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SHIPS HIT BRITAIN 239 * - A B C

12)ARABISTAN (RAIDER MICHEL)




Photo.  http://www.tynebuiltships.co.uk/A-Ships/arabistan1929.html By courtesy of Clive Ketley 


 


Built 1929


Tonnage:  5,874 / 8,950 tons


Cargo: Ballast


Route: Capetown to Trinidad 


Sunk 18 JUL 42 following heavy shelling from raider Michel.


59 Dead


1 POW


Having again rendezvoused with, and re-fuelled from the Charlotte Schliemann, the Michel rendezvoused with HK Stier. Ruckteschell, convinced that two raiders could be more successful than one, suggested to Gerlach that they hunt together.

Having briefly sailed together, Gerlach, who had been doing well alone, eventually rejected the idea, and having gone their separate ways and agreed to meet again a week later, the Michel arrived at the rendezvous just in time to watch Stier’s latest victim, the Dalhousie, go down.Two days later, on August 14, south of St Helena, this 5,874-ton British freighter in ballast from Cape Town to Trinidad, was shot to pieces so efficiently from point blank range, that only one of her crew of sixty survived, her chief engineer being picked up the following morning.


By Hilfskreuzer (Auxiliary Cruiser / Raider) - Michel (bismarck-class.dk)


 

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