German night fighter direction vessel Togo The MS " Togo was a German merchant ship that was launched in 1938 . Requisitioned by the Kriegsmarine as Schiff 14 , in April 1940 she participated in the invasion of Norway ; in August 1940 was converted to a minelayer as part of the German plan to invade England ; then from June 1941 she began conversion to the armed auxiliary cruiser ( " Hilfskreuzer " ) HSK " Coronel . Following " Coronel " s unsuccessful attempt in February 1943 to become the last German commerce raider of World War II , she was then used as a minesweeper ( " Sperrbrecher " ) before being recommissioned in late 1943 as NJL " Togo " , a night fighter direction vessel ( " Nachtjagdleitschiff " ) , operating in the Baltic Sea . As NJL " Togo " , she was the second of the Kriegsmarines World War II radar ships , and the only one to survive the war . After the war , " Togo " passed through various changes of ownership , name and function before finally being wrecked off the Mexican coast in 1984 . Description and pre - war service . As built , " Togo " was , long , with a beam of and a depth of . Her gross register tonnage was 5 , 042 , with a net register tonnage of 2 , 844 . She was powered by two 8 - cylinder Single Cycle Double Action diesel engines , each having cylinders of 28 inches ( 78 cm ) diameter by 43 inches ( 110 cm ) stroke . The engines gave a total of 1 , 556 NHP . " Togo " was owned by Hamburg - Bremen - Afrika Linie A . G . and was operated by Woerman Linie A . G . , operating as Deutsche Ost - Afrika Linie . The Code Letters DJXJ were allocated and her port of registry was Hamburg . History during World War II . The M / S " Togo " was launched in August 1938 for the " Woermann Line " for trade with African countries . " Togo " was initially built as a freighter with cabins for 12 passengers . At the outbreak of World War II " Togo " was at Douala , French Cameroon . To avoid " Togo " being captured and interned , her Belgian - born captain , Eugene Rousselet , slipped her out under cover of darkness to the Belgian Congo port of Boma . On 25 October , she sailed from Boma and , breaking through the Allied blockade , returned to Hamburg on 23 November 1939 where she was requisitioned by the Kriegsmarine . As minelayer . In April 1940 , " Togo " was a support ship ( " Werkstattschiff " ) for the German invasion of Norway and on 21 April 1940 sustained damage in a British minefield , laid by the submarine HMS Narwhal , in the Kattegat east of Cape Skagen . She was rebuilt as a minelayer ( " Minenleger " ) and based in Cherbourg from August to November 1940 as part of Operation Sea Lion , the planned German invasion of England . As commerce raider " Coronel " . In late 1942 , " Togo " was converted into an auxiliary cruiser . As part of this conversion she was renamed ( " Handels - Stör - Kreuzer " , HSK ) " Coronel " , she was known to the Kriegsmarine as " HSK 10 " , and designated " Schiff 14 " . To the Royal Navy , she was " Raider K " . She was named after the Battle of Coronel , Admiral Maximilian von Spee ' s victory over a British cruiser flotilla off the coast of Chile in November 1914 . Converted at the " Wilton - Fijenoord " shipyards in Rotterdam and the " Stettiner Oderwerke " yard at Stettin , she was recommissioned in December 1942 . Her armament consisted of six TK15 15 cm guns , six 4 cm AA - guns , four 2 cm machine guns in twin mounts , and a few 2 cm guns in single mounts . She was also designed to carry three aircraft , but these were never installed . She was commanded by " Kapitän zur See " Ernst - Ludwig Thienemann , and carried a crew of 16 officers and 331 men . Relying on the element of surprise , " Schiff 14 Coronel " departed from Norway on 31 January 1943 with a large escort of minelayers and patrol boats and attempted to break out into the Atlantic through the English Channel . However , her presence was already known to the British through ULTRA decrypts . " Coronel " was hampered by storms and minefields , and twice ran aground on sandbanks . " Coronel " moved on by stages to Sylt , Dunkirk and Calais and on 10 February successfully ran the gauntlet of the coastal artillery at Dover . She then came under repeated air attack , and having suffered bomb damage , was forced to put into Boulogne . As the damage was too severe to be repaired in an occupied French port , she was forced to return to Kiel , arriving there on 2 March 1943 . As it was the custom for German commerce raiders to be named by their captains after reaching the open sea , her failure to clear the Channel meant that she was not formally designated as the " Hilfskreuzer Coronel " but instead remained as " Togo " for the remainder of the war . As night fighter direction vessel . Later the same year , " Togo " was employed in a minesweeping role as a " Sperrbrecher " ( ' Pathmaker ' , to clear a safe lane through a minefield ) , before being converted into a night fighter guide ship , under the command of " Korvettenkapitän " Rudolf Lück . From October 1943 , " Togo " cruised the Baltic Sea under the operational control of the Luftwaffe ' s 22 / " Luftnachrichten Regiment " 222 . In March 1944 , after the three great Soviet bombing raids on Helsinki , she arrived in the Gulf of Finland to provide night fighter cover for Tallinn and Helsinki . Near the end of the war , " Togo " took part in the evacuation of German troops and refugees from Poland , East Prussia and Latvia . Postwar history . In Kiel at the end of the war , " Togo " was seized as war booty and transferred first to Britain on 13 August 1945 , then to the US Navy on 15 January 1946 , and used to repatriate Polish ex - prisoners of war . Handed over to the Royal Norwegian Navy on 14 March ( and renamed HNoMS " Svalbard " in December 1946 ) , she was then used as a fleet auxiliary to transport occupation troops to Germany . By this time her passenger capacity had been increased to 900 , and between December 1947 and December 1949 she was chartered by the International Refugee Organisation for transport of Displaced Person s from Europe to North America and Australia . As part of the " Fifth Fleet " , " Svalbard " undertook six voyages between June 1948 and October 1949 , carrying a total of 5 , 242 DPs for resettlement in Australia . There were several further changes of ownership in 1954 - 56 which saw her briefly renamed as MS " Tilthorn " ( April 1954 ) and later MS " Stella Marina " ( July 1954 ) , she was then re - purchased by her original owners , the " Woermann - Deutsche Afrika " line in November 1956 . Refurbished and with her original name " Togo " restored , she sailed the Africa run for another twelve years . With the introduction of IMO Number s in the late 1960s , " Togo " was allocated the IMO Number 5363029 . In March 1968 , she was sold again , to Taboga Enterprises Inc . of Panama , and renamed " Lacasielle " . She was later sold again to Caribbean Real Estate SA , Panama , on 8 April 1976 , becoming " Topeka " . It was under that name that she was last sold in 1984 to Lineas Agromar Ltda . It was as the tramp steamer , MS " Topeka " that she finally ended her days , by running aground after being blown from her anchorage by strong winds off Coatzacoalcos , Mexico ( ) on 21 November 1984 , with the death of two men out of her crew of 27 .