Oldendorff Centenary Book - Flipbook - Page 177
THE MANY
VICTIMS OF WAR
How wartime losses were replaced by
‘prizes’ acquired from other countries.
Luck was not on the side of ss HENNING OLDENDORFF. She had left Huelva
bound for Germany on 2 November 1939 with a cargo of 5,574 tonnes of
pyrites. When she attempted to break through between the Faroe Islands
and Iceland she was intercepted by the British cruiser, HMS COLOMBO, in
position 63.00N 10.12W and ordered to proceed to Kirkwall. She arrived there
on 20 November 1939 and a few months later served as the EMPIRE INDUSTRY
under the auspices of the British Ministry of Shipping. The steamer’s career
terminated on 16 March 1941 when, on a ballast voyage from Hartlepool to
Galveston, she was sunk off New Foundland by gunfire from the German
battle cruiser GNEISENAU.
HENNING OLDENDORFF (1) was not to be the only war casualty of the EO fleet.
The ERNA OLDENDORFF sank on 9 September 1941 after a collision with prize
tanker BENNO, managed by Atlantic Rhederei F.&W. Joch of Hamburg. KLAUS
OLDENDORFF whilst on a voyage from Reval to Helsinki, struck a mine laid
by a Russian submarine in the Gulf of Finland. Her total complement was lost.
Other Oldendorff ships were affected by the war, but luckily without any more
losses of lives. The ss LUDOLF OLDENDORFF which had busted the blockade
sank on 9 October 1944 in a British bomb raid. Prizes partly compensated the
company for war losses. The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines a prize as
a “ship, property, captured at sea in virtue of rights of war”. The Oxford
Companion to Ships and the Sea explains that “... in its strict and original legal
definition, prize in Britain is entirely a right of the Crown, and no man may
share in prize except through the gift of the Crown.” The German government
allocated to Egon Oldendorff on 17 June 1941 the former Swedish ss AXEL
(2,300 tdw) and also in 1941, the ex-Latvian ss WALTER (3,444 tdw), followed
on 31 January 1942 by the ss FISCHHAUSEN (1,900 tdw) of Estonian origin and
on 8 February 1942 by the ss SIGNAL (4,700 tdw) built 1923 in Caen, France.
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