German auxiliary cruiser Komet

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Komet (HSK7) was an auxiliary cruiser of the German Kriegsmarine in the Second World War, intended for service as a commerce raider.

Launched on 16 January 1937 as the merchant ship Ems at Deschimag shipyards in Bremen for Norddeutscher Lloyd, she was requisitioned at the start of the Second World War in 1939, converted into an auxiliary cruiser at Howaldtswerke in Hamburg, and commissioned into the Kriegsmarine on 2 June 1940. The ship was 115.5 m long and 15.3 m wide, had a draught of 6.5 m, and registered 3,287 GRT. She was powered by two diesel engines that gave her a speed of up to 16 knots.

As commerce raider, Komet was armed with six 15 cm guns, one 7.5 cm gun, one 3.7 cm and four 2 cm AA guns, as well as 6 torpedo tubes. She also carried a small 15-ton fast boat ("Meteorit", of the "LS2" class) intended to lay mines and a seaplane of the type Arado 196 A1. Her crew numbered 274.

Under the command of Captain Robert Eyssen, "HSK7" departed for her first raiding voyage from Gotenhafen on 3 July 1940. With the consent of the then neutral Soviet Union and with assistance from Soviet icebreakers, Komet passed through the Arctic Ocean north of Russia and entered the Pacific Ocean. In November and December 1940, Komet sank one Norwegian and six British merchant ships, with a combined tonnage of about 41,000 tons, that had been waiting off the island of Nauru to load phosphate. On 27 December 1940 she shelled the phosphate processing and loading facilities on Nauru. Cooperating with another German auxiliary cruiser, Orion, she sank two more British ships in August 1941 and captured the Dutch 7,300 ton freighter Kota Nopan which was sent as a prize to Bordeaux. Komet then sailed through the West and East Pacific, around Cape Horn and north through the Atlantic, returning to Cherbourg (France), thus circumnavigating the Globe. She reached Hamburg on 30 November 1941 after a voyage of 516 days and about 100,000 nautical miles.

Her second raid, under the command of Captain Ulrich Brocksien began in early October 1942. However, only a week out of Hamburg, on 14 October, she was attacked by British motor torpedo boats near the Cap de la Hague. She was hit by a torpedo from MTB 236 and sank with no survivors.