NMS Aurora

Last updated
Kuk Basilisk.gif
Aurora as KuK Basilisk
History
Austria-Hungary-flag-1869-1914-naval-1786-1869-merchant.svgAustria-Hungary
NameBasilisk
Namesake Basilisk
Builder STT Shipyard, Austria-Hungary
Laid down1901
Launched28 November 1902
Completed21 February 1903
Out of service1919
FateCeded to France
Civil and Naval Ensign of France.svgFrance
NameAurore
Namesake Aurora
Commissioned1920
Out of service1922
FateTransferred to Romania
Naval ensign of Romania (1922-1947).svgRomania
NameAurora
Commissioned1922
Out of service1927
Refit Galați shipyard, 1937-1939
Reinstated1939
FateSunk by Soviet aircraft, 1941
Service record
Commanders: Lieutenant-Commander Stan Baicu
Operations:
Victories: Contribution to the sinking of 1 destroyer leader
General characteristics (as built)
Type Minelayer
Displacement314 tons
Length46 m (150 ft 11 in)
Beam7.9 m (25 ft 11 in)
Draft1.5 m (4 ft 11 in)
Installed power410  kW (550 hp)
Propulsion1 cylindrical boiler, 1 triple-expansion engine, 1 shaft
Speed11 knots (20 km/h; 13 mph)
Complement40
Armament
  • 2 × 47 mm Škoda L/44 naval guns
  • 2 x 8 mm machine guns
  • 145 x mines

NMS Aurora was a small minelayer of the Romanian Navy. After initially serving in the Austro-Hungarian Navy during World War I and later in the French Navy, she was transferred to Romania and fought during World War II, being sunk in July 1941.

Contents

Construction and career

Initially named Basilisk, the vessel was laid down at the Stabilimento Tecnico Triestino shipyard in 1901. She was launched on 28 November 1902, and was completed on 21 February 1903. She served during World War I as one of the four minelayers of the Austro-Hungarian Navy. Basilisk displaced 314 tons, measuring 46 meters in length, with a beam of 7.9 meters and a draught of 1.5 meters. One cylindrical boiler and one set triple-expansion engine generated an output of 550 hp, giving her a top speed of 11 knots. Her armament consisted of two 47 mm Škoda L/44 naval guns, two 8 mm machine guns and 145 mines. She had a crew of 40. Following Austria-Hungary's defeat in 1918, the vessel was ceded to France as a war prize in 1920 under the terms of the Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye and renamed Aurore. [1]

She was transferred to Romania in 1922 and renamed Aurora. However, she was decommissioned five years later and sold for merchant service to the Romanian Danube Navigation Company (SRD - Societate Anonima Româna de Navigatie pe Dunare), Bucharest. [2] In 1937, she was requisitioned by the Romanian Navy and underwent an extensive refit at the Galați shipyard, until 1939, when she was recommissioned as a minelayer. [3]

World War II

Aurora in 1940 Romanian minelayer Aurora.jpg
Aurora in 1940

Aurora laid her first mine barrage in the morning of 30 June, off Sulina, during the Soviet invasion of Bessarabia . Lieutenant-Commander Stan Baicu commanded her. A second barrage was laid during the night of 10–11 January 1941. She laid a third barrage in the area on 27–28 June 1941. [4] Between 16 and 19 June 1941, she and two other Romanian minelayers, Amiral Murgescu and Regele Carol I (converted merchant ship), laid a barrage of 1,000 mines between Cape Midia and Tuzla, to protect the main Romanian port of Constanța. The mines laid off Constanța would later sink a Soviet destroyer leader during the 26 June Soviet raid on the port. [5] Aurora herself was sunk on 15 July at Sulina during Operation München by Soviet aircraft. [6]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Romanian Naval Forces</span> Military unit

The Romanian Naval Forces is the principal naval branch of the Romanian Armed Forces and operates in the Black Sea and on the Danube. It traces its history back to 1860.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Crimean offensive</span> WWII offensives by USSR Red Army

The Crimean offensive, known in German sources as the Battle of the Crimea, was a series of offensives by the Red Army directed at the German-held Crimea. The Red Army's 4th Ukrainian Front engaged the German 17th Army of Army Group A, which consisted of Wehrmacht and Romanian formations. The battles ended with the evacuation of the Crimea by the Germans. German and Romanian forces suffered considerable losses during the evacuation.

The Royal Romanian Navy during World War I (1914–1918) was divided into two fleets and fought against the forces of the Central Powers. When Romania entered the war in August 1916, the Romanian Navy was officially divided as follows :

Constantin "Bibi" Costăchescu was a submarine commander in the Romanian Navy during the Second World War. He is the only Romanian submarine commander to sink an enemy ship.

NMS <i>Amiral Murgescu</i>

NMS Amiral Murgescu was a minelayer and convoy escort of the Romanian Navy, the first sea-going warship built in Romania and the largest Romanian-built warship of World War II. She laid numerous minefields, from the Bulgarian port of Burgas to the Crimean port of Sevastopol, which inflicted significant losses to the Soviet Black Sea Fleet. She also carried out numerous convoy escort missions and took part in the Axis evacuation of the Crimea in May 1944. Due to her success in combat, she was decorated twice by May 1944. She was captured by the Soviet Union in September 1944 and served until 1988, when she was scrapped.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Battle of Jibrieni</span>

The Battle of Jibrieni was an attack on 17 December 1941 by a Soviet submarine on an Axis convoy and its Romanian escorts off the coast of the Romanian village of Jibrieni. The engagement ended with the sinking of the attacking Soviet submarine M-59.

The Romanian Navy during World War II was the main Axis naval force in the Black Sea campaigns and fought against the Soviet Union's Black Sea Fleet from 1941 to 1944. Operations consisted mainly of mine warfare, but there were also escort missions and localized naval engagements. The largest naval action fought by the Romanian Navy was the 26 June 1941 Raid on Constanța, and its most extensive operation was the 1944 evacuation of the Crimea.

NMS <i>Vedenia</i>

NMS Vedenia was a Second World War motor torpedo boat of the Romanian Navy. She was the lead ship of a class of six vessels and saw service during the second half of the war.

NMS <i>Mihail Kogălniceanu</i>

NMS Mihail Kogălniceanu was a monitor of the Romanian Navy. She saw service in both world wars, being the most successful vessel in her class of four ships. Like her three sisters, she was initially built as a river monitor, but in early 1918, she was converted to a sea-going monitor. During the Second Balkan War, she supported the Romanian crossing of the Danube into Bulgaria. During World War I, she carried out numerous bombardments against the Central Powers forces advancing along the shore of the Danube and carried out the last action of the Romanian Navy before the 11 November 1918 armistice. She later fought successfully against Bolshevik naval forces during the early months of the Russian Civil War, helping secure the Budjak region. During the interwar period, she contributed to the suppression of the Tatarbunary Uprising and was rearmed with longer main guns towards the end of the 1930s. During World War II, she fought several engagements against the Soviet Navy in the first month of the Eastern Front, but was ultimately sunk by Soviet aircraft shortly after Romania ceased hostilities against the Soviet Union, on 24 August 1944.

NMS <i>Constanța</i> Romanian submarine tender

NMS Constanța was a submarine tender of the Romanian Navy. She was commissioned in 1931 and fought in the Second World War, being scrapped in 1977.

NMS <i>Sublocotenent Ghiculescu</i>

NMS Sublocotenent Ghiculescu was a specialized ASW gunboat of the Romanian Navy. Initially built as a French warship in late World War I, she was purchased by Romania in 1920 and fought during World War II, sinking two submarines and one motor torpedo boat. After 1 year of Soviet service, she was returned to Romania and served as a survey vessel until 2002.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Soviet Navy surface raids on Western Black Sea</span>

The Soviet Black Sea Fleet during the first years of the Black Sea campaigns (1941–44) conducted raiding operations along the Western coast of the Black Sea aimed to disrupt Axis communications and supplies by sea.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Action of 26 June 1941</span>

The action of 26 June 1941 consisted in an engagement between the navies of the Soviet Union and the Kingdom of Romania, taking place on the Chilia branch of the Danube Delta, near the commune of Ceatalchioi. The action resulted in a Romanian victory and the withdrawal of the Soviet vessels, one of them being damaged and later captured.

<i>OMm35</i>-class minelayer

The OMm35 class was a group of two small minelayers of the Czechoslovakian Navy. They were captured by Germany in 1939 and transferred to the Romanian Navy in 1941. The two vessels were then captured by Soviet forces in September 1944, their subsequent fates being unknown.

The Number 31 class was a group of four small multi-purpose motor launches of the Royal Romanian Navy. They served on the Danube and in the Black Sea aboard the escort minelayer Amiral Murgescu.

NMS <i>Mircea</i> (1882)

NMS Mircea was the second ship of the Romanian Navy's Black Sea Fleet, one of the Fleet's six founding warships and the only one of these vessels to remain in service until the Second World War. She was sunk during an air raid in April 1944.

NMS <i>Alexandru cel Bun</i>

NMS Alexandru cel Bun was the first minelayer of the Romanian Naval Forces. Built by the United Kingdom in 1882, she served in the Romanian Navy for five decades, until being scrapped in the mid-1930s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Naval operations in Romanian-occupied Soviet waters</span>

Between 1941 and 1944, Romania held control over much of the Ukrainian Black Sea coast East of the Crimea. This was acquired during Operation Barbarossa. The Romanian conquest of the Soviet Western Black Sea coast started in July 1941 during Operation München and ended in October that year, after the Siege of Odessa. In the aftermath of these actions, Romania (re)acquired two new sectors of coastline: the Bessarabian coast and the Transnistrian Coast. The latter was lost in April 1944, but the former was successfully defended until August 1944.

References

  1. ↑ Greger, René (1976). Austro-Hungarian Warships of World War I. London: Allan. p. 84. ISBN   9780711006232.
  2. ↑ Michels, Walter (1967). Umvergessene Dampfschiffahrt auf Rhein und Donau (in German). Darmstadt: Kommissionsverlag Hestra-Verlag. p. 137.
  3. ↑ Nicolae Koslinski, Raymond Stănescu, Marina română in al doilea război mondial: 1941-1942, Făt-Frumos, 1996, p. 61
  4. ↑ Nicolae Koslinski, Raymond Stănescu, Marina română in al doilea război mondial: 1941-1942, Făt-Frumos, 1996, pp. 47, 63 and 81
  5. ↑ Antony Preston, Warship 2001–2002, Conway Maritime Press, 2001, pp. 70 and 71
  6. ↑ Antony Preston, Warship 2001–2002, Conway Maritime Press, 2001, p. 72
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.