 Altmark in early 1940, Jøssingfjord, Norway | |
| History | |
|---|---|
 Nazi Germany | |
| Name | Altmark |
| Namesake | Altmark |
| Builder | Howaldtswerke,Kiel |
| Laid down | 15 June 1936 |
| Launched | 13 November 1937 |
| Commissioned | 14 August 1939 |
| Renamed | Uckermark, 6 August 1940 |
| Fate | Destroyed by accidental explosion, 30 November 1942 |
| General characteristics[1] | |
| Displacement | 20,858 t (20,529 long tons) full load |
| Length | |
| Beam | 22 m (72 ft 2 in) |
| Draught | 9.3 m (30 ft 6 in) |
| Propulsion | 4 × MAN 9-cylinderdiesel engines, 22,000 shp (16,405 kW), 2 shafts |
| Speed | 21.1knots (39.1 km/h; 24.3 mph) |
| Range | 12,500 nmi (23,200 km) at 15 kn (28 km/h; 17 mph) |
| Complement | 94–208 |
| Armament |
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Altmark was a Germanoil tanker and supply vessel, one of five of a class built between 1937 and 1939. She is best known for her support of the German commerce raider and "pocket battleship"Admiral Graf Spee and her subsequent involvement in the "Altmark Incident". In 1940 she was renamedUckermark[2] and used as supply tanker for the battleshipsScharnhorst andGneisenau duringOperation Berlin before sailing to Japan in September 1942 as ablockade breaker.
Footage ofAltmark appears briefly in the 1942 British wartime propaganda movieThe Day Will Dawn.[3]
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Altmark (Captain Heinrich Dau) was assigned to supportAdmiral Graf Spee during her raid in theSouth Atlantic between September and December 1939. Seamen rescued from the ships sunk byAdmiral Graf Spee were transferred toAltmark. AfterAdmiral Graf Spee was heavily damaged by British cruisers inBattle of the River Plate and subsequently scuttled by her crew, in theRío de la Plata in December 1939,Altmark attempted to return toGermany, steaming around the north ofGreat Britain and then within theNorwegian littoral. On 14 February 1940Altmark, proceeding south within Norwegianterritorial waters, was discovered by three BritishLockheed Hudson Mk.II aircraft fromRAF Thornaby and pursued by several British destroyers led byHMS Cossack.[4] Late on 16 February 1940 inJøssingfjord she was fired upon while the Norwegian Navy stood by and took no action save for raising a protest flag. The German tanker then received a boarding party from HMSCossack. During an attempted escape across the ice, seven of theAltmark crew were shot down. During the skirmishAltmark was run onto the rocks. It had been the British intention to tow the ship back to a Scottish port, but the damage to the tanker's stern frustrated this idea.
An attack by one belligerent upon its enemy in neutral waters is a breach of neutrality. Hitler had long feared Norway would be insufficiently resolute to protect the German iron-ore traffic that passed legitimately along the Norwegian littoral and after earlier discussions with AdmiralErich Raeder andVidkun Quisling had decided already on 14 December 1939 to ultimately invade the country. On 19 February 1940 he ordered intensified planning for attacks on Norway and Denmark, which eventually took place on 9 April 1940 under the code nameOperation Weserübung.[5]: 244
The British justification for the attack on theAltmark was set out in a Note to the Norwegian Government from Foreign SecretaryLord Halifax dated 10 March 1940. The problem the British Government faced was the wording ofThe Hague Convention XIII of 1907 to which it was a signatory. Article 10 provides that: "The neutrality of a Power is not affected by the mere passage through its territorial waters of warships or prizes belonging to belligerents."
This meant that theAltmark was within its rights to sail through Norwegian waters with prisoners aboard providing that it did not come to a protracted stop longer than 24 hours. In the diplomatic letter, the British government confirmed that it was not contrary to the law of neutrality to sail a prison ship through neutral waters, and Britain often did this herself. In fact the British complaint had nothing to do with the prisoners.Altmark was a fleet tanker assimilated to a warship and was proceeding to Germany from the Atlantic by the north-about route. Instead of sailing down the North Sea as he would do in peacetime, the master of theAltmark had elected to sail the entire leg of the voyage southwards within Norwegian territorial waters in order to attract immunity from attack there under international law. There was no other reason for him to want to voyage through waters so dangerous to navigation. With no valid breach of international law, the British excused their violation of international law by contriving that theAltmark's course abused international law even without a violation, and since the Norwegians had declined to stop a voyage that was not in violation of international convention the British Admiralty decided it was justified in taking action contrary to law, essentially announcing that it had the right to determine what course an enemy ship must travel to be entitled to the protections of international law.
The question remains unresolved to this day as to whether, as the Hague Conventions stood in 1940, a warship could legitimately seek immunity from attack in neutral waters by widely varying its course to reach them.
The ship, renamedUckermark on 6 August 1940, then resumed the role for which she had been built. DuringOperation Berlin, which involved the battleshipsScharnhorst andGneisenau between January and March 1941,Uckermark, under Captain Zatorski, was a supply ship and scout attached to the squadron. As the result of her reports the battleships were directed to various merchant vessels, which were then sunk.
On 9 September 1942 she left France for Japan with a cargo of vegetable oil and fuel, supplying the auxiliary cruiserMichel on the way, arriving atYokohama on 24 November 1942.Uckermark was then intended as the replenishment ship for the German raiderThor, which was raiding merchant shipping in the Indian Ocean and western Pacific Ocean areas.
On 30 November 1942,Uckermark was anchored at Yokohama, Japan, next toThor and the captured Australian passenger linerSSNankin, carrying a load of explosives, whichThor had captured in March five days out fromFremantle,Australia, en route toColombo,Ceylon. While the crew was at lunch,Uckermark suffered an explosion and fire which spread toNankin, resulting in a larger explosion that sunk theUckermark,Thor, andNankin and destroyed a portion of the docks.[6] The cause of the fire and explosions was thought to be a spark from tools used by a repair gang working near the cargo tanks igniting residual gasoline. TheUckermark had delivered 5000 tons of gasoline to Yokohama. It is unknown if the ship had aninerting system for its cargo tanks installed, but, as tanker vessels with inerting systems were uncommon at the time the ship was built, it is likely that combined with wartime stresses the lack of (or inoperability of) an inerting system contributed significantly to the power of the initial explosion. A comparable incident was the explosion of theMSBidwell atMarcus Hook, Pennsylvania, in 1932. Fifty-three crewmen fromUckermark died in the explosion. The severely damaged ship was beyond repair and was scrapped.(ja:横浜港ドイツ軍艦爆発事件)
Some of the survivors of the ship were sent to France on theblockade runnerDoggerbank and perished when the ship was mistakenly sunk by theGerman submarine U-43 on 3 March 1943 with all but one of the 365-strong crew lost at sea.[7]
35°23′50″N139°38′50″E / 35.39722°N 139.64722°E /35.39722; 139.64722
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Shipwrecks and maritime incidents in February 1940 | |
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