German aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin

German aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin was the lead ship
Lead ship
The lead ship or class leader is the first of a series or class of ships all constructed according to the same general design. The term is applicable military ships and larger civilian craft.-Overview:...

in a class of two carriers
Graf Zeppelin class aircraft carrier
The Graf Zeppelin-class aircraft carriers were two German Kriegsmarine aircraft carriers laid down in the mid-1930s as part of the Plan Z rearmament program. Four ships were initially envisioned but reduced to two by Grand Admiral Erich Raeder in 1939...

ordered by the Kriegsmarine

Kriegsmarine

The Kriegsmarine was the name of the German Navy during the Nazi regime . It superseded the Kaiserliche Marine of World War I and the post-war Reichsmarine. The Kriegsmarine was one of three official branches of the Wehrmacht, the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany.The Kriegsmarine grew rapidly...

. She was the only aircraft carrier
Aircraft carrier
An aircraft carrier is a warship designed with a primary mission of deploying and recovering aircraft, acting as a seagoing airbase. Aircraft carriers thus allow a naval force to project air power worldwide without having to depend on local bases for staging aircraft operations...

launched by Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...

during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

and represented part of the Kriegsmarine

Kriegsmarine

's attempt to create a well-balanced oceangoing fleet, capable of projecting German naval power far beyond the narrow confines of the Baltic
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is a brackish mediterranean sea located in Northern Europe, from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 20°E to 26°E longitude. It is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe, and the Danish islands. It drains into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, the Great Belt and...

and North Sea
North Sea
In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean. In the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively...

s. Construction was ordered on 16 November 1935 and her keel was laid down on 28 December 1936 by Deutsche Werke
Deutsche Werke
Deutsche Werke was a German shipbuilding company founded in 1925 when Kaiserliche Werft Kiel and other shipyards were merged. It came as a result of the Treaty of Versailles after World War I that forced the German defence industry to shrink...

at Kiel
Kiel
Kiel is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 238,049 .Kiel is approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the north of Germany, the southeast of the Jutland peninsula, and the southwestern shore of the...

. Named in honor of Graf

Graf

Graf is a historical German noble title equal in rank to a count or a British earl...

(Count) Ferdinand von Zeppelin
Ferdinand von Zeppelin
Ferdinand Adolf Heinrich August Graf von Zeppelin was a German general and later aircraft manufacturer. He founded the Zeppelin Airship company...

, the ship was launched
Ship naming and launching
The ceremonies involved in naming and launching naval ships are based in traditions thousands of years old.-Methods of launch:There are three principal methods of conveying a new ship from building site to water, only two of which are called "launching." The oldest, most familiar, and most widely...

on 8 December 1938 but was not completed and was never operational.

Ship history

Work started on Flugzeugträger A in 1936. She was laid down on 28 December that year, and launched on 8 December 1938. Construction on the Kriegsmarine

Kriegsmarine

's first aircraft carrier had been fitful from the start due to a shortage of welders and delays in obtaining materials, and by the spring of 1940 she was still incomplete.

Meanwhile, Germany’s conquest of Norway in April 1940 further eroded any chance of completing Flugzeugträger A (now named Graf Zeppelin). Now responsible for defending Norway’s long coastline and numerous port facilities, the Kriegsmarine urgently required large numbers of coastal guns and AA batteries. During a naval conference with Hitler on 29 April 1940, Admiral Raeder proposed halting all work on Graf Zeppelin, arguing that even if she was commissioned by the end of 1940, final installation of her guns would require another ten months or more (her original fire control system had been sold to the Soviet Union under an earlier trade agreement). Hitler consented to the stop work order, allowing Raeder to have Graf Zeppelin’s 15 cm guns removed and transferred to Norway. The carrier’s heavy flak armament of twelve 10.5 cm guns had already been diverted elsewhere.

On 12 July 1940, Graf Zeppelin was towed from Kiel to Gotenhafen (Gdynia) and remained there for nearly a year. Just prior to Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, the carrier was again moved, this time to Stettin
Szczecin
Szczecin , is the capital city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in Poland. It is the country's seventh-largest city and the largest seaport in Poland on the Baltic Sea. As of June 2009 the population was 406,427....

, in order to safeguard her from Soviet air attacks. By November, the German army had pushed deep enough into Russian territory to remove any further threat of air attack and Graf Zeppelin was returned to Gotenhafen where she briefly served as a floating warehouse for the Navy's hardwood supply.

By the time Admiral Raeder met with Hitler for a detailed discussion of naval strategy in April 1942, the usefulness of aircraft carriers in modern naval warfare had been amply demonstrated. British carriers had crippled the Italian fleet at Taranto in November 1940

Battle of Taranto

The naval Battle of Taranto took place on the night of 11–12 November 1940 during the Second World War. The Royal Navy launched the first all-aircraft ship-to-ship naval attack in history, flying a small number of obsolescent biplane torpedo bombers from an aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean Sea...

, critically damaged the German battleship Bismarck
German battleship Bismarck
Bismarck was the first of two s built for the German Kriegsmarine during World War II. Named after Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, the primary force behind the German unification in 1871, the ship was laid down at the Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg in July 1936 and launched nearly three years later...

in May 1941 and prevented battleship Tirpitz
German battleship Tirpitz
Tirpitz was the second of two s built for the German Kriegsmarine during World War II. Named after Grand Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, the architect of the Imperial Navy, the ship was laid down at the Kriegsmarinewerft in Wilhelmshaven in November 1936 and launched two and a half years later in April...

from attacking two convoys bound for Russia in March 1942. In addition, a Japanese carrier raid on Pearl Harbor
Attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941...

had devastated the American battlefleet in December 1941. Raeder, anxious to secure air protection for the Kriegsmarine's heavier surface units, informed Hitler that Graf Zeppelin could be finished in about a year, with another six months required for sea trials and flight training. On 13 May 1942, with Hitler's authorization, the German Naval Supreme Command ordered work resumed on the carrier.

But daunting technical problems remained. Raeder wanted newer planes, specifically designed for carrier use. Reichsmarshall Goering, head of the Luftwaffe, replied that the already overburdened German aircraft industry could not possibly complete the design, testing and mass production of such aircraft before 1946. Instead, he proposed converting existing aircraft (again the Junkers Ju 87 and Messerschmitt Bf 109) as a temporary solution until newer types could be developed. Training of carrier pilots at Travemünde would also resume.

The converted carrier aircraft were heavier versions of their land-based predecessors and this required a host of changes to Graf Zeppelin's original design: the existing catapults needed modernization; stronger winches were necessary for the arresting gear; the flight deck, elevators and hangar floors also required reinforcement. Changes in naval technology dictated other alterations as well: installation of air search radar sets and antennas; upgraded radio equipment; an armored fighter director cabin mounted on the main mast (which in turn meant a heavier sturdier mast to accommodate the cabin's added weight); extra armoring for the bridge and fire control center; a new curved funnel cap to shield the fighter director cabin from smoke; replacing the single-mount 20mm AA guns with quadruple Flakvierling 38 guns (with a corresponding increase in ammunition supply) to improve overall AA defense; and additional bulges on either side of the hull to preserve the ship's stability under all this added weight.

The German naval staff hoped all these changes could be accomplished by April 1943, with the carrier's first sea trials taking place in August that same year. Towards that end, Chief Engineer Hadeler was reassigned to oversee Graf Zeppelin's completion. Hadeler planned on getting the two inner shafts and their respective propulsion systems operational first, giving the ship an initial speed of 25-26 knots, fast enough for sea trials to commence and for conducting air training exercises. By the winter of 1943/1944 she was expected to be combat-ready.

On the night of 27–28 August 1942, Graf Zeppelin underwent the only Allied air attack ever specifically targeting her for destruction. Nine RAF Avro Lancaster

Avro Lancaster

The Avro Lancaster is a British four-engined Second World War heavy bomber made initially by Avro for the Royal Air Force . It first saw active service in 1942, and together with the Handley Page Halifax it was one of the main heavy bombers of the RAF, the RCAF, and squadrons from other...

heavy bombers from 106 Squadron

No. 106 Squadron RAF

No. 106 Squadron RAF was a Royal Flying Corps and Royal Air Force squadron active from 1917 until 1919. It was also operative during World War II and in the post war period until 1963.- Establishment and early service :...

were despatched against her, each one carrying single "Capital Ship" bombs, a 5,500 lb device with a shaped charge

Shaped charge

A shaped charge is an explosive charge shaped to focus the effect of the explosive's energy. Various types are used to cut and form metal, to initiate nuclear weapons, to penetrate armor, and in the oil and gas industry...

warhead intended for armoured targets. One pilot was unable to see the carrier due to haze and instead dropped his bomb on the estimated position of the German battleship Gneisenau
German battleship Gneisenau
Gneisenau was a German capital ship, alternatively described as a battleship and battlecruiser, of the German Kriegsmarine. She was the second vessel of her class, which included one other ship, Scharnhorst. The ship was built at the Deutsche Werke dockyard in Kiel; she was laid down on 6 May 1935...

. Another believed he scored a direct hit on Graf Zeppelin but there is no known record of the ship suffering any damage from a bomb strike that night.

On 5 December 1942, Graf Zeppelin was towed back to Kiel and placed in a floating drydock. It seemed she might well see completion after all. By late January 1943, however, Hitler had become so disenchanted with the Kriegsmarine

Kriegsmarine

, especially with what he perceived as the poor performance of its surface fleet, that he ordered all of its larger ships taken out of service and scrapped. To Admiral Raeder, who had often clashed with Hitler on naval policy, this was a stunning setback. In a long memorandum to Hitler he called the new order "the cheapest sea victory England ever won". Raeder was shortly relieved of command and replaced with former Commander of Submarines Karl Dönitz

Karl Dönitz

Karl Dönitz was a German naval commander during World War II. He started his career in the German Navy during World War I. In 1918, while he was in command of , the submarine was sunk by British forces and Dönitz was taken prisoner...

. Though Admiral Dönitz eventually persuaded Hitler to void most of the order, work on all new surface ships and even those nearing completion was halted, including Graf Zeppelin. As of 2 February 1943, construction on the carrier ended for good.

In April 1943 Graf Zeppelin was again towed eastward, first to Gotenhafen, then to the roadstead at Swinemünde and finally berthed at a back-water wharf in the Parnitz River, two miles (3 km) from Szczecin

Szczecin

Szczecin , is the capital city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in Poland. It is the country's seventh-largest city and the largest seaport in Poland on the Baltic Sea. As of June 2009 the population was 406,427....

(then known as Stettin), where she had been briefly docked in 1941. There she languished for the next two years with only a 40-man custodial crew in attendance. When Red Army

Red Army

The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

forces neared the city in April 1945, the ship's Kingston valve

Kingston valve

A Kingston valve is a type of valve fitted in the bottom of a ship's fuel, water and ballast tanks. Named after its inventor John Kingston , an English engineer....

s were opened, flooding her lower spaces and settling her firmly into the mud in shallow water. A ten-man engineering squad then rigged the vessel's interior with demolition and depth charges in order to hole the hull and destroy vital machinery. At 6pm on 25 April 1945, just as the Russians entered Stettin

Szczecin

, commander Wolfgang Kähler radioed the squad to detonate the explosives. Smoke billowing from the carrier's funnel confirmed the charges had gone off, rendering the ship useless to her new owners for many months to come.

Fate after the war

The carrier's history and fate after Germany's surrender was unclear for decades after the war. According to the terms of the Allied Tripartite Commission, a "Category C" ship (damaged or scuttled) should have been destroyed or sunk in deep water by 15 August 1946. Instead, the Soviets

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

decided to repair the damaged ship and it was refloated in March 1946 and enlisted in the Baltic Fleet

Baltic Fleet

The Twice Red Banner Baltic Fleet - is the Russian Navy's presence in the Baltic Sea. In previous historical periods, it has been part of the navy of Imperial Russia and later the Soviet Union. The Fleet gained the 'Twice Red Banner' appellation during the Soviet period, indicating two awards of...

as aircraft carrier Zeppelin (Цеппелин). The last known photo of the carrier shows it leaving Świnoujście

Swinoujscie

Świnoujście is a city and seaport on the Baltic Sea and Szczecin Lagoon, located in the extreme north-west of Poland. It is situated mainly on the islands of Uznam and Wolin, but also occupies smaller islands, of which the largest is Karsibór island, once part of Usedom, now separated by a Piast...

(before 1945 Swinemünde) on 7 April 1947 (see picture). The photo appears to show the carrier deck loaded with various containers, boxes and construction elements, hence the supposition that it was probably used to carry stolen factory equipment from Poland and confiscated from Germany to the Soviet Union.

For many years, no other information about the ship's fate was available. There was some speculation that it was very unlikely that the hull made it to Leningrad

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

, as it was argued that the arrival of such a large and unusual vessel would have been noticed by Western intelligence services. This seemed to imply that the hull was lost at sea during transfer between Świnoujście and Leningrad. One account concluded that it struck a mine north of Rügen

Rügen

Rügen is Germany's largest island. Located in the Baltic Sea, it is part of the Vorpommern-Rügen district of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.- Geography :Rügen is located off the north-eastern coast of Germany in the Baltic Sea...

on 15 August 1947, but Rügen, west of Swinemünde, is not on the sailing route to Leningrad. Further north in the Gulf of Finland

Gulf of Finland

The Gulf of Finland is the easternmost arm of the Baltic Sea. It extends between Finland and Estonia all the way to Saint Petersburg in Russia, where the river Neva drains into it. Other major cities around the gulf include Helsinki and Tallinn...

, a heavily-mined area difficult for Western observers to monitor, seemed more likely.

After the opening of the Soviet archives, new light was shed on the mystery. Though some believed that the carrier had been towed to Leningrad after the war, in his book "Without wings, the story of Hitler's aircraft carrier" Burke disputed this. What is known is that the carrier was known as "PB-101" (Floating Base Number 101) in 3 February 1947, until, on 16 August 1947, it was used as a practice target for Soviet ships and aircraft. Allegedly the Soviets installed aerial bombs on the flight deck, in hangars and even inside the funnels (to simulate a load of combat munitions), and then dropped bombs from aircraft and fired shells and torpedoes at it. This assault would both comply with the Tripartite mandate (albeit late) and provide the Soviets with experience in sinking an aircraft carrier.

According to Soviet sources, on 19 March 1947 the Council of Ministers decreed destruction of former German ships. The first capital ship, Lutzow, was sunk off Swinemunde on 22 July 1947. On 14 August Zeppelin was towed into the harbor, and two days later to its final resting place. It was subjected to five series of controlled explosions of 180-mm shells and FAB series bombs. The first series imitated a FAB-1000 detonation in the exhaust funnel and lesser bombs below the flight deck. The second series was a single FAB-1000 explosion above the flight deck. The third, the fourth and the fifth series imitated penetration of FAB-100, FAB-250 and FAB-500 bombs at flight deck, hangar deck and gun battery deck levels. These bombs were placed in cutouts in their target decks to imitate effects of dive bombing

Dive bomber

A dive bomber is a bomber aircraft that dives directly at its targets in order to provide greater accuracy for the bomb it drops. Diving towards the target reduces the distance the bomb has to fall, which is the primary factor in determining the accuracy of the drop...

. Zeppelin remained afloat, and admiral Yury Rall ordered a torpedo
Torpedo
The modern torpedo is a self-propelled missile weapon with an explosive warhead, launched above or below the water surface, propelled underwater towards a target, and designed to detonate either on contact with it or in proximity to it.The term torpedo was originally employed for...

strike. A torpedo fired from an Elco PT boat exploded in the anti-torpedo bulge
Anti-torpedo bulge
The anti-torpedo bulge is a form of passive defence against naval torpedoes that featured in warship construction in the period between the First and Second World Wars.-Theory and form:...

and did not penetrate belt armor
Belt armor
Belt armor is a layer of heavy metal armor plated on to or within outer hulls of warships, typically on battleships, battlecruisers and cruisers, and on aircraft carriers converted from those types of ships....

. A torpedo fired by Destroyer Slavny
Soobrazitelny class destroyer
The Soobrazitel'nyi class were destroyers built for the Soviet Navy in the early 1940s. The Soviet designation was Type 7U or Ulutshenyi . The ships fought in World War II. They were modified versions of the Gnevny class destroyers. The design was finalised in 1936 after initial disappointments...

penetrated the unprotected hull section below the bow elevator; Zeppelin sank 25 minutes later.

By this point, the Cold War

Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

was under way, and the Soviets were well aware of the large numbers and central importance of aircraft carriers in the U.S. Navy

United States Navy

The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...

, which in the event of an actual war between the Soviet Union and the United States would be targets of high strategic importance. After being hit by 24 bombs and projectiles, the ship did not sink and had to be finished off by two torpedoes. The exact position of the wreck was unknown for decades.

Discovery in 2006

On 12 July 2006 RV St. Barbara
RV St. Barbara
The RV St. Barbara is a research vessel belonging to the Cypriot Mili Shipping Company, Ltd. Measuring 78.9 m in length with a 13.7 m beam, the St. Barbara is most noted for discovering the 265 meter long wreck of the famed Graf Zeppelin on 12 July, 2006 near the port of Leba...

, a ship belonging to the Polish oil company Petrobaltic
Petrobaltic
Przedsiębiorstwo Poszukiwań i Eksploatacji Złóż Ropy i Gazu "Petrobaltic" S.A. is a Polish oil company that has received fame of late for discovering the lost Nazi Aircraft Carrier Graf Zeppelin.-History:It was setup in November 1990...

found a 265 m long wreck close to the port of Łeba (a BBC report says 55 km north of Władysławowo
Władysławowo
Władysławowo is a town on the south coast of the Baltic Sea in the Kashubia in Eastern Pomerania region, northern Poland, with 15,015 inhabitants.-Overview:...

) which they thought was most likely Graf Zeppelin. On 26 July 2006 the crew of the Polish Navy
Polish Navy
The Marynarka Wojenna Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej - MW RP Polish Navy, is the branch of Republic of Poland Armed Forces responsible for naval operations...

's survey ship ORP Arctowski
ORP Arctowski
ORP Arctowski is a survey ship of the Polish Navy. Launched in 1982 in Poland, she is the lead ship of the Projekt 874 class, known as modified Finnik class in NATO code. She is the sister ship of ORP Heweliusz....

commenced inspection of the wreckage to confirm its identity, and the following day the Polish Navy confirmed that the wreckage was indeed that of Graf Zeppelin. She rests at more than 87 meters (264 ft) below the surface.

Diving

In 2009 a team of scuba divers

Scuba diving

Scuba diving is a form of underwater diving in which a diver uses a scuba set to breathe underwater....

obtained permission from the Polish government to dive the wreck. The depth and conditions of the wreck mean that only advanced technical divers

Technical diving

Technical diving is a form of scuba diving that exceeds the scope of recreational diving...

can realistically contemplate such a dive, but in any event, permission needs to be obtained from Polish authorities for any diving activities.

External links

Graf Zeppelin images from Bundesarchiv Freiburg (text in German but lots of images)
Maritimequest Graf Zeppelin photo gallery
Aerial photos of the carrier taken in 1947
"Divers find Hitler's aircraft carrier" - Article from Times Online, published July 27, 2006 (Roger Boyes)

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Ship history

Fate after the war

Discovery in 2006

Diving

See also

External links