Kriegsmarine U boat ships bell Schiffsglocke

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U Boat ships bell Schiffsglocke U-4701 Type XXIII

This is a very interesting picture concerning the debate if yes or no, the german u-boats at the end of the war were equipped with a ship's bell! Depicted is the conning tower of U-4701 equipped with a ship's bell in a longer swan neck fitting than observed on early war U-Boats. (Ordered 7 Jul 1944; Laid down 19 Oct 1944 F. Krupp Germaniawerft AG, Kiel; Launched 14 Dec 1944; Commissioned 10 Jan 1945).
Source: http://alifrafikkhan.blogspot.be/201...1_archive.html


U-4701 U-Boot Type XXXIII.jpg

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Kriegsmarine Minenschiff ROLAND Ships bell

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Kriegsmarine U Boat ships bell

posted on WAF by Todd Gylsen
U boat ship bell on WAF.JPG

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sounding the bell of an unknow station or ship

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[Fred Fokkelman]

Very cool images you posted here! I'm currently building a 1/72 U-boot VCII from Revell in my spare time.

[glaser]

Very cool images you posted here! I'm currently building a 1/72 U-boot VCII from Revell in my spare time.

thx, have fun building don't forget the bell ;-)

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Kriegsmarine sailing ship bell Schiffsglocke

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U198 ship's bell

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[John R.]

From Angolia's book--Graf Spee bell used on Scharnhorst. I cannot read the name on the bell so have to go with what Angolia has stated in the caption.

I also have no idea what the Spee bell would be used in Scharnhorst. I would have thought that the Spee bell was aboard when scuttled and is still aboard at the bottom of the River Plate.

John

[John R.]

Different bells.

John

[John R.]

Comparison differences thanks to Norm. John

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Graf spee ship bell

John, following the maritime tradition, IMO the ship's bell of ADM GRAF SPEE was taken ashore before the ship was scuttled, as well as the flag, commissioning pennant, log book, captain's ship book, etc etc etc

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Graf spee ship bell

I would like to see pictures of the Ship's bell of the Graf Spee on the day of its commissioning!

[John R.]

I am not sure there is much tradition involved to guide a warship's scuttling but in the case of Graf Spee, maybe you are correct in that the bell was removed in Uruguay.

For sure, the large flags (2) seen flying as Graf Spee left Montevideo harbor are not there as the ship lay burning, so they was removed and at least the battle flag was given to Captain Langsdorff since he shot himself on it.

Of course, the ship's log (usually two of them, a rough and smooth) would have been removed and at some point given to the Embassy maybe. Many logs on a warship, the official log is the log sent to the Navy records at some point after a calendar year or whenever it is supposed to be sent.

The actual commissioning pennant itself is normally given to the first commanding officer when he departs and is of no particular importance IMO, but no flags are flying from the burning hulk of Graf Spee. Later commissioning pennants are treated afterwards as any other flag and when it wears out, it is replaced by another pennant. You would not haul down the commissioning pennant if the ship was still commissioned I think.

For a ship going down at sea as a result of battle, no way anybody would attempt to remove the ship's bell. Too secure, too heavy.

Only the ship's log has to be removed when the ship is abandoned. I personally have run many "abandon ship" drills, none involved removing the bell, flags, anything, but did involve throwing overboard weighted sacks of classified information and removing the logs.

No matter though, the Graf Spee was a special circumstance.

John

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Flottenbegeleiter F6 ship's bell

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