German torpedo boat Möwe


Möwe was the lead ship of her class of six torpedo boats built for the German Navy. The boat made multiple non-intervention patrols during the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s. During the Norwegian Campaign of 1940, she played a minor in the attack on Oslo, the capital of Norway. Möwe was torpedoed and badly damaged by a British submarine in May and did not return to active service until 1942 when she was transferred to France. The boat helped to escort blockade runners, commerce raiders and submarines through the Bay of Biscay. She also laid numerous minefields and attacked Allied ships during the Invasion of Normandy in June 1944. Möwe was sunk by British bombers that same month.

Design and armament

Derived from the World War 1-era large torpedo boat, the Type 23 torpedo boat was slightly larger, but had a similar armament and speed. The first ship to be built, Möwe was slightly smaller than her sister ships and had an overall length of and was long at the waterline because she had a round, cruiser-style, stern rather than the transom stern of her sisters. She had a beam of, and a mean draft of. The boat displaced at standard load and at deep load. The pair of Blohm & Voss geared steam turbine sets, each driving one propeller, were designed to produce using steam from three water-tube boilers which would propel the ship at. Möwe carried a maximum of of fuel oil which was intended to give a range of at. The effective range proved to be only at that speed. Their crew consisted of 4 officers and 116 sailors.
As built, the Type 23s mounted three SK L/45 guns, one forward and two aft of the superstructure, numbered one through three from bow to stern. They carried six above-water 50 cm torpedo tubes in two triple mounts and could also carry up to 30 mines. After 1931, the torpedo tubes were replaced by tubes and a pair of C/30 anti-aircraft guns were added. During the war a quadruple 2 cm was added just forward of No. 2 gun, three 2 cm guns were positioned around the aft funnel and another pair were mounted on the bridge wings, all in single mounts. Around 1944 a FuMB 4 Sumatra radar detector was installed as was radar.

Construction and career

Named after the Seagull, the boat was laid down at the Reichsmarinewerft Wilhelmshaven on 2 March 1925. as yard number 102, launched on 24 March 1926 and commissioned on 1 October 1926. The boat was initially assigned to the 4th Torpedo Boat Half Flotilla. By the end of 1936 Möwe was assigned to the 4th Torpedo Boat Flotilla and the boat made several deployments to Spain during the Spanish Civil War. Around June 1938, she was transferred to the newly formed 5th Torpedo Boat Flotilla.

Second World War

Möwe supported the North Sea mining operations that began on 3 September 1939. During the Nowegian Campaign, the boat was assigned to Group 5 under Konteradmiral Oskar Kummetz on the heavy cruiser, tasked to capture Oslo on 9 April. Möwe transported 114 men of the invasion force and was one of the cruiser's escorts through the Kattegat and into Oslofjord. During the Battle of Drøbak Sound, the boat was in the rear of the German formation as it advanced up the fjord. After the Norwegian coast defenses crippled Blücher as she attempted to pass Oscarsborg Fortress, she was ordered to unload her troops at Son. Around 17:30 Möwe and her sister supported the occupation of Kopås and Husvik batteries near Drøbak. A little over an hour later, Möwe approached the main fort under a flag of truce, and her commander, Kapitänleutnant Helmut Neuss, demanded that it surrender; the fort's commander, Oberst Birger Eriksen, dragged out the negotiations until a more senior officer was sent. The next day, the torpedo boat escorted the heavy cruiser through the Oslofjord until word was received that her sister had run aground and been wrecked. Möwe was ordered to replace Albatros in the outer reaches of the Oslofjord. Lützow continued on to Germany without any escort and was torpedoed by a British submarine later that night off the Danish coast. Möwe and Kondor, among other ships, arrived the following morning to render assistance.
On 18 April, Möwe and her sisters and escorted minelayers as they laid anti-submarine minefields in the Kattegat. Escorted by two destroyers, Möwe, Kondor and the torpedo boat, minelayers laid another minefield in the Skaggerak on 29–30 April. En route, the torpedo boat was sunk when she was accidentally rammed by the minelayer Preussen. The following month, she was torpedoed by the British submarine on 8 May. The torpedo blew her stern off and she was under repair until October. Her stern was rebuilt in the same transom style used by her sisters. Möwe was not fully operational until early 1942 and was transferred to France in May of that year. In September–October, Möwe was one of the escorts for German blockade runners sailing from ports in the Bay of Biscay en route to Japan. On 3–7 May 1943, Möwe and Greif escorted minelayers in the North Sea as they laid new minefields. From 4 to 6 June, Möwe, Greif, Kondor, her sister and the torpedo boat laid two minefields in the English Channel. Later that month the ships return to the Bay of Biscay to help escort U-boats through the Bay and continue to do so into early August. Möwe and Kondor helped to lay two minefields in the English Channel on 3–5 September.
The 4th and 5th Torpedo Boat Flotillas, consisting Möwe, Greif, Kondor, and the torpedo boats,, and laid minefields off Le Havre and Fécamp, France, on 21 and 22 March.
On 17–19 April, the 5th Torpedo Boat Flotilla, including Möwe, Greif and Kondor sailed from Brest, France, to Cherbourg as distant cover for a convoy. A few days later, the flotilla laid a minefield on the night of 21/22 April. The following night the torpedo boats engaged British motor torpedo boats near Cape Barfleur and sank one of them. On the nights of 26/27 and 27/28 April, they laid 108 mines each night near Cherbourg. On 30 April and 1 May, the flotilla laid 260 mines in three minefields. Three weeks later, the flotilla was ordered to transfer from Cherbourg to Le Havre and departed on the night of 23/24 May. Möwe, Greif, Falke, Kondor and Jaguar were attacked by Allied aircraft early the next day and Greif was struck by two bombs that set her forward boiler room on fire and caused her to take on water forward. With both boiler rooms subsequently flooded, she was unmaneuverable and accidentally collided with Falke. The latter was only slightly damaged, but Greifs bow was badly bent which caused problems for Möwe when she began to tow her sister. Around 06:00 Greif lost all power and sank at 06:32. At 07:43 Kondor struck a mine and had to be towed by Möwe for the remainder of the voyage.
As the Allies began landing in Normandy on 6 June, the 5th Flotilla, now consisting of Möwe, Falke, Jaguar and the newly refitted large torpedo boat, sortied multiple times from Le Havre over the next week in attempts to sink Allied shipping. Despite the expenditure of over 50 torpedoes and large quantities of ammunition, they were generally unsuccessful, only sinking the destroyer on 6 June. During an air raid by the Royal Air Force on the night of 14/15 June, bombs sank Falke and Jaguar and badly damaged Möwe. She finally sank on 16 June after some weapons and equipment had been salvaged.