Career (Nazi Germany) | |
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Owner: | HAPAG |
Builder: | Howaldtswerke, Kiel |
Launched: | 1930 |
Christened: | Neumark |
Homeport: | Kiel |
Fate: | 1939 requisitioned by the Kriegsmarine |
Career (Nazi Germany) | |
Namesake: | Aries |
Operator: | Kriegsmarine |
Builder: | Blohm & Voss |
Yard number: | 3 |
Acquired: | 1939 |
Recommissioned: | 9 December 1939 |
Renamed: | Widder, 1939 Neumark, 1940 |
Reclassified: | Auxiliary cruiser, 1939 |
Homeport: | Kiel |
Nickname: | HSK-3 Schiff-21 Raider D |
Fate: | 1941 decommissioned |
Career (Great Britain) | |
Namesake: | Ulysses |
Acquired: | circa 1945 |
Renamed: | Ulysses |
Fate: | Sold, 1950 |
Career (Germany) | |
Acquired: | 1950 |
Renamed: | Fechenheim |
Fate: | Wrecked near Bergen, 1955 |
General characteristics | |
Class and type: | Merchant vessel |
Displacement: | 16,800 (7851 GRT) |
Length: | 152 m (499 ft) |
Beam: | 18.2 m (60 ft) |
Draught: | 8.3 m (27 ft) |
Propulsion: | one geared turbine, four boilers; 6,200 hp (4,600 kW) |
Speed: | 14 kn (26 km/h) |
Range: | 34,000 nmi (63,000 km) at 10 kn (19 km/h) |
Endurance: | 141 days |
Complement: | 364 |
Armament: | 6 × 150 mm, 1 × 75 mm, 1 × II 37 mm, 2 × II 20 mm, 4 × TT, 92 mines |
Aircraft carried: | 2 × Heinkel He 114B |
Widder (HSK 3) was an auxiliary cruiser (Hilfskreuzer) of the German Navy 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 the German language. The name was given after the horoscope sign of the ship's master, Kapitän zur See Helmuth von Ruckteschell.
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Built for HAPAG, the Hamburg America Line, at Howaldtswerke, Kiel, she was launched in 1930 as the freighter Neumark. After an uneventful career she was requisitioned by the Kriegsmarine for use as a commerce raider. She was converted for this purpose by Blohm & Voss in the winter of 1939, and commissioned as the raider Widder on 9 December of that year. She sailed on her first and only raiding voyage in May 1940.
Widder sailed as part of the German Navy's first wave of commerce raiders, sailing on 6 May 1940 under the command of KK (later FK) Helmuth von Ruckteschell.
Leaving Germany on 6 May 1940, she made for Bergen, in Norway. On 13 May the Widder confronted the British submarine HMS Clyde on surface, enjoining an exchange of gunfire which lasted for over an hour, with no hits for either side. After the engagement, the cruiser sought shelter in Sandsfjord. On 14 May she sailed to open sea, crossing the Arctic Circle the next day. On 21 August 1940, 800 miles west of the Canary Islands, she sank the SS Anglo Saxon, which had been carrying a cargo of coal from Newport, Wales, to Bahía Blanca, Argentina. After refuelling from the auxiliary ship Nordmark, she slipped through the Denmark Strait. Over a 5 ½ month period she captured and sank ten ships, totalling 58,644 GRT.
Having completed her mission, she returned to occupied France on 31 October 1940.
Deemed unsuitable as a merchant raider, Widder was re-christened Neumark, and used as a repair ship in Norway. After the war she was taken into British service as Ulysses, then sold back to Germany as Fechenheim in 1950 before being wrecked off Bergen in 1955. Her hull was scrapped shortly after.
She was one of only two German auxiliary cruisers to survive the war, after one 1940 cruise. Her captain, Helmuth von Ruckteschell, was one of only two German naval commanders convicted of war crimes at the end of the war.
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