MS Alfhem

The "Alfhem" was a Swedish flag vessel that became famous when she was used to transport a large quantity of Czechoslovak arms and ammunition to the Arbenz government of Guatemala in May 1954.

The weapons had been loaded onto the "Alfhem" in the Baltic port of Szczecin (formerly Stettin),cref|Churchill Poland. The ship then followed a zig-zag course sailing first towards Dakar in French West Africa (currently Senegal), then heading for Curaçao, later being re-directed to Puerto Cortes, Honduras, until finally a radio message to the captain revealed her true destination to be Puerto Barrios in Guatemala. She docked at Puerto Barrios, 297 kilometers northwest of Guatemala City, on 15 May 1954.

M/S "Alfhem", with a GT|4847|first=yes, had her home port in Uddevalla, Sweden and was owned and operated by Ångbåts Ab Bohusländska kusten. In an attempt to conceal her use for the arms shipment to Guatemala, the Czechoslovak government had paid for a "straw charter" of the vessel via the British firm, E.E. Dean, of London. Another deception was the falsification of the ship's Bill of Lading which declared that the cargo was composed entirely of items such as shovels, nails, machine tools, laboratory glass, etc., omitting any mention of the estimated 2,000 tons of weaponry and munitions that were its principal components. [http://www.foia.cia.gov/search.asp?pageNumber=1&freqReqRecord=Guatemala5.txt]

pecifications

*Gross register tonnage: GRT|4,847|first=yes
*Net register tonnage: 2781 tons
*Deadweight tonnage: DWT|8,460|metric|first=yes
*Length: 116.49 m
*Beam: 16.51 m
*Draft: 8.54 m
*Construction: Steel
*Propulsion: Two 6-cylinder B&W diesel motors, twin screws
*Builder: Odense Staalskibsværft A/S, Odense, Denmark
*Launch date: 25 February 1930
*Names: Guldborg (1930), Høegh Trader(1933), Gausdal(1935), Alfhem(1953), Antonios V(1960)

Content notes

cnote|Churchill|Winston Churchill had put Stettin on the Cold War map in his much-quoted 1946 speech at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, when he declared: "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an Iron Curtain has descended across the continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia."

References

Websites

*cite web |last = CIA, | url = http://www.foia.cia.gov/search.asp?pageNumber=1&freqReqRecord=Guatemala5.txt | title = M/S ALFHEM - INSPECTION OF SHIP AND INTERROGATION OF CREW AT KEY WEST, FLORIDA |format = online | accessdate = 18 March | accessyear = 2006

*cite web | url = http://www.faktaomfartyg.com/guldborg_1930.htm |title = M/S GULDBORG (1930) | format = online | accessdate = 19 March | accessyear = 2006

ee also

* Che Guevara
* Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán