HNoMS Æger (destroyer)
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 The wreck of the bombed Sleipner class destroyer Æger near Stavanger |
|
| Career |  |
|---|---|
| Ordered: | |
| Laid down: | |
| Launched: | 1936 |
| Commissioned: | |
| Fate: | Sunk April 9, 1940 |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 597 tons |
| Dimensions: | 74.30 m m x 7.80 m x 2.8 m |
| Armament: | 3 x 10 cm guns 1 x 40 mm anti-aircraft gun 2 x 12.7 mm machine guns 2 x 53.3 cm torpedo tubes Depth charges |
| Propulsion: | 12,500 shp (9.3 MW), 32 knop |
| Crew: | 75 |
Æger was a Sleipner class destroyer built in Norway in the late 1930s. She was constructed at Horten naval shipyard and had build number 122.
Æger was amongst the first Royal Norwegian Navy units to fight the invasion when in the early morning of 9 April she stopped the German cargo ship Roda outside Stavanger.
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[edit] Æger and the German invasion
[edit] The Roda
At about 01.00 a.m. April 9 Norwegian customs officers came onboard the Æger while she was at anchor in Stavanger and reported their suspicion that the cargo ship Roda anchored near Ullsnes was probably carrying a different cargo than the 7.000 tons of coke stated in her cargo documents. The German vessel was riding far too high in the water to carry such a cargo. Although the situation was unclear the Norwegian destroyer's commander, Captain Nils Larsen Bruun, decided to take the Roda as a prize.
When the Norwegian destroyer found the German ship in the Byfjord near Stavanger and signalled that they were going to seize the German vessel the crew of the Roda resisted, leading to Captain Bruun deciding to sink the cargo ship. After the German crew had abandoned their ship, Æger fired a total of 25 10 cm rounds into both sides of the vessel, sinking it in deep waters.
[edit] Air attack
A short while after the sinking of the Roda Luftwaffe aircraft started appearing overhead, this was the crew of the Æger's first sign of the beginning the German invasion of Norway.
At 08.30 a.m. the first three of in total ten Luftwaffe Junkers Ju 88 bombers began attacking the Æger at low altitude.
Responding with her single 40 mm Bofors gun and two Colt anti-aircraft machine guns Æger managed to shoot down two of the attacking German bombers while zig-zagging to avoid the stacks of bombs being unleashed at her. However, while trying to avoid an attack by three aircraft all from different directions Æger was hit amidships by a 250 kg bomb, tearing up the deck of the destroyer and blowing out its sides.
Seven crew members were killed outright and another mortally wounded, with the ship being left dead in the water. As seven more German planes continued to attack the crippled destroyer another bomb hit the mast, leaving it bent out of shape but bouncing off into the sea without exploding. Yet another bomb hit the side of the ship midship, but stuck without exploding. All the time the attacking aircraft were pelting the crippled vessel with their machine guns.
As all anti-aircraft weapons were by now knocked out, Captain Bruun ordered his crew to abandon ship. The entire surviving crew managed to get ashore without any further casualties.
[edit] Aftermath
Captain Bruun now had 57 unwounded crew members under his command and originally intended to keep his crew together and bring them to unoccupied areas to continue the fight. However, as both Stavanger and the nearby Sola Air Station had been occupied by the invaders, he instead decided to dismiss the crew. He also encouraged them to form small groups and make their way to unoccupied areas to continue the fighting, something a majority of the crew did.
The wreck of the Æger later drifted ashore at nearby Hundvåg and attracted many civilian spectators until removed for scrapping.
The Roda's cargo later turned out to have been the entire contingent of heavy anti-aircraft guns intended for the defence of Sola Air Station after its capture by German paratroops, the loss of the guns leaving the newly captured air strips vulnerable to RAF attack.
[edit] See also
| Norwegian destroyers |
| Draug class: Draug, Troll, Garm |
| Sleipner class: Sleipner, Gyller, Æger, Odin, Balder, Tor |
| S class: Svenner, Stord |
| Town class: Lincoln, St Albans, Mansfield, Bath, Newport All Town class vessels was loaned from the Royal Navy |
| C class: Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim, Stavanger |
| Hunt class: Arendal, Haugesund, Tromsø |
Destroyers of the Royal Norwegian Navy |
