 Antilla in 1939 | |
| History | |
|---|---|
 Nazi Germany | |
| Name | ESAntilla |
| Namesake | Antilla, Cuba |
| Owner | Hamburg America Line[1] |
| Operator | Hamburg America Line |
| Port of registry |  Hamburg[1] |
| Builder | Deutsche Werft,Hamburg[1] |
| Yard number | 222[2] |
| Launched | 21 March 1939[3] |
| Completed | 11 July 1939[3] |
| Maiden voyage | 15 July 1939[3] |
| Out of service | 10 May 1940[3] |
| Identification | |
| Fate | Scuttled, 10 May 1940[2] |
| General characteristics | |
| Type | cargo ship |
| Tonnage | |
| Length | 398.3 ft (121.4 m)[1] |
| Beam | 55.7 ft (17.0 m)[1] |
| Depth | 22.8 ft (6.9 m)[1] |
| Propulsion | |
| Speed | 15 knots (28 km/h)[2] |
| Crew | 35[3] |
| Sensors & processing systems | |
| Notes | |
SSAntilla (or "ESAntilla", with "ES" standing for"Elektroschiff"German:electric ship) was aHamburg America Line (HAPAG)cargo ship that was launched in 1939[1] andscuttled in 1940.
Antilla was built for trade between Germany and the Caribbean, and was named accordingly;Antilla is a city inHolguín Province in easternCuba.
Antilla was launched in Hamburg on 21 March 1939 and completed on 11 July.[3] She was one of threesister ships launched in 1939 for HAPAG. She and her sisterOrizaba were built byDeutsche Werft inFinkenwerder, Hamburg,[1][4] while their sisterArauca was built byBremer Vulkan inBremen-Vegesack.[5]
Antilla and her sisters hadturbo-electric transmission.[1][4][5] Each ship had two oil-fired high-pressure boilers that fed twinAEGturbo generators.[1][4][5] This produced current for an AEG electric propulsion motor that drove a singlepropeller shaft.[1][4][5]
On 15 July 1939Antilla left Hamburg on her maiden voyage, which took her to the Caribbean.[3] The voyage was hampered by technical problems with her propulsion system,[3] but she eventually reachedCuraçao in theNetherlands Antilles.
On 9 AugustAntilla left Curaçao forGalveston, Texas, where she loaded 3,000 tons ofsulphur for Europe.[3] On 25 August, while still in Galveston, she received a radio message from Germany that included the code word"Essberger", which was a signal for hercaptain, Captain Ferdinand Schmidt, to open sealed orders.[3] The sealed orders had been issued to all German merchant ships, and directed them to leave main shipping lanes.[3] Shortly afterwardsAntilla received a second radio message with the same code word.[3] According to the sealed orders this was an order for captains to alter their ships' names and appearance, communicate only in code and return to Germany as soon as possible.[3]
Antilla left Galveston tobunker atCartagena, Colombia.[3]En route on 28 August she received a coded radio message that all German ships unable to reach a German harbour within four days should seek refuge inneutral ports.[3] On 1 September, the dayGermany invaded Poland,Antilla bunkered at Cartagena and sailed for neutral Curaçao.[3] However,en route Schmidt learnt thatWillemstad Harbour was already full of German merchant ships, so he and three other German ships changed course forAruba. In OctoberAntilla discharged her cargo of sulphur atSan Nicolaas[3] in the south of Aruba. However, the four ships' anchorage was inMalmok Bay[3] in the northwest of the island.
TheRoyal Netherlands Navy submarineHNLMS O 14 monitored the German ships in Dutch Antilles waters.[3] Outside Dutch Antilles waters, ships of theRoyal NavyAmerica and West Indies Station and of theFrench Navy patrolled, blockading any German ships from leaving.[3] However, on 9 January 1940 ten members ofAntilla's crew signed on to one of the other German ships,HC Horn'sConsul Horn, which that evening successfully escaped through the Allied blockade.[3] On 29 February the other two ships,Rudolf Christian Gribel'sHeidelberg and HAPAG'sTroja tried to escape.[3] Royal Navy ships intercepted them so their crewsscuttled the two merchantmen to prevent their capture.[3]
On 9 April Germanyinvaded Denmark andNorway. This increased the fear that the Netherlands would also be invaded, so on 12 April Dutch authorities in Aruba confinedAntilla's crew to their ship.[3] On 10 MayGermany invaded the Netherlands so the Dutch government ordered the seizure of all German ships in the Dutch Antilles.[3] At 0310 hrs on 10 May asection ofDutch Marines in two boats approachedAntilla to board her but Schmidt refused to lower the gangway.[3] The Dutch marines were commanded by acaptain who anticipated armed resistance from the German crew.[3] He therefore postponed the boarding to first light, when a machine gun positioned ashore could provide cover.[3]
The German crew used the delay to start scuttlingAntilla. One crewman locked himself in theengine room, opened herseacocks and climbed out through thefunnel.[3] Other crew set fire to several parts of the ship.[3] At 05:00 the Dutch marines boarded the ship and at 05:30 the German crew was assembled on thepoop deck.[3] The Marines escorted the crew ashore in a lifeboat and handed them into the custody of theRoyal Marechaussee.[3]
At 06:00, twoNetherlands Coastguard vessels, HMAruba and HMPractico, reached Malmok Bay and foundAntilla on fire.[3] Two ofAruba's crew boardedAntilla, found the engine room andholds 4 and 5 ablaze, and that it was not possible to reach the seacocks in order to close them.[3] After the Dutch marines had removed the German crew,Aruba fired two rounds atAntilla from her37mm gun.[3] By 06:50,Antilla was afire from bow to stern and she was listing 20 degrees toport.[3]Aruba left Malmok Bay at 11:30, by which timeAntilla's list had increased to 30 degrees and she was sinking.[3][clarification needed]
The Dutch Antilles authoritiesinterned asenemy aliens 220 German nationals, includingAntilla's 35 crew.[3] The Dutch madeAntilla's crew build aninternment camp onBonaire to house their fellow detainees.[3] However, the British authorities had agreed to take them and intern them onJamaica.[3] On 5 July 1940 all 220 detainees were embarked on the Britishbanana boatJamaica Producer.[3] It took them to Jamaica, where they were interned for the rest of the war.[3]
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Antilla is one of the Caribbean's largest shipwrecks, exceeded by only the 600-foot (180 m) cruise linersBianca C. andAntilles.Antilla lies on its port side in Malmok Bay, Aruba in up to 60 feet (18 m) of water, but with a small part of itsstarboard side exposed above water.[2] By 1953 storm damage had broken the wreck in two amidships.[3]
Corals[6] and tubesponges[7] have colonised the wreck, which attracts lobsters,[7]hawksbill sea turtles and many species of fish, includingmoray eels[7] andblue tang.[6] In 2010 a large Atlantic goliath grouper was reported living in the forward section.[6]
Antilla is a popular dive site, and has been popular forpenetration diving.[7] Storm damage has continued to break up the wreck, and some divers consider it now unsafe to enter.[2]
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Popular misconceptions have arisen aroundAntilla. One is that she was secretly aU-boattender. In fact between her arrival off Aruba in September 1939 and Germany's invasion of the Netherlands in May 1940 the Dutch authorities repeatedly searchedAntilla for weapons and found none.[3] One source even claimsAntilla was a tender forOperation Neuland,[2] even though this operation was in February and March 1942, 21 months afterAntilla was scuttled.
A second misconception is that when the Dutch sought to take over the ship, Captain Schmidt negotiated a 24-hour delay.[2][7][8] In fact the delay between the Dutch marines reachingAntilla and boarding her was less than two hours. This was achieved not by negotiation but by Schmidt refusing to lower the gangway and the marines' captain deciding to wait for daybreak.[3]
A third misconception is that when scuttling the ship, the crew heated her boilers so that the seawater entering through her seacocks caused a boiler explosion, and that this explosion broke the ship in half.[2][7][8] In fact between May and August 1940 Dutch divers found that the wreck was intact.[3] It was not until 1953 that it was found to have broken in half, and this was caused by storm damage.[3]
A fourth misconception is that Captain Schmidt of the Antilla spent the war in a prison camp on Bonaire and after the war bought the camp to build the Divi Flamingo Hotel. In fact the entire crew was transported to Jamaica and after the war the camp was bought by local entrepreneur Lodewijk Gerharts who built the hotel, initially named "Hotel Zeebad".[3]
12°36′07″N70°03′29″W / 12.602°N 70.058°W /12.602; -70.058
