
Drying brushes after another repainting of "Thor".
On February 15, 1941, Thor met the tanker Eurofeld, which filled the raider's oil tanks, and the supply ship Alsterufer, which delivered mail to Thor, a thousand 150 mm shells, 5 torpedoes, two spare engines for Arado, all kinds of supplies, and even reinforcements to replace those lost and killed.
The reloading of the delivered cargo took quite a long time, and then the mechanics of Thor began repairing the boilers, replacing half of the burnt-out smoke tubes.
Only on March 16 did a new search begin, which was initially unsuccessful (one ship managed to break away, the second turned out to be Spanish) and only on March 25 was another ship discovered.
The Tragedy of the Britannia
It was the cargo-passenger liner Britannia (8799 GRT), which had left Liverpool on 11 March with 327 passengers, many of them RAF and Royal Navy personnel, and about 200 crew.
The Britannia actively maneuvered, laid a smoke screen, and fired back at the raider with its stern gun. The Germans spent 159 shells before the steamer stopped, having taken several hits. But before that, the Britannia's radio operators raised a decent noise on the air.
Captain Koehler was put in a difficult situation: taking on board so many prisoners, half of whom had military experience, would be dangerous. In addition, Koehler was informed that a British warship was approaching the battle area, which was 112 miles from the Thor.
Koehler ordered the crew and passengers to abandon ship and sank it with artillery. He did not take prisoners on board, which resulted in the greatest loss of life from German raiders in the entire war.
After picking up one man who had been carried overboard during the chase and reporting by radiogram to headquarters that more than 520 people were currently drifting at sea, Koehler explained the reason for his departure and left the area.
In general, it turned out strange: later they never found out what kind of ship was sending signals that it was coming to help, but it is a fact that no one came to help the passengers of the Britannia that day. Only on the fourth day were the first people in distress saved, and out of the 527 people on board the Britannia, 122 crew members and 127 passengers died. True, a large number of the crew members, consisting of Asians, died primarily due to the fault of British soldiers who started a battle for places in the lifeboats.
On the same day, March 25, at 17.13:5047, the raider stopped the Swedish collier Trolleholm (19.06 GRT) with a signal shot, with a cargo of coal from Newcastle to Port Said via Cape Town on a British charter. The ship was sunk at 31:XNUMX with explosive charges, and its crew of XNUMX people transferred to the cruiser.
Third fight
At 6.15 a.m. on April 4, 900 miles west of the Cape Verde Islands, the Thor's signalmen spotted a ship heading in the opposite direction. The ship did not maneuver, and the Germans assumed it was neutral, but just in case, a combat alert was declared. However, when the ships approached to a distance of less than 20 km, Kohler ordered the German flag to be raised and a warning shot fired in the direction of the ship.
And then it turned out that a British auxiliary cruiser was coming towards them, quite normally armed. The third for the raid. And Kohler ordered to open fire from all guns, which was done at 6.46.
The enemy was identified as the auxiliary cruiser Voltaire (13245 GRT), armed with the standard eight 152mm guns and two 76,2mm anti-aircraft guns.
The battle began at a dagger-like distance of 9 kilometers. The first salvo of the German raider hit the bridge, destroying the radio room and the electric generator of the fire control system. The British cruiser responded with a salvo, but since the control system was destroyed, the British fired completely inaccurately. Suffice it to say that during the entire battle, the only success that the British achieved was the torn off antenna of the "Thor" by a shell flying over the ship.
And the Germans fired a salvo every 6 seconds and hit. At 7.15 the torpedomen fired a torpedo, but missed again at a distance of 7 meters. But the gunners were able to destroy the steering control and as a result the burning Voltaire began to describe a circle at a speed of 000 knots, continuing to fire from two guns.
But the Germans also began to have problems: the guns began to fail again due to overheating, glycerin was leaking from the recoil motors. Thus, guns No. 3, 4 and 5 stopped firing. Koehler turned the Thor around and began firing from the starboard guns, but they also soon fell silent. The Thor began to maneuver to give the torpedo men another opportunity to attack, but at 8.06:XNUMX the British lowered their flag.
The flaming Voltaire continued to circle and sank at 8.35. The Thor remained in the area for five hours, fishing the British ship's crew out of the water. Apparently, the Britannia incident was not typical for Kohler and his crew. Of the 269 crew members, 197 were saved, including Captain Blackburn.
In 55 minutes of combat, the Thor's gunners fired 724 shells, more than half of their ammunition. When the antenna was repaired, a report on the battle was sent to Berlin, and here the Kriegsmarine made a stupid mistake by blaring about the success to the whole world. Thus, the British Admiralty learned about the fate of the Voltaire and the approximate area of the Thor's raid. The crew had to work again, turning the Thor into the Soviet Orsk.
On 12-13 April a rendezvous with a supply tanker took place, during which Thor received fresh provisions and surrendered 170 of the 227 prisoners.
On 16 April, Thor intercepted her last victim on this voyage. The victim was the Swedish ore carrier Sir Ernest Cassel (7739 GRT), which was heading to Lorenzo Marques to pick up a load of ore for Great Britain. The ore carrier was sunk with explosive charges.
Two days later, Thor moved towards the Bay of Biscay, where after a short stop in Cherbourg, on April 30, 1941, having spent 329 days at sea and covered 57 nautical miles during this time, the raider stood at the berth of her native Deutsche Werft in Finkenwerder.
The results of the combat activities of Captain zur See Otto Köhler and his crew were 12 sunken and captured as prizes ships with a total capacity of 96 GRT, as well as three battles with auxiliary enemy cruisers. During the campaign, only three people died on the raider itself.
Raider's Hike Map
Then the paths of Keller and Thor diverged; the captain no longer went to sea, continuing to serve on shore.
Between trips
The Thor crew went to rest, and the Deutsche Werft shipyard was in full swing: preparations for the second raid began. The old and rather worn-out guns were removed and replaced with 150-mm Tbk C/36 guns, the same as on the Type 1936A destroyers. In addition to the guns, there was a modern fire control system with new rangefinders. The biggest innovation was the radar. True, the radar still had to be sorted out.
Well, the captain was also new: Kapitan zur See Günther Gumprich was appointed to replace Köhler.
Together with the captain, the crew was also renewed, which was logical, after a year of sailing, many wanted to walk on land. However, there were those who decided to go on the "Thor" again in search of adventure. There were quite a few of them: 6 officers and 43 sailors. That is, a fifth of the new crew were veterans of the first voyage.
Finally, all preparations were completed, and on November 19, 1941, Thor set out on her second voyage. According to the headquarters plans, Thor was to replace the raider Kormoran, which was causing trouble in the Indian Ocean. But on that very day, Kormoran clashed with the light cruiser Sydney, as a result of which both ships sank to the bottom of the sea. Things did not go as planned for Thor either: the voyage ended almost before it had begun. In the November fog and darkness, at 21.39:20.11.1941 on November 1356, XNUMX, Thor rammed the Swedish ore carrier Botnia (XNUMX GRT), which was anchored in the roadstead and was poorly lit for wartime. The ore carrier sank, and Thor went to the shipyard for repairs.
"Thor" in barrier-breaker livery
But, they say, it turned out even better, because English intelligence worked well and Thor was in for a more than hot reception in the area of the straits. But even without that, it became clear that they would have to break through the English Channel, since in other areas everything was tightly blocked by the British fleet.
On December 2, Thor's second voyage began, but it was only on January 17 of the following year, 1942, that the raider broke out into operational space. The command tasked Gumprich with repeating the brilliant success of the auxiliary cruiser Penguin commander Kruder and attempting to capture the Allied whaling fleet in Antarctic waters.
But it turned out that the new captain of the Thor did not have the luck of the old one. The radar worked, and radio intercepts showed that whalers were present in the area where the Thor had arrived, and the scout Arado made more than 80 flights - and all to no avail, in the end Gumprich gave up and decided to change the search area, without finding the whalers.
Meanwhile, it was already March 1942, but only on March 23rd, Thor was able to actually open its combat account:
The Greek transport Pagasitikos (3942 GRT), which was sailing from Andros to Montevideo with a cargo of coal, was stopped and sunk by a torpedo. 33 crew members were captured.
Transport "Pagasitikos"
Next came a rendezvous with the supply ship Regensburg, which refueled the Thor and transferred provisions, and Gumprich used the supply ship as a radar target to calibrate his radar at night. It turned out that the radar could see a ship-type target at a range of only 14,5 km, but in the iceberg-filled Antarctic waters, that was much better than nothing.
New interception tactics
And while all these periods of inaction lasted, Gumprich developed a new tactic for the Thor: following the example of the pilots of the First World War, the ship's Arado was equipped with a device very similar to those with which pilots initially fought balloons and airplanes: a weight on a rope. Only Gumprich intended to use such a simple device to tear the ship's antennas, depriving the ships of the opportunity to call for help or report what was happening.
And already on March 30, an opportunity presented itself to test the new tactics in action: "Thor" discovered the transport "Wellpark" (4649 GRT) and sent "Arado" to try to tear off the antenna and fire machine guns at the wheelhouse and bridge.
The captain of the British vessel Alexander Kant was not deceived by the American naval signs painted on the hull and wings of the Arado, and therefore the German reconnaissance aircraft was met with a warm welcome from all guns. The plane was damaged, but was able to tear the antenna, which decided the fate of the Wellpark. With the second salvo, the gunners of the Thor covered the British ship and achieved two hits. The crew abandoned the ship, and the boarding team found out that the Wellpark was carrying spare parts for aircraft and armored vehicles, which decided the fate of the ship: it was sent to the bottom with explosive charges. During the shelling, seven people died, the remaining 41 were taken prisoner.
Captain zur See Gumprich called this tactic "silent", and he liked it. "Detection of the ship - breaking the antenna - stopping the ship" with the complete inability of the attacked ship to call for help was indeed a good solution. Its effectiveness was finally tested on April 1, when the "Arado", disguised as an American plane, detected another ship.
"Arado-196" and "Thor"
"Thor" approached, and the seaplane flew again to the discovered ship. Approaching from the sun, "Arado" tore off the antenna and dropped two 50-kg bombs (they missed the ship). The anti-aircraft gunners on the attacked ship greeted the Germans (the navigator-observer was wounded), but after 17 minutes, shells from "Thor" began to explode around the victim, which turned out to be the British steamship "Willesden" (4563 GRT), sailing from New York to Alexandria.
The British responded with as many as six shots from a 102 mm cannon mounted on the stern, but they were unable to hit the Thor. However, the German raider's shells set fire to the cargo placed on the deck - oil in barrels.
The crew abandoned the burning ship and the Willesden was finished off by a torpedo.
On April 3, the Norwegian steamship Aust (5 GRT) was stopped, sailing from Brooklyn to Bombay with military cargo, including army vehicles. Everything went according to the tried and tested scenario: first, a seaplane spotted the ship and aimed its Thor at it, then tore off the antenna and dropped (again without result) two bombs, and after several salvos, the transport stopped at approximately 630 miles. The boarding team sent the Aust to the bottom with the help of demolition charges.
And on April 10, they had to test the radar in action. In the evening, at about 19 p.m., a single target was detected, which the Thor initially mistook for an auxiliary cruiser. The raider, guided by the radar data, crept up close (the distance was 2 m) and, having made sure that it was not a military ship and not neutral, attacked, launching two torpedoes and firing a salvo from the guns. The torpedoes, as usual, missed, as did the first salvo, but after the second, a fire broke out on the ship.
Gumprich ordered the firing to cease, but then the searchlight showed that the burning ship was heading for a ram. The guns opened fire again and fired another 14 salvos before the ship lost its speed. It so happened that all the boats of the ship under attack were destroyed, and the crew began to simply jump into the water. The Thor lowered its boats and began to rescue the enemy crew. It took more than three hours to rescue the crew of the sinking ship from the water in the darkness.
It turned out that the British Kirkpool (4 GRT) was attacked, no one was going to ram Thor, it was just that after the first hit to the wheelhouse the steering wheel was left unattended. The transport was finished off with a torpedo.
Sinking Kirkpool
Gumprich had every reason to be satisfied: five ships sunk with a total tonnage of 23 GRT in 626 days. After this event, Thor received orders to leave the South Atlantic and go on raiding missions in the Indian Ocean.
Indian Ocean
On May 6, 1500 miles off the west coast of Australia, the air controller spotted another target: the cargo-passenger liner Nankin (7 GRT), en route from Fremantle to Bombay with general cargo and passengers, including military personnel. The liner also spotted an aircraft, and in its honor they gave a salute from anti-aircraft guns and personal weapons the military.
The first attempt to tear off the antenna failed, so the pilot made another approach under fire and everything worked out. Then the Thor guns came into play, which began firing at the ship, which was zigzagging from a distance of 12 meters. The British fired back from the cannon mounted on the stern, making 000 shots, but all the shells missed.
Only after an hour and a half of chase and shooting, the Germans hit the Nanking for the first time, which was more than enough: Captain Stratford ordered the crew and passengers to abandon the ship. But everything turned out so that the passengers soon returned: with the help of the ship's English mechanics, the Germans repaired the damage to the engines, transferred all the prisoners to the Nanking and set off with two ships to meet the supply ship Regensburg.
Gumprich renamed the Nankin to Leuthen, transferred some supplies from it to the raider, and the supply ship and the prize left for Japan, while Thor continued its raiding.
The next incident occurred almost a month later, on the night of June 14. Radar showed the presence of a vessel and Thor was able to approach it undetected to a distance of 1 meters. And from this distance the gunners fired a salvo in the hope of hitting the wheelhouse and bridge.
The result was horrific: the attacked vessel turned out to be the tanker Olivia (6 GRT), sailing fully loaded from Abadan with a crew of 307 people on board.
A wall of fire arose in the place of the tanker after the hits, and only one person was saved – an artilleryman thrown from the deck by the explosion. However, it later became known that during the fire, 12 people from the crew (4 Dutch and 8 Malays) were able to lower a boat and escape. After 30 days, they were able to reach Madagascar, but only 3 Dutch and one Malay survived.
On June 19, in the same area, a tanker sailing from Abadan was stopped again. This time, everything developed according to the classics: the Arado fired at the ship's bridge, tore off the radio antenna and missed with bombs. After a warning shot from a cannon, the Norwegian tanker Herborg (7 GRT) stopped. The tanker was carrying 892 tons of crude oil from Abadan to Fremantle. It was very stupid to sink such a valuable prize, and Gumprich, having renamed the tanker Hohenfriedberg, sent the prize to Japan, where it arrived on July 11.
Later converted into a blockade runner and sent to France, she was intercepted by the British heavy cruiser Sussex on 26 February and sunk.
On July 4, another Norwegian tanker, Madrono (5 GRT), was captured just as quietly, sailing in ballast (empty) from Melbourne to Abadan. Gumprich named the prize Rossbach and also sent it to Japan.
On July 20, Thor encountered the British refrigerator ship Indus (5 GRT). Captain Brian decided not to surrender without a fight, sent the gunners to the only gun on the stern, the radio operator to the radio, and he himself stood at the wheel and began to dodge the Thor's shells at full speed. But it was not his day.
Several ships received the Indus's radio signals, but they were all far away and could not come to the rescue. The Indus's gunners fired two shots, then a German shell destroyed the gun and killed the crew commander, then another shell flew into the radio room and killed the radio operator, who remained at his post until the end. But the engine crew, consisting mainly of people from Asia, abandoned the engines at the first hits and began to save themselves. The ship was burning so badly that there was no point in boarding it, so after pulling 49 crew members out of the water, Thor left the Indus to burn out.
"Hindu" became the last, tenth victim of "Thor" in the second campaign.
The raider remained in the Indian Ocean for some time, and then received orders to go to Japan for repairs, rest, and replenishment of supplies. On August 30, Thor headed towards Japan, and on October 10, dropped anchor in Yokohama.
The second voyage lasted 314 days, during which time Thor destroyed 10 ships with a total tonnage of 55 GRT (according to other sources, 587 GRT).
A very peculiar ending
In Japan, the raider had to prepare for its third voyage, but it turned out to be something completely stupid. On October 30, 1942, exactly one year after Thor left Kiel, the work was almost finished. Thor was moored to the German tanker Uckermark, which all connoisseurs of maritime history knew by its first name, Altmark, a supply ship for the heavy cruiser Admiral Graf Spee in 1939. On Uckermark, the tanks were being cleaned, and the Thor's crew was clearly relaxing.
During these days, the first international friendly football match between the Japanese and German national teams took place. The sailors from the Thor crew also played on the field. Incidentally, the Japanese won with a score of 8:7. And that day, there were guests on board the raider, journalists, for whom a show of the ship was organized. After lunch, Gumprich left on a boat to visit the Nanjing, which he had captured earlier.
At 13.20, three explosions were heard on the tanker one after another. The third, the strongest, demolished the bridge of the Uckermark and damaged the superstructure of the Thor. When part of the tanker's bridge fell, one end landed on the raider and the other on the quay wall, which allowed people to leave the burning ship. The ignited oil from the tanker's tanks began to spill over the surface of the harbor, and as a result, the Thor, already damaged by the explosions and debris from the tanker, burned to the ground.
Gumprich returned and organized the rescue of people in the water. However, as a result of the explosion and fire, 13 people from the raider's crew, 53 people from the "Uckermark" crew died, and the number of Japanese and Chinese shipyard workers who died remains unknown. No official investigation was conducted, but possible causes of the disaster could have been a spark from the work being carried out or smoking by one of the workers in the tanks saturated with oil vapors.
This is how the story of the most successful surface ship of the Kriegsmarine ended, frankly absurdly.
This is where the story of the “most warlike” auxiliary cruiser of the Third Reich ended.
In general, of course, the situation is unique in many ways.
Small (only the Komet was smaller) in size, the Thor spent 642 days in campaigns, sank an auxiliary cruiser and sent two for serious repairs, sent 17 merchant ships to the bottom and captured 4 as prizes. Damaged the enemy in the astonishing amount of 152 GRT. Fought three naval battles, from which she emerged victorious.
Plus, the new method of using an onboard seaplane resulted in a very effective "silent" tactic during the second campaign. Yes, Captain Gumprich did not have the luck and calculation of Kohler, but nevertheless, everything worked out perfectly for him too.
When the efficiency of a steamship, with a displacement smaller than a cruiser, unarmored and armed with six old guns, exceeds the efficiency of a battleship, this indicates that the strategy was chosen crookedly.
Yes, almost all ships of the Kriegsmarine were involved in raiding, from the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau to the Komet and Thor. The question is who was more effective. And who knows, if the explosions that marked the end of the auxiliary cruiser Thor's career had not occurred on that day, November 30, what the final score of this ship might have been.
So it turned out very well, although, of course, the raider’s fate was more than remarkable even without it.
Sources:
Galinya V. Hitler's Raiders. Auxiliary Cruisers of the Kriegsmarine. Eksmo. Moscow, 2009.
Patyanin S., Morozov M., Nagirnyak V. Kriegsmarine. The Navy of the Third Reich. Eksmo. Moscow, 2009.
Freivogel Z. Deutsche Hilfskreuzer des Zweiten Weltkriegs
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