German ship Doggerbank

Harland & Wolff built Speybank at Govan, Glasgow, launching her on 25 February 1926 and completing her on 20 April that year. Her registered length was 420.3 ft (128.1 m),her beam was 53.9 ft (16.4 m) and her depth was 26.5 ft (8.1 m). Her tonnages were 5,154 GRT and 3,154 NRT. She had twin screws, each driven by a six-cylinder single-acting diesel engine. Between them the twin engines developed 717 NHP[5] and gave her a speed of 12 knots (22 km/h).[6]

Andrew Weir & Co registered Speybank in Glasgow. Her United Kingdom official number was 148902 and her code letters were KTWS. By 1930 she was equipped for wireless telegraphy,[5] and in 1934 she was given the new call sign GLQF, which also superseded her code letters.[7]

On 31 January 1941 the German auxiliary cruiser Atlantis captured Speybank in the Indian Ocean and put aboard her a prize crew commanded by KptLt Paul Schneidewind. He took her to German-occupied France, reaching Bordeaux on 10 May 1941.[1]

The Kriegsmarine renamed her Doggerbank – Schiff 53 (German: "Ship 53") and converted to an auxiliary minelayer. She was disguised with false name Levernbank, which was another member of Bank Line's Inverbank class. She remained under Schneidewind's command.[1]

Doggerbank left France in January 1942 to lay mines off the coast of South Africa and then to proceed to Japan. She successfully laid the mines in March and April 1942 and reached Japan later that year.

On 13 March the Royal Navy cruiser HMS Durban stopped Doggerbank. Doggerbank identified herself as the Bank Line ship Levernbank, which satisfied Durban, who let her continue. The next day the Royal Navy armed merchant cruiser HMS Cheshire challenged Doggerbank. Doggerbank again identified herself as a British freighter, and Cheshire let her proceed.[8]

In Japan, Doggerbank took aboard many of the survivors of the auxiliary cruiser Thor and the German tanker Uckermark, the former Altmark, which had been destroyed in an accident in Yokohama on 30 November 1942. When she left the Far East, Doggerbank carried a total of 365 men: her own crew of 108, plus 257 men from the other two ships. She also carried a cargo of 7,000 tons of raw materials and rubber, fats and fish oil.[1]

Doggerbank travelled via Kobe, Saigon, Singapore and Jakarta, which she left on 10 January 1943, heading back to France. In mid-Atlantic on 3 March 1943 she was travelling ahead of schedule when the U-boat U-43 mistook her for a British ship "of the Dunedin Star type". U-43 fired a spread of three torpedoes, all three of which hit her. She sank within two minutes,[1] with perhaps 200 men killed instantly.[9]

U-43 saw Doggerbank launch five lifeboats, and tried to find the survivors, but failed to get close enough in the darkness.[1] Doggerbank had been unable to transmit a distress signal, so the German Naval High Command took days to realise she had been lost.

The eventual sole survivor of the crew of 108 and the 257 others on board, Fritz Kürt, was in Doggerbank's jolly boat, together with the ship's captain, Schneidewind, a small number of other men and the ship's dog. The boat headed for the South American coast, about three weeks's sailing away. Through suicide and accidents, the small crew was eventually reduced to two, Kürt and an old sailor by the name of Boywitt, the captain having shot himself and the ship's dog having drowned. Desperate for water and food, Boywitt drank sea water on the 19th day of their journey and died, while Kürt was too weak to even roll the dead body overboard.[10] Kürt was rescued on 29 March by the Spanish motor tanker Campoamor, which took him to Aruba.[1]

U-43 was sunk on 30 July 1943 without survivors.[11]

Kürt was exchanged in a prisoner-of-war swap in 1944, reported back to the German Navy, and then hid in Hamburg until the end of the war, as he was about to be arrested.[12]

• Gibson, Charles (1965). The Ship with Five Names. Abelard Schuman.
• Gibson, Charles (1987). Death of a Phantom Raider: The Gamble that Triumphed and Failed, Atlantic, 1942–43. Robert Hale Ltd. ISBN 978-0709029472.
• Stilgoe, John R (2003). Lifeboat. University of Virginia Press. ISBN 0-8139-2221-6.

• Herlin, Hans (1994). The survivor: the true story of the sinking of the Doggerbank, German: Der letze Mann der Doggerbank. Translated by John Brownjohn (English ed.). ISBN 9780850524093 – via Internet Archive.

• "El "Doggerbank", ex Speybank, y su trágico final". Navegar es Preciso (in Spanish).
• "Speybank (1926)". Clyde-Built Database. Archived from the original on 16 May 2006.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)

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