German Torpedo Boat Seeadler

''Seeadler'' was the second of six Type 23 torpedo boats built for the German Navy (initially called the ''Reichsmarine'' and then renamed as the '' Kriegsmarine'' in 1935). The boat made multiple non-intervention patrols during the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s. During World War II, she played a minor role in the Battle of Kristiansand during the Norwegian Campaign of 1940. ''Seeadler'' spent the next couple of years escorting minelayers as they laid minefields and laying minefields herself. She also spent the latter half of 1941 escorting convoys through the Skaggerak. The boat returned to France in 1942 and was one of the escorts for the capital ships sailing from France to Germany through the English Channel in the Channel Dash. ''Seeadler'' then helped to escort one commerce raider through the Channel and was sunk by British forces while escorting another blockade runner in May.

Design and armament

Derived from the World War I-era large torpedo boat ,)., group=Note the Type 23 torpedo boat was slightly larger, but had a similar armament and speed.Gröner, p. 191 The Type 23 had an overall length of and was long at the waterline. The ships had a beam of , and a mean draft of . They displaced at standard load and at deep load.Whitley 1991, p. 202 ''Seeadler'' was fitted with a pair of Germania geared steam turbine sets, each driving one propeller, that were designed to produce using steam from three water-tube boilers which would propel the ship at .Whitley 2000, p. 57 The torpedo boats carried enough fuel oil to give them an intended range of at , but it proved to be only at that speed in service. Their crew consisted of 4 officers and 116 sailors.

As built, the Type 23s mounted three SK L/45 guns, one forward and two aft of the superstructure; the aft superfiring gun was on an open mount while the others were protected by gun shields. They carried six above-water 50 cm (19.7 in) torpedo tubes in two triple mountsSieche, p. 237 and could also carry up to 30 mines. After 1931, the torpedo tubes were replaced by tubes and a pair of C/30 anti-aircraft guns were added. During the war another pair of 2 cm guns may have been added before her loss.

Construction and career

Named after the sea eagle, the boat was laid down at the ''Reichsmarinewerft Wilhelmshaven'' (Navy Yard) on 15 July 1926 as yard number 103, launched on 15 March 1927 and commissioned on 15 May 1928. By the end of 1936 ''Seeadler'' was assigned to the 2nd Torpedo Boat Flotilla and the boat made several deployments to Spain during the Spanish Civil War. The boat ran aground leaving Cadiz harbor in November 1936 and had to be escorted home for repairs by her sister ship . After the heavy cruiser was hit by two bombs from Republican aircraft on 29 May 1937, Adolf Hitler ordered the heavy cruiser to bombard the Republican-held city of Almería in retaliation. On 31 May the ship did so, accompanied by the four boats of the 2nd Flotilla, targeting Republican coastal artillery, naval building and ships in the harbor, killing nineteen people. ''Seeadler'' and ''Albatros'' participated in the bombardment and the former was near-missed by coast-defense guns.Whitley 1991, p. 79 Around June 1938, she was transferred to the newly formed 4th Torpedo Boat Flotilla.

Second World War

At the beginning of the war, the 4th Flotilla was disbanded and ''Seeadler'' was transferred to the 6th Torpedo Boat Flotilla where she supported the North Sea mining operations that began on 3 September 1939. On 13, 18 and 19 November, the 6th Flotilla and one or two light cruisers met destroyers returning from minelaying missions off the English coast. Two days later the flotilla patrolled the Skagerrak to inspect neutral shipping for contraband goods before returning to port on the 25th. From 14 to 16 December, ''Seeadler'' and the torpedo boat made contraband patrols in the Skaggerak, impounding six ships. In retaliation for the ''Altmark'' Incident where the Royal Navy seized captured British sailors from the in neutral Norwegian waters on 16 February, the ''Kriegsmarine'' organized Operation ''Nordmark'' to search for Allied merchant ships in the North Sea as far north as the Shetland Islands. The 2nd Destroyer Flotilla, ''Seeadler'' and the torpedo boat escorted the battleships and and the heavy cruiser during the initial stages of the sortie on 18 February before patrolling the Skaggerak until the 20th.

During the Invasion of Norway in April 1940, the boat was assigned to Group 4 under ''Kapitän zur See'' (Captain) Friedrich Rieve on the light cruiser , tasked to capture Kristiansand. They departed Wesermünde on the morning of 8 April and arrived off Kristiansand the following morning, delayed by heavy fog. They had been spotted approaching the city and the alerted coast-defense guns at Odderøya Fortress opened fire on ''Karlsruhe'' at 05:32. The cruiser, ''Seeadler'' and ''Luchs'' returned fire. Neither side inflicted any damage on the other, although several of ''Karlsruhe''s shells missed their targets and impacted in the city. With only his forward guns able to bear and his ships loaded with troops, Rieve ordered them to turn away and lay a smoke screen to cover their withdrawal at 05:45. Shortly afterwards, a flight of six Heinkel He 111 bombers from ''Kampfgeschwader 4'' (Bomber Wing) attacked the fortress. Most of their bombs fell outside the fortifications, but one blew up the western ammunition dump and another near the signal station, killing two men and cutting most external communication lines. Encouraged by sight of the blast from the annumition dump and the numerous hits all over the island on which the fortress was built, Rieve ordered his ships to make another try at 05:55, this time at an angle so that all guns could bear. Accuracy for both sides was better this time, but no German ship was damaged and only a couple of shells from ''Karlsruhe'' landed inside the fort, wounding several gunners. With no discernable effect on the Norwegian defenses, Rieve was forced to withdraw again at 06:23. He now conceived the idea of bombarding the fortress at long range where he could use plunging fire to attack the guns from above and ''Karlsruhe'' would be out of range of the defending guns. The ship opened fire at 06:50 and Rieve ordered ''Seeadler'' and ''Luchs'' to steam through the narrows, but the fog closed in before they could get there and he had to cancel his order. The cruiser's fire was generally ineffective, with more shells landing in the city, so Rieve withdrew around 07:30 and requested additional air support.

Around that time a British reconnaissance aircraft overflew Kristiansand, but failed to see the German ships off shore. The naval commander of the area queried the supreme command whether British forces should be engaged or not and received the order to let them pass. He passed that order to Odderøya at 08:05. Rieve made another attempt to force the narrows around 09:00 when the fog briefly lifted, but nearly ran ''Karlsruhe'' aground and withdrew again. Getting desperate, Rieve ordered his troops loaded onto four of his small E-boats when the fog began to lift again at 09:25 and ordered them to storm the harbor regardless of casualties. An hour later, the Norwegians spotted the incoming German ships with ''Seeadler'' and ''Luchs'' approaching at high speed, followed by the four E-boats. They were reported at two cruisers and their approach from a different direction caused some observers to think that they were not German, especially since there had been a rumor earlier of British ships spotted in the Skaggerak. The confusion was compounded when observers reported that they were flying the French tricolor flag, confusing it with a ''Kriegsmarine'' signal flag of similar color. This caused the Norwegians to think that they were being saved by Allied ships and their guns did not open fire so the Germans landed without resistance and occupied the defenses beginning around 10:45.

Rieve was under orders to return to Kiel as soon as possible, so ''Karlsruhe'' sailed at 18:00, escorted by ''Seeadler'', her sister , and ''Luchs''. At 18:58, one torpedo from the British submarine struck the cruiser amidships, knocking out all power, steering and the pumps. ''Luchs'' evaded the other nine torpedoes and followed them to their origin and began depth charging the submarine for the next several hours, joined by the other two torpedo boats. ''Truant'' was damaged, but survived their attacks. Rieve ordered his crew aboard the torpedo boats and sent ''Seeadler'' and ''Luchs'' ahead while he remained with ''Greif'' to finish off ''Karlsruhe'' with a pair of torpedoes. After the heavy cruiser had been crippled by a British submarine off the Danish coast on 11 April, ''Seeadler'', ''Greif'' and ''Luchs'', among other ships, arrived the following morning to render assistance.

On 18 April, ''Seeadler'' and her sisters , ''Greif'', and the torpedo boat escorted minelayers as they laid anti-submarine minefields in the Kattegat. The boat began a refit at Wesermünde that lasted from May to August after which she was transferred to France. Now assigned to the 5th Flotilla, ''Seeadler'' and her sisters, ''Greif'', , and laid a minefield in the English Channel on 30 September – 1 October. Reinforced by ''Wolf'' and ''Jaguar'', the flotilla made an unsuccessful sortie off the Isle of Wight on 8–9 October. They made a second, more successful, sortie on 11–12 October, sinking two Free French submarine chasers and two British trawlers. The 5th Flotilla was transferred to St. Nazaire later that month and its ships laid a minefield off Dover on 3–4 December and another one in the Channel on 21–22 December.

''Seeadler'', the torpedo boat and the destroyer were the escorts for a minelaying mission at the northern entrance to the Channel on 23–24 January 1941. The boat was refitted in Rotterdam, Netherlands, from March to May 1941. She was transferred afterwards to the Skagerrak where she was on convoy escort duties. The boat was again refitted in Rotterdam from December 1941 to February 1942 before rejoining the 5th Flotilla. They joined the escort force for ''Scharnhorst'', ''Gneisenau'' and the heavy cruiser on 12 February 1942 off Cap Gris-Nez during the Channel Dash. From 12 March to 2 April, the flotilla escorted the commerce raider through the Channel despite heavy British attacks, damaging the British destroyers and . The flotilla escorted the commerce raider through the English Channel from 12 to 19 May. In heavy fighting on the 13th, British motor torpedo boats torpedoed ''Seeadler'', which capsized and then broke in half with the loss of 85 crewmen.Gröner, p. 193; Rohwer, pp. 57, 143, 151, 165; Whitley 1991, pp. 120–121, 208

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Seeadler, German torpedo boat
Type 23 torpedo boats
1926 ships
Ships built in Wilhelmshaven