German night fighter direction vessel Togo

NJL "Togo" was a German night fighter direction vessel ("Nachtjagdleitschiff") during World War II.

The NJL "Togo" was the second and the last of the German World War II radar ships. The first one had been the NJL "Kreta" (ex-French "Ile de Beauté") which had been taken over by the Kriegsmarine in January 1943, rebuilt and taken in use as a night fighter guide ship in August 1943. NJL "Kreta" was lost on September 21, 1943 near Capeira, after having being torpedoed by the British "U" class submarine HMS "Unseen".

The NJL "Togo" was equipped with a FuMG A1 Freya radar for early warning. It had a range of some 40-75 km. She had also a Würzburg-Riese gun laying radar with a similar range plus night fighter communications equipment.

She was heavily armed with three 10.5 cm FlaK 38 anti-aircraft guns, four twin 3,7 cm FlaK 43 guns, four (later five) quadruple and three (later two) single 2 cm FlaK 30 guns

History

The "Togo" was launched in August 1938. She had been built for the Woermann Line and carried the name M/S "Togo". After the outbreak of World War II and the following internment of German ships in Allied ports, she broke through the Allied blockade and returned to Hamburg where she was taken over by the Kriegsmarine in autumn 1939. She was rebuilt late in 1940 into a minelayer.

Raider "Coronel"

In late 1942 the "Togo" was converted into an auxiliary cruiser. As raider "Coronel", she was known to KM as HSK 10, and designated Schiff 14. To the Royal Navy she was "Raider K".

Converted at the Wilton shipyard in Rotterdam she was commissioned in December 1942. Her armament consisted of 6x TK15 15cm guns, 6x FlaK 4 4cm guns, 4x 2 cm machine guns in a twin mount, and a few 2 cm guns in single mounts.

She was also designed to carry 3 aircraft, but these were never installed.

She was commanded by FK (later KzS) Ernst Theineman, and carried a crew of 350.

Attempting to break out into the Atlantic, "Coronel" moved by stages, and under heavy escort, through the Channel, towards a departure point in occupied France. However she was attacked repeatedly, and, considerably damaged, was forced to return to Kiel, arriving there on 2 March 1943.

Later history

Later the same year, she was converted into a night fighter guide ship. Before she assumed her role she was temporarily used as a minesweeper (Sperrbrecher) and heavy auxiliary cruiser (schwerer Hilfskreuzer) and in the role of merchant harassment cruiser (Handels-Stör-Kreuzer) as the HSK 10 "Coronel".

From October 1943 the NJL "Togo" cruised the Baltic Sea operating under the control of the Luftwaffe. In March 1944, after the three great Soviet bombing raids on Helsinki, she arrived in the Gulf of Finland to provide night fighter cover for Tallinn and Helsinki.

She survived the war and was transferred to Britain, but ended in Norway as MS "Svalbard" after a brief trip to the US.

She had a long career as a merchant vessel, which ended abruptly as MS "Topeka" on 21 November, 1984 when she ran aground in Mexico. Two men died.

References

* [http://users.tkk.fi/~andres/m44/m44togox.htm The March Raid - Defences of Tallinn: NJL Togo]
* [http://users.tkk.fi/~andres/models_togo.html Nachtjagd-Leitschiff Togo (1/700)]

Books

* Paul Schmalenbach : German Raiders 1895-1945 (1977) ISBN 0 85059 351 4
* August Karl Muggenthaler : German Raiders of World War II (1977) ISBN 0 7091 6683 4
* Stephen Roskill : The War at Sea 1939-1945 Vol II (1956) ISBN (none)