German tanker Altmark
Encyclopedia
Altmark was a German oil tanker
Oil tanker
An oil tanker, also known as a petroleum tanker, is a merchant ship designed for the bulk transport of oil. There are two basic types of oil tankers: the crude tanker and the product tanker. Crude tankers move large quantities of unrefined crude oil from its point of extraction to refineries...
and supply vessel, one of five of a class built between 1937 and 1939. She is best known for her support of the German commerce raider, the "pocket battleship" and her subsequent involvement in the "Altmark Incident".
The Altmark Incident
Altmark (Captain Heinrich Dau) was assigned to support Admiral Graf Spee during her raid in the South AtlanticAtlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
between September and December 1939. Seamen rescued from the ships sunk by Admiral Graf Spee were transferred to Altmark. After Admiral Graf Spee was scuttled by her crew
Battle of the River Plate
The Battle of the River Plate was the first naval battle in the Second World War. The German pocket battleship had been commerce raiding since the start of the war in September 1939...
in the Río de la Plata
Río de la Plata
The Río de la Plata —sometimes rendered River Plate in British English and the Commonwealth, and occasionally rendered [La] Plata River in other English-speaking countries—is the river and estuary formed by the confluence of the Uruguay River and the Paraná River on the border between Argentina and...
in December 1939, Altmark attempted to return to Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, steaming around the north of Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
and then within the Norwegian
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
littoral. On 14 February 1940 Altmark, proceeding south within Norwegian territorial waters
Territorial waters
Territorial waters, or a territorial sea, as defined by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, is a belt of coastal waters extending at most from the baseline of a coastal state...
, was discovered by three British Lockheed Hudson
Lockheed Hudson
The Lockheed Hudson was an American-built light bomber and coastal reconnaissance aircraft built initially for the Royal Air Force shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War and primarily operated by the RAF thereafter...
Mk.II's, from RAF Thornaby
RAF Thornaby
RAF Thornaby was a former RAF Station located at the Teesside town of Thornaby-on-Tees, North Yorkshire. The station was created in the mid 1920s and came under the control of No. 18 Group, RAF Coastal Command in 1939. Being used mostly for reconnaissance work, anti shipping strikes, and attacks on...
and pursued by several British destroyers led by . Late on 16 February 1940 in Jøssingfjord
Jøssingfjord
Jøssingfjord is a fjord located within the municipality of Sokndal in south-western Norway.The fjord is known as the location of the Altmark Incident, where, during World War II, on February 16, 1940, the British destroyer Cossack managed to free prisoners taken by the Admiral Graf Spee from the...
she was fired upon while the Norwegian Navy stood by and took no action save for raising a protest flag. The German tanker then received a boarding party from HMS Cossack. During an attempted escape across the ice, seven of the Altmark crew were shot down. During the skirmish Altmark was run on to the rocks. It had been the British intention to tow the ship back to a Scottish port, but the damage to the tanker's stern frustrated this idea.
An attack by one belligerent upon its enemy in neutral waters is a breach of neutrality, in this case a breach of Norwegian neutrality by Britain. Because Hitler feared Norway would be insufficiently resolute to protect the German iron-ore traffic which passed legitimately along the Norwegian littoral, at Raeder's
Erich Raeder
Erich Johann Albert Raeder was a naval leader in Germany before and during World War II. Raeder attained the highest possible naval rank—that of Großadmiral — in 1939, becoming the first person to hold that rank since Alfred von Tirpitz...
urging he decided on the invasion of Norway and Denmark
Operation Weserübung
Operation Weserübung was the code name for Germany's assault on Denmark and Norway during the Second World War and the opening operation of the Norwegian Campaign...
in March 1940.
The British justification for the attack on the Altmark was set out in a Note to the Norwegian Government from Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax dated 10 March 1940. The problem the British Government faced was the wording of The Hague Convention XIII
Hague Conventions (1899 and 1907)
The Hague Conventions were two international treaties negotiated at international peace conferences at The Hague in the Netherlands: The First Hague Conference in 1899 and the Second Hague Conference in 1907...
of 1907 to which it was a signatory. Article 10 provides that: "The neutrality of a Power is not affected by the mere passage through its territorial waters of warships or prizes belonging to belligerents."
This meant that the Altmark was within its rights to sail through Norwegian waters with prisoners aboard providing that it did not come to a protracted stop longer than 24 hours.
In the diplomatic letter, the British Government confirmed that it was not contrary to the law of neutrality to sail a prison ship through neutral waters, and Britain often did this herself. In fact the British complaint had nothing to do with the prisoners. Altmark was a Fleet tanker assimilated to a warship and was proceeding to Germany from the Atlantic by the north-about route. Instead of sailing down the North Sea as he would do in peacetime, the master of the Altmark had elected to sail the entire leg of the voyage southwards within Norwegian territorial waters in order to attract immunity from attack there under international law. There was no other reason for him to want to voyage through waters so dangerous to navigation. This must be an abuse of international law, and since the Norwegians had declined to stop the voyage the Royal Navy had done so on orders from the British Admiralty.
The question remains unresolved to this day as to whether, as the Hague Conventions stood in 1940, a warship could legitimately seek immunity from attack in neutral waters by widely varying its course to reach them.
Subsequent history
The ship, renamed Uckermark on 6 August 1940, then resumed in the role for which she had been built. During Admiral LütjensGünther Lütjens
Günther Lütjens was a German Admiral whose military service spanned almost 30 years. Lütjens is best known for his actions during World War II, primarily his service as admiral of the squadron comprising and her consort, , during the Operation Rheinübung sortie.-Early career:Günther Lütjens was...
' Atlantic adventure with the battleships and between January and March 1941, Uckermark (Captain Zatorski) was a supply ship and scout attached to the squadron. As the result of her reports the battleships were directed to various merchant vessels which were then sunk.
On 9 September 1942 she left France for Japan with a cargo of vegetable oil and fuel, supplying the auxiliary cruiser on the way, arriving at Yokohama
Yokohama
is the capital city of Kanagawa Prefecture and the second largest city in Japan by population after Tokyo and most populous municipality of Japan. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of Tokyo, in the Kantō region of the main island of Honshu...
on 24 November 1942. Uckermark was then intended as the replenishment ship for the German raider , which was raiding merchant shipping in the Indian Ocean and western Pacific Ocean areas.
On 30 November 1942, Uckermark was anchored in Yokohama, Japan, next to Thor and the Australian passenger liner Nankin, which Thor had captured in March five days out from Fremantle
Fremantle, Western Australia
Fremantle is a city in Western Australia, located at the mouth of the Swan River. Fremantle Harbour serves as the port of Perth, the state capital. Fremantle was the first area settled by the Swan River colonists in 1829...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, en route to Colombo
Colombo
Colombo is the largest city of Sri Lanka. It is located on the west coast of the island and adjacent to Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte, the capital of Sri Lanka. Colombo is often referred to as the capital of the country, since Sri Jayawardenapura Kotte is a satellite city of Colombo...
, Ceylon. While the crew was at lunch, Uckermark suffered a huge explosion which ripped the vessel apart. Uckermark, Thor, and Nankin were sunk by the explosion. The cause of the explosion was thought to be a spark from tools used by a repair gang working near the cargo tanks. The Uckermark had delivered 5000ts of gasoline to Yokohama. It seems to be logical that the residual fumes and gasoline did explode. Diesel fuel does not explode the way the ship went up. 53 crewmen from Uckermark died in the explosion. The severely damaged ship was beyond repair and was scrapped.
A number of survivors of the ship were sent to France on the blockade runner
Blockade runner
A blockade runner is usually a lighter weight ship used for evading a naval blockade of a port or strait, as opposed to confronting the blockaders to break the blockade. Very often blockade running is done in order to transport cargo, for example to bring food or arms to a blockaded city...
Doggerbank and perished when the ship was mistakenly sunk by the German submarine U-43 on 3 March 1943 with all but one of the 365 strong crew lost at sea.