The Way to the Black Sea.
In the year 1941 the German troops in their advance reached the northern and western coasts of the Black Sea. The Russian Navy had withdrawn to the harbors of the east coast, with Poti as their main base. On occupying the area, the Germans found no stocks of usable military or transport vessels worth mentioning, since the enemy had destroyed all seaworthy craft that he could not take away. Thus the Germans lacked the various types of small fighting units which were so sorely needed for both offensive and defensive warfare in the Black Sea. In addition, freighters, tankers, and tugs were needed for sea transport. Port maintenance could not be conducted without ice-breakers, dredges, lighters, and traffic boats.
Nor was it possible to bring in the most necessary ships from Germany or Italy. The sea lane to the Black Sea was completely blocked at the Straits of Gibraltar, controlled by the British, and at the Dardanelles, which was neutral Turkish territory. Likewise, from the northern German seas there was no through communication via inland waters. It is true that Charlemagne had sought to link the Rhine-Main and the Danube as early as 800 A.D., but these plans had not been realized until a thousand years later, and then in such a limited measure that even small naval units could not pass through.
The only thing left was to try to bring vessels from the north or Baltic coasts in a combined transport overland to the area of operations by the best possible use of streams and inland waterways. The shortest distance for this undertaking was about a thousand air miles from start to finish.
From the beginning it was clear that for this difficult type of transport only smaller vessels could be considered. The limited depths of the streams used required a considerable decrease in the draft of these seagoing craft. The displacement had to be reduced by improved construction; the carrying capacity of the trailers available for overland transport, even when they were hitched together limited the burden tonnage of the vessels to a maximum of 200-250 tons. Limitations of overhead bridges to be passed on the highway would require a lowering of the superstructure and of parts of the hull. Possibly certain units of unusual height would have to be transported on their sides.
The German Reichbahn (National Railways) had already had experience in transporting heavy loads. Moreover, the Deutsch-Amerikanische Petroleumgesellschaft (German-American Petroleum Company, an affiliate of Standard Oil) had once hauled some tanker-barges over the Autobahn from the Elbe to the Danube. Thus it was decided to make use of the Autobahn for the planned haul from one stream to another.
Organization and Progress of the Black Sea Transport
The German Naval Strategic Planning Staff (SKL) demanded that as many vessels as possible be transported in the shortest possible time to the Black Sea. For the execution of this task, a heavy transport group was created in the German Naval High Command (OKM). Later, with the increase in number of departure centers, this group was divided into several sub-groups. Their activity was coordinated among the Navy, German-American Petroleum Company, and the German Railways.
The general direction of the transport group was located in Berlin. Each individual lap of the transport route was supervised by a naval officer with a deputy from the Railway and the German-American Petroleum Company. The 600-man personnel included transport and loading specialists, drivers, ship-builders, radiomen, and pilots and crews for the river transport, as well as traffic police.
The transport and auxiliary vehicles available included 121 heavy tractors with motor output of 130 HP each, 43 trailers of 40 or 80 tons burden capacity each, numerous trucks of 5-20 tons capacity, service and lank cars, buses for the relief personnel, radio cars for air and road stretch security, snow plows and sanding machines for winter travel, and river tugs and crane-ships. Three repair shops were established to assist the heavily-burdened vehicle park.
On the route from the north or from the Baltic to the Black Sea, the Elbe River from Hamburg to the city of Dresden was suitable for water transport of vessels. Then it was necessary to cover the stretch of 250 miles overland to the Danube, which empties into the Black Sea. Take, for instance, the transporting of a navy landing barge or punt (MFP) from the North Sea to the Black Sea. This seaworthy motor ship was built as a punt, with a box-shaped cross-section, length about 150 feet, width 20 feet, draft 4.5 feet with a load of 150 tons, maximum speed some 11 knots. It served as transport for crews, vehicles, and material in shallow coastal waters and in rivers where bridges were destroyed or lacking. The MFP’s were also used to carry artillery for shelling coastal areas and in landing operations, as well as mine-laying. The bow had a drop-type ramp which was extremely useful in handling both personnel and material. Ships of this type were sorely needed in the Black Sea.
Before the trip, the MFP was adapted at a Hamburg yard and reduced to a weight of about 200 tons. Then it was towed by speedy tugs on the Elbe as far as Dresden, a stretch of about 300 miles. There the vessel was hauled ashore and placed on trailers by a hydraulic lift. It was then coupled to trucks, and the caravan rolled along with a top speed of not quite ten miles per hour in continuous day and night travel over the Autobahn southward past the towns of Nurnberg and Bayreuth. After a bare two-day trip, Ingolstadt on the Danube was reached. Here the vessel was unloaded and launched once more. Then came the rapid tow downstream to a yard at Linz, where the ship was made ready for service. Then under its own power it traveled the remaining thousand miles to the Black Sea.
A trip from Hamburg on the Elbe to Linz on the Danube required eight days. Cost for river and land transport of one MFP (Marine-Fährprahm) over this stretch came to 34,000 Reichsmark.*
Much more difficult was the transport of U-boats, because of the inadequate depth of the rivers and the limited clearance of the Autobahn bridges, but a solution was found after the engine installations and other gear were removed, the submarine was completely sealed and careened on its side. Then a number of floats were fastened together to conform to the contours of the flat-lying submarine. In this way it lay as if in a crate. This “U-boat crate,” with the submarine in it, was brought to the water, towed on the Elbe to Dresden, and there hauled ashore. The floats were removed, and in the same position the boat was hauled on trailers to Ingolstadt on the Danube. Once more it was attached to the pontoon floats, which had followed by rail, once more “crated” and towed down the Danube to Linz, where it was righted and made ready for duty in the Black Sea.
Land transport of longer units which were particularly sensitive to road vibrations (and swinging), or of those which exceeded the load limits despite thoroughgoing strip- down, could be effected only in sections. This was done, for instance, with large paddle steamers. The activity on the Dresden-Ingolstadt stretch was later so well coordinated that at top efficiency, in addition to the transport of smaller units, one heavy ship on trailers rolled from Dresden every day.
Up to the end of the war, the following units were transported from the North or the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea:
6 |
U-boats |
30 |
motor boats |
23 |
mine sweepers |
50 |
MFP’s (landing craft) |
26 |
navy cutters for anti-submarine warfare |
84 |
special cutters for patrol duty |
113 |
coastal freighters |
40 |
coastal tankers |
30 |
motor tugboats |
2 |
side-paddle steammers |
2 |
ice-breakers |
4 |
dredging units |
18 |
sea-going motor boats |
Total: 428 |
ships and boats in all. |
In the last year of the war, this transport route was operated in the opposite direction. Ships that could be spared from the Black Sea were brought back to the North Sea. The difficulties of this trip lay in the sharp grade of the Autobahn. During the winter, moreover, there might be sudden icing of higher points on the Autobahn and heavy drifting of snow. Only shortly before the end of the war was the route interrupted by the Allied advance.
Through France to the Western Mediterranean
From the summer of 1940, the English Channel coast and the entire French Atlantic coast were in German hands. The German C.N.O. (Ob.d.M.) Grossadmiral Raeder had immediately pointed out the strategic importance of the Mediterranean for German war planning. He did not succeed in finding interest and understanding, since the German political and military leadership was completely under the spell of Continental thinking.
As the situation in North Africa deteriorated in 1940-1941, Rommel was sent with two divisions to this theater of operations. Under the terms of the French surrender the French southern coast was not in German hands. In the winter of 1941-1942, several R-boats (length 80 feet, beam 14 feet, draft 4 feet, 60 tons) were brought through French canals to the Rhone and thence to the Mediterranean. Similarly, a few S-boats (length 85 feet, beam 13 feet, draft 4 feet, 49 tons) were brought down the Rhone. After the Allied invasion of North Africa in November 1942, the Germans occupied the coast of southern France. Then Rommel could get overland shipment of landing craft (MFP’s), minesweepers, and S-boats from the English Channel. The local headquarters reported these plans to be unfeasible in view of the road conditions in southern France. Finally Navy Captain Hagen, A-I of the German security force command in the West, discovered a route that was considered suitable. The reconnaissance of such a combined water and land transport route was conducted as follows:
First, the presumably usable stretch was marked off roughly on the land map. The checking of suitable waterways, streams, and canals was relatively simple, since the data were provided by competent authorities. The choice and scouting of intermediate land transport stretches had, however, to be made by a group of military personnel aided by transport specialists, surveyors, and highway engineers. All highways that seemed in any way suitable for the ship transport project were tried out for degree of curve gradient and transverse gradient of the roadbed. Lateral and vertical clearance of all local and open roads had to be measured wherever they passed under bridges, or close to houses or trees. In addition, the roadbed had to be capable of carrying the load. Allowance had to be made for wheel pressure of 3.6-4 tons. All of this checking was conducted in the strictest secrecy.
As soon as the definitive land transport stretch, including the junctions (ship-towing setup) and the chosen waterways were established, the civil authorities concerned were quickly informed, and the arrangement of the highways by sectors was allocated to the construction firms involved. The payment of distributed orders and of expropriations was extremely generous, since the most important thing was to set up the over-all route with as much speed and safety as possible. The volume of work entailed can be understood by the fact that over 6,000 workers were engaged in the activity over a length of 120 miles. Scarcely six weeks after the order had been issued to find a suitable route across France, the first ship was ferried over it.
The vessels were prepared for the trip at the yards in Le Havre. Then they were brought up the Seine and the Yonne to the little city of Auxerre, where they were hauled ashore and loaded onto their carriers. From there they rolled in order along the highway straight through villages and towns (Avallon and Saulieu), southward through the vineyards of Burgundy until they reached the city of Chalons sur Sa6ne. It was an imposing spectacle to see such a procession traveling through the business streets of this city in order to reach the launching dock on the river Saone. From there, down the Saone and the Rhone, the vessels were taken to the Mediterranean.
The highway stretch, which was covered at an average speed of six miles per hour, was extremely difficult from the point of transport technique. The most extreme exactness in manoeuvering was necessary to keep the ship’s width consistent with highway breadth. The reader can imagine this transport train, over 300 feet long and carrying over 200 tons, as it rolled over the mountain roads of Burgundy, always in danger of crashing to the ground. The transports operated with the regularity of a railway timetable. There were, however, incidents which only a fast and radical decision could prevent from becoming disastrous. At such times it was necessary to take rather unusual measures, as, for example, when the first MFP was going through the little city of Avallon. Due to a mistake in measuring, the transport train got stuck in a turn of the road. A tenant’s house stood in the way. There was only one possibility! The house had to be blasted. As quickly as possible, the tenant and his furniture were evacuated. Fortunately, in spite of the housing shortage in France the evacuee took the affair in good humor, and the landlord was reimbursed. The house was blasted out, the street cleared of rubble, and the trailer moved on. The duration of the whole undertaking was about three hours. And soon we were asked in various places on the road whether we could not charge some more old houses against the Overlandtransport account!
The route was discontinued after 34 MFP’s and 24 mine sweepers, with a total weight of nearly 7000 tons, had been ferried across it.
Overland Transport in Italy
When the order came in 1943 to bring vessels from the Ligurian Sea straight across Upper Italy to the Adriatic, circumstances in this area were found to be completely different, both in the open country and in the interior waterways. By this time, the Germans could no longer use the sea route from Sicily or Messina to the Adriatic. Accordingly they had to carry the vessels over land routes and streams between the harbors of Genoa and Venice. In Genoa there were yards and dry dock installations on which the units could be arranged for transport, but first it was necessary to dam an approach from Genoa to the one-lane highway which ran in a northerly direction straight across the Appenines, ending at the town of Seravalle. The long spans of bridges over the valleys were reinforced and constantly patrolled. Despite these precautions; the partisans operating in the region succeeded in blowing up one bridge, causing a perceptible breakdown of transport. Emergency construction units were brought to the scene at top speed. A further difficulty was offered by the Appenine tunnels, eleven in number, some of them with very sharp turns. Since- these tunnels were, moreover, very narrow, the MFP’s had to be disassembled lengthwise in two sections. A light trail was set up in the tunnels with the greatest exactitude to avoid having the hulls get stuck. Bridges and tunnels were crossed at a walk. When the auto highway reached the level stretches that had breadth and visibility, speed was increased to eight miles per hour. The land transport stage ended after 90 miles at the town of Piacenza on the river Po. Here the vessels were launched once more and towed downstream 250 miles to the Venice area, where they were once more made ready for service. The river transport on the Po was very difficult, since the channel of this completely unregulated stream had a depth of little more than two feet in places. These shallows were traversed by raising the vessels on pontoons when necessary. Clearance under bridges was sometimes so tight that freeboard had to be decreased by taking on ballast.
The heavy air attacks on the harbor of Genoa and on the focal points of the auto highway hardly influenced the normal operation of the transports, but the activity of Italian partisans was at times a serious disturbance. Only when the supplies and weapons, food, and especially money, dropped at night by parachute from the Allies, diminished, did things become peaceful. The hiring of the partisans on highway and waterway construction was also a factor. This system of bribery even got to the stage where the German supply trucks travelled unhindered through guerrilla territory day and night by virtue of a “let pass” certificate from the guerrilla headquarters, pasted on the windshield. The go-between for the guerrillas was a little shopkeeper in the mountains at Lake Garda.
In February, 1945, this land transport stage in the flat land near Piacenza was so thoroughly smashed by bombing that the ferrying of heavy vessels on this route was no longer possible.
Up to that time, the transport from Genoa to Venice had ferried:
18 |
motor boats |
14 |
mine weepers |
12 |
MFP’s, sectioned in Genoa and reassembled in Piacenza |
16 |
tank-ships |
9 |
freighters |
1 |
small U-boat |
1 |
repair ship |
68 |
lighters and seagoing motorboats |
Total: 139 |
ships and boats (8,000 tons). |
Further Possibilities and Plans
Transport caravans of heavy loads have many applications. The transport group in upper Italy not only carried ships overland, but also transferred heavy coastal artillery, moved bulky and heavy steel products from the Italian industry, e.g. rails, railway motor cars, etc. As the rail beds in northern Italy were smashed in many places through air attack, truck and trailer transport bridged the gap by hauling the supply cars from one stretch to another.
Over the three transport routes described, a total of 625 vessels, weighing 55,000 tons, were hauled over land and sea. There were no accidents worth mentioning, except for one transport trailer loaded with an MFP which fell down an embankment from an icy German Autobahn. Although the trailer rolled down almost thirty feet, there was no loss of personnel, and only slight damage to the vessel, which was back on the road in three weeks.
Since it seemed necessary to transfer ships from one place to another on other fronts, and since the undertaking had been successful up to this point, the German naval headquarters (SKL) ordered the checking or setting up of other stretches for this purpose. They will be described only briefly, for the changed military situation or other circumstances caused them to be abandoned.
There was, for example, a transport project over the steppe, feasible only in the dry season, from the port of Rostov on the Black Sea to the port of Makhachkala on the Caspian, in order to transport U-boats to that theater.
As the German troops had to give up the Black Sea area in the summer of 1944, it was planned to bring the ships stationed there to the Aegean. Passage via the Turkish Dardanelles was not feasible, so a route was planned overland between the Bulgarian port of Burgas on the Black Sea and the coastal stretch around Salonika to the Aegean. This plan was wrecked by the knowledge that the Bulgarian open highways could not bear the loads. Over long stretches they were packed chalk on a marshy bed.
After the Allied invasion of France along the Channel coast, the mouth of the Rhine was lost. Through this manoeuver, 45 newly built artillery and landing craft MFP’s were left on the Upper Rhine. It was necessary to ferry them over to the Elbe at Dresden. However, the Allied troops were likewise racing over this 250-mile stretch.
Technical Lessons and Conclusions
For the technician the loading and carrying of these ships afforded interesting lessons.
We take up the problem from the time the ship is brought ashore by means of a slip and is raised with hydraulic lifts of 100 tons effective raising power each, on to the two prepared groups of trailers. One of these groups, consisting of 2-4 trailers, according to the weight of the load, supported the forward part of the vessel, the other the afterpart. The trailer wheel assembly, sometimes consisting of as many as 36 wheels on heavy trailers, was capable of turning. The wheels of the forward group could be freely steered by the shaft of the forward tractor units, while the groups under the afterpart were manually controlled by a steersman. The tractors pushing the end of the trailer group had no influence on the steering of the train. The trailers also had braking installations.
On each trailer group there was a turning disc installed as a cradle for the ship, so that the vessel could turn with a change of course. Pawls on the turning disc prevented a displacement of the ship’s hull. In order to take uj) the inertia from the ship’s hull in changes of direction, the turning disc was centered on a ball-bearing mount. The universal movement set up by this type of construction was controlled by small hydraulic cylinders under the disc. The change of position of both trailer groups would occur as a result of transverse gradients of the road in curves or on passing vertical curves in the road bed.
Especially high ships could not be placed on the trailers because of the overhead bridges, but they were hung between the two trailer groups. For this purpose both turning discs had support posts with a pendulum bed on top. Support brackets welded to the ship’s ends took up the weight of the vessel. A ship so loaded would travel along a flat road with clearance of only one foot between the ship’s keel and the road bed, while the overhead clearance was often only the thickness of a finger.
Once the ship was loaded on the trailers, the tractors were coupled on. Their number depended on the various aspects of terrain, gradients, atmospheric conditions, etc. With a ship weighing 200-250 tons, the forward pullers were built up with 3-4 tractors, with 2-3 pushers aft. The latter had a big job of braking, particularly on smooth downgrades, to keep the transport train to its course and to prevent it from skidding. One of the most difficult movements was the starting and stopping of such a train. In order to avoid stalling from overload while shifting speeds it was necessary to shift gears simultaneously in all tractors and then simultaneously to increase the pull of their engines. In order to effect this, a buzzer signal was sounded by the transport leader to all drivers. Similarly on changing the rate of speed or stopping. These difficulties, and the desire to make as good time as possible, led to the decision to run the full distance without halting. This required large auxiliary tanks on the tractors or fueling from tank trucks while on the run, and finally night driving.
Every transport train, when traveling under load, was preceded by a radio scout car, which reported on the air situation and the condition of the road for some miles ahead. In addition there was a travel-bus for the relief crews, along with the security vehicles of the traffic police, and repair and equipment cars. During winter travel, snowplows and sanding machines were part of the convoy.
The empty trains rolled back to their point of origin with a speed of 25 miles per hour. The route telephone served for transmission of news of the H.Q. and the operating condition of the train. These reports were picked up by the route director located at the point of origin for the cargo.
From the military standpoint, it is quite significant that air attack or the numerous low-flying planes over the transport routes did not damage the camouflaged towing units or the trains themselves. The only exception was the afore-mentioned road blasting in upper Italy. The trains travelled at night completely darkened, and at the onset of an air attack the weak light was doused and travel continued. By day, halt was made only in the event of the most imminent air danger, the tractors uncoupled in order to get them away from the ship which was covered at top speed with camouflage material. Convoying with motorized AA defense proved to be of no use.
Behind all these technical details and dry figures stands the almost unnoticed but very great efficiency of the transport crews. These undertakings made the greatest and most unceasing demands on the participants. One thinks, for instance, of the steersman on the after-trailer group, swinging hour after hour on a seat just above the roadbed, covered with dirt, with the menacing, swinging ship overhead, but stubbornly holding the mighty transport train on its course. Without the selfless devotion to duty of him and his comrades, tasks of this type, despite all technical means, would have been impossible of fulfillment. These “Seamen of the Highway” and their effectiveness should not be forgotten.
*Nominally about $14,000.