MS Togo was a German merchant ship that was launched in 1938. Requisitioned by Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine as Schiff 14, in April 1940 she participated in the invasion of Norway; in August 1940 was converted to a minelayer as part of the German plan to invade England; then from June 1941 she began conversion to the armed auxiliary cruiser (Hilfskreuzer) HSK Coronel.
As NJL Togo, she was the second of the Kriegsmarine's World War II radar ships, and the only one to survive the war.[3]
After the war, Togo passed through various changes of ownership, name and function before finally being wrecked off the Mexican coast in 1984.
Description and pre-war service
As built, Togo was 418.2 feet (127.47m), long, with a beam of 58.7 feet (17.89m) and a depth of 21.3 feet (6.49m). Her gross register tonnage was 5,042, with a net register tonnage of 2,844. She was powered by two 8-cylinder Single Cycle Double Action diesel engines, each having cylinders of 28+3⁄4 inches (73cm) diameter by 43+5⁄16 inches (110.0cm) stroke. The engines gave a total of 1,556 NHP.[4]
MS Togo[6] was launched in August 1938 for Woermann Linie[7] for trade with African countries. Togo was initially built as a freighter with cabins for 12 passengers.[8] At the outbreak of World War II Togo was at Douala, French Cameroon.[2] To avoid Togo being captured and interned, her Belgian-born captain, Eugene Rousselet, slipped her out under cover of darkness to the Belgian Congo port of Boma. On 25 October, she sailed from Boma and, breaking through the Allied blockade, returned to Hamburg on 23 November 1939 where she was requisitioned by the Kriegsmarine.[9]
In late 1942, Togo was converted into an auxiliary cruiser. As part of this conversion she was renamed (Handels-Stör-Kreuzer, HSK) Coronel, she was known to the Kriegsmarine as HSK 10, and designated Schiff 14. To the Royal Navy, she was Raider K. She was named after the Battle of Coronel, Admiral Maximilian von Spee's victory over a British cruiser flotilla off the coast of Chile in November 1914.[2]
Converted at the Wilton-Fijenoord shipyards in Rotterdam and the Stettiner Oderwerke yard at Stettin,[2] she was recommissioned in December 1942. Her armament consisted of six TK15 15cm guns, six 4cm AA-guns, four 2cm machine guns in twin mounts, and a few 2cm guns in single mounts.
She was also designed to carry three aircraft, but these were never installed.
Relying on the element of surprise, Schiff 14 Coronel departed from Norway on 31 January 1943 with a large escort of minelayers and patrol boats and attempted to break out into the Atlantic through the English Channel. However, her presence was already known to the British through ULTRA decrypts.[17]Coronel was hampered by storms and minefields, and twice ran aground on sandbanks. Coronel moved on by stages to Sylt, Dunkirk and Calais and on 10 February successfully ran the gauntlet of the coastal artillery at Dover. She then came under repeated air attack, and having suffered bomb damage, was forced to put into Boulogne.[14] As the damage was too severe to be repaired in an occupied French port, she was forced to return to Kiel, arriving there on 2 March 1943.
As it was the custom for German commerce raiders to be named by their captains after reaching the open sea, her failure to clear the Channel meant that she was not formally designated as the Hilfskreuzer Coronel but instead remained as Togo for the remainder of the war.[2]
Later the same year, Togo was employed in a minesweeping role as a Sperrbrecher ('Pathmaker', to clear a safe lane through a minefield),[18] before being converted into a night fighter guide ship, under the command of Korvettenkapitän Rudolf Lück.
In Kiel at the end of the war, Togo was seized as war booty and transferred first to Britain on 13 August 1945, then to the US Navy on 15 January 1946, and used to repatriate Polish ex-prisoners of war. Handed over to the Royal Norwegian Navy on 14 March (and renamed HNoMS Svalbard in December 1946), she was then used as a fleet auxiliary to transport occupation troops to Germany.[2][10][22] By this time her passenger capacity had been increased to 900,[8] and between December 1947 and December 1949 she was chartered by the International Refugee Organisation for transport of Displaced Persons from Europe to North America and Australia.[10]Svalbard undertook six voyages between June 1948 and October 1949, carrying a total of 5,242 DPs for resettlement in Australia.[8][23]
There were several further changes of ownership in 1954–56 which saw her briefly renamed as MS Tilthorn (April 1954) and later MS Stella Marina (July 1954), she was then re-purchased by her original owners, the Woermann-Deutsche Afrika line in November 1956. Refurbished and with her original name Togo restored, she sailed the Africa run for another twelve years.[2][10] With the introduction of IMO Numbers in the late 1960s, Togo was allocated the IMO Number 5363029.[24]
In March 1968, she was sold again, to Taboga Enterprises Inc. of Panama, and renamed Lacasielle. She was later sold again to Caribbean Real Estate SA, Panama, on 8 April 1976, becoming Topeka. It was under that name that she was last sold in 1984 to Lineas Agromar Ltda.[10]
Model of the Norwegian troopship Svalbard (ex-Togo) at Bergenhus Fortress Museum
Notes and references
↑ Not to be confused with the figure of 5042 BRT (Brutto Register Tonnage, equivalent to Gross Register Tonnage, used as a measure of the cargo carrying capacity of ships, not their displacement) which is quoted for Togo by some sources. Retrieved 27 May 2010
↑ The first had been the NJL Kreta (ex-French Ile de Beauté) which had been taken over by the Kriegsmarine in January 1943 and was rebuilt for use as a fighter direction ship. The conversion was completed in August 1943. The ship was lost on September 21, 1943, near the island of Capraia in the Tyrrhenian Sea, after being torpedoed by the British U-class submarine HMSUnseen. In September 1943, Premuda was equipped with Freya-type radar for a time in order to operate as a radar picket and fighter direction ship, but she never served in this capacity; she was recoverted into a destroyer, renamed TA32 and, based in Genoa, served in the Ligurian Sea until being scuttled on 25 April 1945.
↑ Dieter Jung / Berndt Wenzel / Arno Abendroth (1977 ): Schiffe und Boote der deutschen Seeflieger 1912–1976, Motor Buch Verlag Stuttgart. (Retrieved 26 May 2010.) Includes (pp 314–360): Nachtjagdleitschiffe in der Ostsee – Nachtjagdleitschiff Togo: Einsatz von 1939–1943 / Umbau und Ausrüstung 1943 / Die operativen Einsätze bis Ende 1944 / Kampfeinsatz Ostpreußen im Rahmen der Flüchtlingsrückführung (Januar—März 1945)
Muggenthaler, August Karl (1977): German Raiders of World War IIISBN0-7091-6683-4
Petsch, Kurt (1988): Nachtjagdleitschiff TOGO, Preuss. Militär-Verlag, Reutlingen. (In German, typeset in Fraktur.) Petsch was Togo's first officer during her career as a night fighter direction vessel.
The Kriegsmarine was the navy of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It superseded the Imperial German Navy of the German Empire (1871–1918) and the inter-war Reichsmarine (1919–1935) of the Weimar Republic. The Kriegsmarine was one of three official branches, along with the Heer and the Luftwaffe, of the Wehrmacht, the German armed forces from 1935 to 1945.
The German auxiliary cruiser Atlantis, known to the Kriegsmarine as Schiff 16 and to the Royal Navy as Raider-C, was a converted German Hilfskreuzer, or merchant or commerce raider of the Kriegsmarine, which, in World War II, travelled more than 161,000 km (100,000 mi) in 602 days, and sank or captured 22 ships with a combined tonnage of 144,384. Atlantis was commanded by Kapitän zur See Bernhard Rogge, who received the Oak Leaves to the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross. She was sunk on 22 November 1941 by the British cruiser HMS Devonshire.
An armed merchantman is a merchant ship equipped with guns, usually for defensive purposes, either by design or after the fact. In the days of sail, piracy and privateers, many merchantmen would be routinely armed, especially those engaging in long distance and high value trade.
Komet (HSK-7) was an auxiliary cruiser of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine in the Second World War, intended for service as a commerce raider. Known to the Kriegsmarine as Schiff 45, to the Royal Navy she was named Raider B.
Orion (HSK-1) was an auxiliary cruiser of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine which operated as a merchant raider in World War II. Blohm & Voss built her in Hamburg in 1930–31 as the cargo ship Kurmark. The navy requisitioned her at the start of World War II, had her converted into the auxiliary cruiser Orion, and commissioned her on 9 December 1939. Known to the Kriegsmarine as Schiff 36, her Royal Navy designation was Raider A. She was named after the constellation Orion.
Thor was an auxiliary cruiser of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine in World War II, intended for service as a commerce raider. Also known to the Kriegsmarine as Schiff 10; to the Royal Navy she was Raider E. She was named after the Germanic deity Thor.
Widder was an auxiliary cruiser (Hilfskreuzer) of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine that was used as a merchant raider in the Second World War. Her Kriegsmarine designation was Schiff 21, to the Royal Navy she was Raider D. The name Widder (Ram) represents the constellation Aries in German.
Nürnberg was a German light cruiser of the Leipzig class built for the Kriegsmarine. She was named after the city of Nuremberg and had one sister ship, Leipzig. Nürnberg was laid down in 1934, launched in December of that year, and completed in November 1935. She was armed with a main battery of nine 15 cm (5.9 in) guns in three triple turrets and could steam at a speed of 32 knots. Nürnberg was the longest-serving major warship of the Kriegsmarine, and the only one to see active service after the end of World War II, though not in a German navy.
The Pinguin was a German auxiliary cruiser (Hilfskreuzer) which served as a commerce raider in World War II. The Pinguin was known to the Kriegsmarine as Schiff 33, and designated HSK 5. The most successful commerce raider of the war, she was known to the British Royal Navy as Raider F. The name Pinguin means penguin in German.
Stier was an auxiliary cruiser of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine during World War II. Her Kriegsmarine designation was Schiff 23, to the Royal Navy she was Raider J.
HNoMS Olav Tryggvason was a minelayer that was built by the naval shipyard at Horten in the early 1930s with the yard number 119. She served in the Royal Norwegian Navy until captured by the Germans in 1940. The Germans renamed her first Albatros II, and a few days later Brummer. She was wrecked in a British bombing raid in northern Germany in April 1945.
Michel(HSK-9) was an auxiliary cruiser of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine that operated as a merchant raider during World War II. Built by Danziger Werft in Danzig 1938/39 as the freighter Bielsko for the Polish Gdynia-America-Line (GAL), she was requisitioned by the Kriegsmarine at the outbreak of World War II and converted into the hospital ship Bonn. In the summer of 1941, she was converted into the auxiliary cruiser Michel, and was commissioned on 7 September 1941. Known as Schiff 28, her Royal Navy designation was Raider H. She was the last operative German raider of World War II.
The Hansa was an auxiliary cruiser of Nazi Germany's Kriegsmarine used during World War II.
SMS Möwe was a merchant raider of the Imperial German Navy which operated against Allied shipping during World War I.
Theodor Detmers was a German naval officer and captain of the German auxiliary cruiser Kormoran during World War II. He was a recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross of Nazi Germany. Detmers commanded the commerce raider Kormoran when it sunk the Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney in a mutually destructive battle.
Kurt August Viktor Weyher was a German rear admiral of the navy (Kriegsmarine) of Nazi Germany. During World War II, he commanded a merchant raider.
The German torpedo boat T7 was one of a dozen Type 35 torpedo boats built for the Kriegsmarine during the late 1930s. Completed in 1939, she was not combat ready until mid-1940 when she spent several months escorting minelayers as they laid minefields in the North Sea and the English Channel. The boat participated in an abortive attempt to attack several convoys off the Scottish coast in November. T7 returned to Germany for a refit in January 1941 and then supported operations in the Baltic Sea after the start of Operation Barbarossa in June. The boat was one of the escorts for several commerce raiders passing through the English Channel in late 1941 and then escorted German ships in Norwegian waters in mid-1942. She was briefly placed in reserve later that year and was then reactivated for service with the Torpedo School. T7 was sunk in an air raid in July 1944, but was refloated several months later. She was never repaired and was scrapped in 1947–1949.
The German torpedo boat T12 was the last of a dozen Type 35 torpedo boats built for the Kriegsmarine during the late 1930s. Completed in mid-1940, the boat was transferred to Norway where she escorted minelayers as they laid minefields in the North Sea. She was one of the escorts for several commerce raiders passing through the English Channel in 1941 and helped to escort a pair of battleships and a heavy cruiser through the Channel back to Germany in the Channel Dash in early 1942. T12 was assigned to the Torpedo School in late 1943 and was then transferred to the Baltic Sea in mid-1944 where she escorted heavy cruisers as they bombarded Soviet positions. The boat was allocated to the Soviet Union after the war and renamed Podvizhny, serving with the Baltic Fleet until she was seriously damaged in a boiler explosion. Renamed Kit in 1954 for use as a vessel in simulated nuclear testing on Lake Ladoga, the boat was scuttled in 1959.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
Model of the Norwegian troopship Svalbard (ex-Togo) at Bergenhus Fortress Museum
Germany 
Nazi Germany 
Nazi Germany 
Norway 
West Germany 
Panama 
