SS Masuren
Encyclopedia
Masuren was a 2,385 ton cargo ship
Cargo ship
A cargo ship or freighter is any sort of ship or vessel that carries cargo, goods, and materials from one port to another. Thousands of cargo carriers ply the world's seas and oceans each year; they handle the bulk of international trade...

  which was built in 1935. She was seized by Britain in 1945 and renamed Empire Annan. In 1950 she was renamed Thomas N Epiphaniades and then Helga Böge in 1952. In 1959, she was renamed Fuhlsbüttel. She served until 1964 when she was scrapped in Bremerhaven
Bremerhaven
Bremerhaven is a city at the seaport of the free city-state of Bremen, a state of the Federal Republic of Germany. It forms an enclave in the state of Lower Saxony and is located at the mouth of the River Weser on its eastern bank, opposite the town of Nordenham...

.

History

Masuren was built by Schichau GmbH Abt. Schiffswerft
Schichau-Werke
The Schichau-Werke was a German engineering works and shipyard based in Elbing, formerly part of the German Empire, and which is today the town of Elbląg in northern Poland. It also had a subsidiary shipyard in Danzig .-Early years:...

, Danzig as yard number 1349. The exact date of her launch is unrecorded although she was completed in October 1935. Masuren was powered by a four cylinder compound steam engine and could make 12 knots. She was owned by Kohlen-Import & Poseidon Schiffahrt AG and homeported at Königsberg
Königsberg
Königsberg was the capital of East Prussia from the Late Middle Ages until 1945 as well as the northernmost and easternmost German city with 286,666 inhabitants . Due to the multicultural society in and around the city, there are several local names for it...

. Masuren served for ten years until she was seized in Copenhagen
Copenhagen
Copenhagen is the capital and largest city of Denmark, with an urban population of 1,199,224 and a metropolitan population of 1,930,260 . With the completion of the transnational Øresund Bridge in 2000, Copenhagen has become the centre of the increasingly integrating Øresund Region...

 by the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 at the end of the Second World War in 1945. Her homeport had been changed to Nordenham
Nordenham
Nordenham is a town in the Wesermarsch district, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is located at the mouth of the Weser river on the Butjadingen peninsula on the coast of the North Sea. The seaport city of Bremerhaven is located on the other side of the river...

 in that year. Ownership passed to the Ministry of War Transport and she was renamed Empire Annan. She operated under the management of Crosby, Sons & Co and was homeported in London.

In 1947, Empire Annan passed to the United States Maritime Commission
United States Maritime Commission
The United States Maritime Commission was an independent executive agency of the U.S. federal government that was created by the Merchant Marine Act of 1936, passed by Congress on June 29, 1936, and replaced the U.S. Shipping Board which had existed since World War I...

, New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 who sold her in 1948 to Fanmaur Shipping & Trading Co, New York in 1948. They sold her in 1950 to Thomas N Epiphaniades, Volos
Volos
Volos is a coastal port city in Thessaly situated midway on the Greek mainland, about 326 km north of Athens and 215 km south of Thessaloniki...

, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....

 who renamed her Thomas N Epiphaniades. In 1952, Thomas N Epiphaniades was sold to Johann M K Blumenthal, Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

 and renamed Helga Böge. She served with them for seven years and was sold at auction in 1959 to Koehn & Bohlmann Reederei KG, Hamburg. She was renamed Fuhlsbüttel in 1960, serving for a further four years until 1964 when she was scrapped in Bremerhaven
Bremerhaven
Bremerhaven is a city at the seaport of the free city-state of Bremen, a state of the Federal Republic of Germany. It forms an enclave in the state of Lower Saxony and is located at the mouth of the River Weser on its eastern bank, opposite the town of Nordenham...

.

Official number and code letters

Official Numbers were a forerunner to IMO Numbers
IMO ship identification number
The IMO ship identification number is made of the three letters "IMO" followed by the seven-digit number assigned to all ships by IHS Fairplay when constructed. This is a unique seven digit number that is assigned to propelled, sea-going merchant ships of 100 GT and above...

.

Masuren used the Code Letters
Code letters
Code letters were a method of identifying ships before the introduction of modern navigation aids. Later, with the introduction of radio, code letters were also used as radio callsigns.-History:...

DADE when homeported in Königsberg and DHQZ when homeported in Nordenhamn. Empire Annan had the UK Official Number 180633 and used the Code Letters GLTG.

External links

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