KMS Graf Zeppelin - Program
In 1935, Adolf Hitler announced that Germany would construct aircraft carriers to strengthen the Kriegsmarine. A Luftwaffe officer, a naval officer and a constructor visited Japan in the autumn of 1935 to obtain flight deck equipment blueprints and inspect the Japanese aircraft carrier Akagi.
The keels of two were laid down in 1936. Two years later, Großadmiral (Grand Admiral) Erich Raeder presented an ambitious shipbuilding program called the Z Plan, in which four carriers were to be built by 1945. In 1939, he revised the plan, reducing the number to be built to two. The first of these was the Kriegsmarine Schiff Graf Zeppelin, launched in December, 1938. Due to conflicting requirements and arguments over design work, construction was an on-again, off-again proposition.
A review of Hitler's conferences on the German Navy, the minutes of which were captured after the fall of the Third Reich, reveals his decreasing interest in the carriers. Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, Commander of the Luftwaffe, was resentful of any incursion on his authority as head of the country's air power, and he frustrated Raeder at every opportunity. Within his own service, Raeder found opposition in Admiral Karl Dönitz, a submariner.
By May 1941, Raeder was still optimistic about the project and informed Hitler that Graf Zeppelin, then about 85% complete, would be completed in about a year and that another year would be required for sea trials and flight training. Though Raeder continued to assure Hitler that the carriers would be built, the Admiral's battles with Göring became increasingly bitter. Göring showed his contempt for the naval air arm by informing Hitler and Raeder that the aircraft ordered for Graf Zeppelin could not be available until the end of 1944. Göring's delaying tactics worked.
By 1943, Hitler had become disenchanted with his Navy. Raeder was relieved at his own request and Dönitz, the submarine admiral, took the top naval post. Wartime priorities and the need for war material to support ground forces and submarines forced the Graf Zeppelin never to be completed. Construction on the carriers had been fitful from the start, and worker and material shortages plagued Graf Zeppelin. Work on Graf Zeppelin finally ceased in 1943, with the ship being scuttled at war's end.
Flugzeugträger A Graf Zeppelin
The Kriegsmarine never named a vessel before it was launched, so it was given the designation "A" before she got underway. On 16 November 1935 the German naval high command issued an order for Flugzeugträger A to be built by the "Deutsche Werke Kiel AG", and the contract to build the ship was awarded to the Friedrich Krupp Germaniawerft in Kiel in 1936. The keel was laid down December 28, 1936. The Graf Zeppelin was launched on 08 December 1938, and left the shipyard in December 1938. By 1939 doubts had already arisen about its capabilities. In April 1940 construction work was halted. One of these aircraft carriers was photographed from the air, fitting out alongside a quay in the Naval Dockyard at Kiel, in July 1940, whence she was believed to have proceeded to Gdynia, Poland to bring it out of range of allied air raids. In July 1940 the "Graf Zeppelin" was towed to Gotenhafen
On 27/28 August 1942 the RAF dispatched 9 Lancasters of 106 Squadron, 5 Group, on a special operation. Each aircraft was loaded with a special 'Capital Ship' bomb which had been developed for attacks on large warships. It was believed that one direct hit could sink such a ship. The target on this night was the new German aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin, which was reputed to be almost ready for sailing. 7 of the Lancasters reached Gdynia, 950 miles from their base, but could not locate the Graf Zeppelin because of haze and bombed the harbour area instead. If these aircraft had managed to sink the Graf Zeppelin, this raid would have ranked as one of the bombing war's epics. No Lancasters were lost.
Following a general stoppage of shipbuilding in April 1943 the Graf Zeppelin was taken to Stettin. The Graf Zeppelin's armament and engines never completed before it left the shipyard. Work on the 95% complete carrier stopped; all armaments were removed and transferred to coastal batteries in Norway. Before the end of the war everything usefull was removed for other projects. With Germany's abandonment of aircraft carriers came Italy's growing interest in them. The liner Roma was earmarked for conversion and many parts of the Graf Zeppelin were transported to Italy for use in the conversion. The Graf Zeppelin hull itself was used to store hardwood for the Kriegsmarine.
Graf Zeppelin - Soviet War Prize
On 25 April 1945 Graf Zeppelin was scuttled at its berth in shallow water by a German demolition squad near Stettin (now Szczecin) in the mouth of the river Oder, just before the Red Army captured the city. The carrier's history and fate after Germany's surrender was unclear for decades after the war. The Graf Zeppelin, damaged by artillery fire, fell into the hands of the Soviet army in April 1945. The information on its loss at sea was unclear, with some saying it was hit by mine, others it was sunk by torpedo, some think damges to the outer sealings caused its sinking.
It appears that the Soviets decided to repair the damaged ship and it was refloated in March 1946. It is known is that the carrier was briefly designated as "PO-101" (Floating Base Number 101). The Graf Zeppelin was sent to Leningrad in March 1947 loaded with various containers, and construction equipment and probably used to carry the looted factory equipment from Poland and Germany to the Soviet Union.
The German aircraft carrier, built in late 1938, was quite different from the analogs in other countries. The ship had a "cruising" armor deck with bevels, a constructive inclusion of the flight deck to ensure the overall strength of the hull and a lengthy vertical reservation of variable thickness along the length of the hull. The launch of deck vehicles was supposed to be carried out exclusively with the help of two polespast-pneumatic catapults located in the bow of the flight deck.
In this regard, work on the Soviet Project 72 squadron aircraft carrier ceased, and instead the restless Kuznetsov approved a new technical specification for the development of a small squadron aircraft carrier that could in the coastal zone carry out the air defense task of the compound, participation in anti-submarine defense, escorting convoys and supporting landing.
Such a "budget" aircraft carrier was supposed to carry 30-40 planes in the hangars. To facilitate the start in the bow, it was planned to install one catapult. As a variant, the project of completion was considered as an aircraft carrier for the heavy cruiser Kronstadt or for the completion of the captured German aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin. "Kronstadt" was in low technical readiness (10-15%), its completion required about five years, and eventually he went to scrap.
The German aircraft carrier could have been completed in less than three years, but the allies, in whose area of ??responsibility there were many ready-made equipment and weapons for the Graf Zeppelin, strongly opposed the implementation of this plan and insisted on the destruction of the ship. Negotiations of the tripartite commission did not lead to anything.
Even before that, in January 1947, Kuznetsov had been removed from the post of the naval commander by false denunciations, and the work on aircraft carriers in the USSR again ceased.
On 16 August 1947 [other sources report sometime in June ] she was sunk as a target vessel after being loaded with bombs and other munitions that would be normally carried during the war as a training exercise for Russian military forces. With the Cold War was underway, and the Soviets were conscious of the large numbers and importance of aircraft carriers in the US Navy. In the event of war between the Soviet Union and US, the American carriers would be targets of high strategic importance. Hence, experience in sinking carriers by aircraft was much more valuable in 1947 than before 1945. According to one report, to simulate a load of combat munitions the Soviets installed aerial bombs on the flight deck, in hangars and even inside the funnels, and dropped bombs from aircraft, fired shells, and shot torpedoes into it. This assault would both comply with the Tripartite mandate (albeit late) and provide the Soviets with experience in sinking an aircraft carrier. 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 [and remains a matter of conflicting reporting once it was located in 2006].
Years after her sinking, the Graf Zeppelin's wreck was found in 2006 by a Polish firm that specialises in searching for oil reserves working in the Baltic Sea. On July 12, 2006 RV St. Barbara, a ship belonging to the Polish oil company Petrobaltic found a 265 m long wreck close to the port of Leba (a BBC report stated 55 km north of Wladyslawowo) which they thought was most likely Graf Zeppelin. Petrobaltic employees discovered it accidentally, after a half-century search. "We were carrying out soundings for possible oil exploration," Krzysztof Grabowski, of the Petrobaltic exploration group, said. "Then we stumbled across a vessel that was over 260 metres (850ft) long at a depth of 250 metres." Other reports state it lay at the depth of nearly 80 m, about 40 nautical miles north of Cape Rozewie, Poland, or that the wreck was some 55 kilometers (34 miles) north of the Polish port of Wladyslawowo, at a depth of 80 meters (260 feet).
On July 26, 2006 the crew of the Polish Navy's survey ship ORP Arctowski commenced penetration 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 feet) below the surface. Another report stated that the Polish Navy used sonar to confirm the wreckage was the Graf Zeppelin at 206 meters.
Flugzeugträger B Peter Strasser
The German Navy has always maintained a policy of not assigning a name to a ship until she is launched. The first German carrier, laid down as Carrier "A", was named Graf Zeppelin when launched in 1939. The second carrier bore only the title Carrier "B", since she was never launched. Various names, including Peter Strasser and Deutschland, were rumored, but no official decision was ever made. The Flugzeugträger B was the sister ship of the Kriegsmarine's only launched aircraft carrier, the Graf Zeppelin. Peter Strasser does not appear to have been completed. Carrier "B" was abandoned in 1940 and the half completed ship was broken and scrapped in 1949.
Some visionaries saw a new use for air-ships: strategic bombing. In 1915 Peter Strasser, the head of Germany's naval airship division, got permission from his superiors to mount strategic raids on England. On the night of August 1918 Bank Holiday, five Zeppelins launched a raid against Britain. The action took place at 17,000 feet, 40 miles out at sea. The raiders committed the mistake of approaching quite close to our coast before they picked up their position ; and before they turned back they were perceived. A squadron of British machines put out, at least four of them engaging the enemy. It was remarkable for the occurrence that in it Commander Peter Strasser, the chief of the Zeppelin fleefc who had accompanied many raids on England, was killed. The ship he went down with was one of the latest and largest, exceeding a cubic capacity of more than 2,000,000 feet.
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