German aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin

For other uses, see Graf Zeppelin (disambiguation).

"German aircraft carrier A" redirects here, for similarly named carriers, see German aircraft carrier I

Career (Nazi Germany)
Name:	Graf Zeppelin
Namesake:	Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin
Ordered:	16 November 1935
Laid down:	28 December 1936
Launched:	8 December 1938
Fate:	Sunk as a target ship on 16 August 1947
General characteristics
Displacement:	33,550 tonnes
Length:	262.5 m (861 ft 3 in)
Beam:	31.5 m (103 ft 4 in)
Draft:	7.6 m (24 ft 11 in)
Propulsion:	Geared turbines, 200,000 WPS (147,000 kW), four screws
Speed:	35 kn (65 km/h)
Range:	14,816 km (8,000 nmi) at 19 kn (35 km/h)
Complement:	1,720 crew 306 flight personnel
Armament:	16 × 15 cm SK C/28 guns 12 × Flak (10.5 cm) 22 × 3.7 cm SK C/30 (AA) 28 × Flak (2.0 cm)
Aircraft carried:	Proposed complement of 42 1930 proposal: 30 fighters & 12 dive bombers 1939 proposal: 12 fighters & 30 dive bombers See main article for details of proposed aircraft types.

German aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin was the lead ship in a class of two carriers ordered by the Kriegsmarine. She was the only aircraft carrier launched by Germany during World War II and represented part of the Kriegsmarine's attempt to create a well-balanced oceangoing fleet, capable of projecting German naval power far beyond the narrow confines of the Baltic and North Seas. Construction was ordered on 16 November 1935 and her keel was laid down on 28 December 1936 by Deutsche Werke at Kiel. Named in honor of Graf (Count) Ferdinand von Zeppelin, the ship was launched on 8 December 1938 but was not completed and was never operational.

Ship history

Graf Zeppelin moored at Stettin, mid-1941. The improved "Atlantic prow", the two empty openings for the 15cm gun casemates (just below and forward of the funnel), the telescoping masts and the ends of the twin catapult tracks on the flight deck are all visible.

Work started on Flugzeugträger A in 1936. She was laid down on 28 December that year, and launched on 8 December 1938. Construction on the Kriegsmarine's first aircraft carrier had been fitful from the start due to a shortage of welders and delays in obtaining materials, and by the spring of 1940 she was still incomplete.

Meanwhile, Germany’s conquest of Norway in April 1940 further eroded any chance of completing Flugzeugträger A (now named Graf Zeppelin). Now responsible for defending Norway’s long coastline and numerous port facilities, the Kriegsmarine urgently required large numbers of coastal guns and AA batteries. During a naval conference with Hitler on 29 April 1940, Admiral Raeder proposed halting all work on Graf Zeppelin, arguing that even if she was commissioned by the end of 1940, final installation of her guns would require another ten months or more (her original fire control system had been sold to the Soviet Union under an earlier trade agreement). Hitler consented to the stop work order, allowing Raeder to have Graf Zeppelin’s 15 cm guns removed and transferred to Norway. The carrier’s heavy flak armament of twelve 10.5 cm guns had already been diverted elsewhere.

On 12 July 1940, Graf Zeppelin was towed from Kiel to Gotenhafen (Gdynia) and remained there for nearly a year. Just prior to Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, the carrier was again moved, this time to Stettin, in order to safeguard her from Soviet air attacks. By November, the German army had pushed deep enough into Russian territory to remove any further threat of air attack and Graf Zeppelin was returned to Gotenhafen where she briefly served as a floating warehouse for the Navy's hardwood supply.

By the time Admiral Raeder met with Hitler for a detailed discussion of naval strategy in April 1942, the usefulness of aircraft carriers in modern naval warfare had been amply demonstrated. British carriers had crippled the Italian fleet at Taranto in November 1940, critically damaged the German battleship Bismarck in May 1941 and prevented battleship Tirpitz from attacking two convoys bound for Russia in March 1942. In addition, a Japanese carrier raid on Pearl Harbor had devastated the American battlefleet in December 1941. Raeder, anxious to secure air protection for the Kriegsmarine's heavier surface units, informed Hitler that Graf Zeppelin could be finished in about a year, with another six months required for sea trials and flight training. On 13 May 1942, with Hitler's authorization, the German Naval Supreme Command ordered work resumed on the carrier.

But daunting technical problems remained. Raeder wanted newer planes, specifically designed for carrier use. Reichsmarshall Goering, head of the Luftwaffe, replied that the already overburdened German aircraft industry could not possibly complete the design, testing and mass production of such aircraft before 1946. Instead, he proposed converting existing aircraft (again the Junkers Ju 87 and Messerschmitt Bf 109) as a temporary solution until newer types could be developed. Training of carrier pilots at Travemünde would also resume.

The converted carrier aircraft were heavier versions of their land-based predecessors and this required a host of changes to Graf Zeppelin's original design: the existing catapults needed modernization; stronger winches were necessary for the arresting gear; the flight deck, elevators and hangar floors also required reinforcement. Changes in naval technology dictated other alterations as well: installation of air search radar sets and antennas; upgraded radio equipment; an armored fighter director cabin mounted on the main mast (which in turn meant a heavier sturdier mast to accommodate the cabin's added weight); extra armoring for the bridge and fire control center; a new curved funnel cap to shield the fighter director cabin from smoke; replacing the single-mount 20mm AA guns with quadruple Flakvierling 38 guns (with a corresponding increase in ammunition supply) to improve overall AA defense; and additional bulges on either side of the hull to preserve the ship's stability under all this added weight.

The German naval staff hoped all these changes could be accomplished by April 1943, with the carrier's first sea trials taking place in August that same year. Towards that end, Chief Engineer Hadeler was reassigned to oversee Graf Zeppelin's completion. Hadeler planned on getting the two inner shafts and their respective propulsion systems operational first, giving the ship an initial speed of 25-26 knots, fast enough for sea trials to commence and for conducting air training exercises. By the winter of 1943/1944 she was expected to be combat-ready.

On the night of 27–28 August 1942, Graf Zeppelin underwent the only Allied air attack ever specifically targeting her for destruction. Nine RAF Avro Lancaster heavy bombers from 106 Squadron were despatched against her, each one carrying single "Capital Ship" bombs, a 5,500 lb device with a shaped charge warhead intended for armoured targets. One pilot was unable to see the carrier due to haze and instead dropped his bomb on the estimated position of the German battleship Gneisenau. Another believed he scored a direct hit on Graf Zeppelin but there is no known record of the ship suffering any damage from a bomb strike that night.

On 5 December 1942, Graf Zeppelin was towed back to Kiel and placed in a floating drydock. It seemed she might well see completion after all. By late January 1943, however, Hitler had become so disenchanted with the Kriegsmarine, especially with what he perceived as the poor performance of its surface fleet, that he ordered all of its larger ships taken out of service and scrapped. To Admiral Raeder, who had often clashed with Hitler on naval policy, this was a stunning setback. In a long memorandum to Hitler he called the new order "the cheapest sea victory England ever won". Raeder was shortly relieved of command and replaced with former Commander of Submarines Karl Dönitz. Though Admiral Dönitz eventually persuaded Hitler to void most of the order, work on all new surface ships and even those nearing completion was halted, including Graf Zeppelin. As of 2 February 1943, construction on the carrier ended for good.

In April 1943 Graf Zeppelin was again towed eastward, first to Gotenhafen, then to the roadstead at Swinemünde and finally berthed at a back-water wharf in the Parnitz River, two miles (3 km) from Szczecin (then known as Stettin), where she had been briefly docked in 1941. There she languished for the next two years with only a 40-man custodial crew in attendance. When Red Army forces neared the city in April 1945, the ship's Kingston valves were opened, flooding her lower spaces and settling her firmly into the mud in shallow water. A ten-man engineering squad then rigged the vessel's interior with demolition and depth charges in order to hole the hull and destroy vital machinery. At 6pm on 25 April 1945, just as the Russians entered Stettin, commander Wolfgang Kähler radioed the squad to detonate the explosives. Smoke billowing from the carrier's funnel confirmed the charges had gone off, rendering the ship useless to her new owners for many months to come.

Fate after the war

Stern view of a Graf Zeppelin model

Bow view of model

The carrier's history and fate after Germany's surrender was unclear for decades after the war. According to the terms of the Allied Tripartite Commission, a "Category C" ship (damaged or scuttled) should have been destroyed or sunk in deep water by 15 August 1946. Instead, the Soviets decided to repair the damaged ship and it was refloated in March 1946 and enlisted in the Baltic Fleet as aircraft carrier Zeppelin (Цеппелин). The last known photo of the carrier shows it leaving Świnoujście (before 1945 Swinemünde) on 7 April 1947 (see picture). The photo appears to show the carrier deck loaded with various containers, boxes and construction elements, hence the supposition that it was probably used to carry stolen factory equipment from Poland and confiscated from Germany to the Soviet Union.

For many years, no other information about the ship's fate was available. There was some speculation that it was very unlikely that the hull made it to Leningrad, as it was argued that the arrival of such a large and unusual vessel would have been noticed by Western intelligence services. This seemed to imply that the hull was lost at sea during transfer between Świnoujście and Leningrad. One account concluded that it struck a mine north of Rügen on 15 August 1947, but Rügen, west of Swinemünde, is not on the sailing route to Leningrad. Further north in the Gulf of Finland, a heavily-mined area difficult for Western observers to monitor, seemed more likely.

After the opening of the Soviet archives, new light was shed on the mystery. Though some believed that the carrier had been towed to Leningrad after the war, in his book "Without wings, the story of Hitler's aircraft carrier" Burke disputed this. What is known is that the carrier was known as "PB-101" (Floating Base Number 101) in 3 February 1947, until, on 16 August 1947, it was used as a practice target for Soviet ships and aircraft. Allegedly the Soviets installed aerial bombs on the flight deck, in hangars and even inside the funnels (to simulate a load of combat munitions), and then dropped bombs from aircraft and fired shells and torpedoes at it. This assault would both comply with the Tripartite mandate (albeit late) and provide the Soviets with experience in sinking an aircraft carrier.

According to Soviet sources, on 19 March 1947 the Council of Ministers decreed destruction of former German ships. The first capital ship, Lutzow, was sunk off Swinemunde on 22 July 1947. On 14 August Zeppelin was towed into the harbor, and two days later to its final resting place. It was subjected to five series of controlled explosions of 180-mm shells and FAB series bombs. The first series imitated a FAB-1000 detonation in the exhaust funnel and lesser bombs below the flight deck. The second series was a single FAB-1000 explosion above the flight deck. The third, the fourth and the fifth series imitated penetration of FAB-100, FAB-250 and FAB-500 bombs at flight deck, hangar deck and gun battery deck levels. These bombs were placed in cutouts in their target decks to imitate effects of dive bombing. Zeppelin remained afloat, and admiral Yury Rall ordered a torpedo strike. A torpedo fired from an Elco PT boat exploded in the anti-torpedo bulge and did not penetrate belt armor. A torpedo fired by Destroyer Slavny penetrated the unprotected hull section below the bow elevator; Zeppelin sank 25 minutes later.

By this point, the Cold War was under way, and the Soviets were well aware of the large numbers and central importance of aircraft carriers in the U.S. Navy, which in the event of an actual war between the Soviet Union and the United States would be targets of high strategic importance. After being hit by 24 bombs and projectiles, the ship did not sink and had to be finished off by two torpedoes. The exact position of the wreck was unknown for decades.

Discovery in 2006

On 12 July 2006 RV St. Barbara, a ship belonging to the Polish oil company Petrobaltic found a 265 m long wreck close to the port of Łeba (a BBC report says 55 km north of Władysławowo) which they thought was most likely Graf Zeppelin. On 26 July 2006 the crew of the Polish Navy's survey ship ORP Arctowski commenced inspection of the wreckage to confirm its identity, and the following day the Polish Navy confirmed that the wreckage was indeed that of Graf Zeppelin. She rests at more than 87 meters (264 ft) below the surface.

Diving

In 2009 a team of scuba divers obtained permission from the Polish government to dive the wreck. The depth and conditions of the wreck mean that only advanced technical divers can realistically contemplate such a dive, but in any event, permission needs to be obtained from Polish authorities for any diving activities.

See also

• List of aircraft carriers
• List of World War II ships
• List of naval ships of Germany
• List of naval ship classes of Germany
• List of Kriegsmarine ships
• List of ship launches in 1938
• Flugzeugträger B - Graf Zeppelin's sister ship

Bibliography

• Barker, Lt. Cmdr Edward L. (March 1954). War Without Aircraft Carriers. United States Naval Institute Proceedings. 
• Breyer, Siegfried (1989). The German Aircraft Carrier Graf Zeppelin. Atglen, Pennsylvania: Schiffer Publishing Ltd. 
• Breyer, Siegfried (2004). Encyclopedia of Warships 42: Graf Zeppelin. Gdansk: A.J. Press. 
• Brown, David (1977). WWII Fact Files: Aircraft Carriers. New York: Arco Publishing. 
• Burke, Stephen (Sept 2007). Without Wings: The Story of Hitler's Aircraft Carrier. Trafford Publishing. ISBN 1425122167. 
• Chesneau, Roger (1998). Aircraft Carriers of the World, 1914 to the Present An Illustrated Encyclopedia. London: Brockhampton Press. pp. 288. ISBN 1 86019 87 5 9. 
• Green, William (1979). The Warplanes of the Third Reich. New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc. 
• Green, William; Gordon Swanborough (1994). The Complete Book of Fighters. Salamander Books.  ISBN 0-8317-3939-8.
• Israel, Ulrich H.-J. (1994). Graf Zeppelin: Einziger Deutscher Flugzeugträger. Hamburg: Verlag Koehler/Mittler. 
• Israel, Ulrich H.-J. (2003). "Flugdeck klar!" Deutsche Trägerflugzeuge bis 1945. Flieger Revue Extra. 
• Lake, Jon (2002). Lancaster Squadrons 1942-43. Osprey.  ISBN 1841763136
• Marshall, Francis L. (1994). Sea Eagles - The Operational History of the Messerschmitt Bf 109T. Walton on Thames, Surrey, UK: Air Research Publications. 
• Reynolds, Clark G. (January 1967). Hitler's Flattop: The End of the Beginning. United States Naval Institute Proceedings. 
• Smith, Peter C. (1998). Junkers Ju 87 Stuka. Ramsbury: The Crowood Press. 
• Whitley, M.J. (July 1984). Warship 31: Graf Zeppelin, Part 1. London: Conway Maritime Press Ltd. 
• Whitley, M.J. (1985). Warship 33, Vol IX: Graf Zeppelin, Part 2. London: Conway Maritime Press Ltd. 

External links

• Graf Zeppelin images from Bundesarchiv Freiburg (text in German but lots of images)
• Maritimequest Graf Zeppelin photo gallery
• Aerial photos of the carrier taken in 1947
• "Divers find Hitler's aircraft carrier" - Article from Times Online, published July 27, 2006 (Roger Boyes)