Graf Zeppelin

Main Information

The Graf Zeppelin was 861 ft long and was built to fly under the German flag. It was the lead ship in a class of two carriers of the same name ordered by the *Kriegsmarine* of Nazi Germany. She was the only aircraft carrier launched by Germany and represented part of the *Kriegsmarine*'s attempt to create a well-balanced oceangoing fleet, capable of projecting German naval power far beyond the narrow confines of the Baltic and North Seas. The carrier would have had a complement of 42 fighters and dive bombers. She had a maximum draft of 28 ft and at full combat load she would have displaced 33,550 long tons. "The ship's propulsion system consisted of four Brown, Boveri & Cie geared turbines with sixteen oil-fired, ultra-high-pressure LaMont boilers. The power plant was rated at 200,000 shaft horsepower (149,140.0 kW) and a top speed of 33.8 knots (62.6 km/h; 38.9 mph). *Graf Zeppelin* had a projected cruising radius of 8,000 nautical miles (14,816.0 km; 9,206.2 mi) at a speed of 19 kn (35.2 km/h; 21.9 mph). She would have had a crew of 1760 officers and enlisted men, plus flight crews. The ship's primary offensive power would have been its aircraft complement. *Graf Zeppelin* would have carried 42 aircraft as designed: 12 navalized Junkers Ju 87 "Stuka" dive bombers, 10 Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters, and 20 Fieseler Fi 167 torpedo bombers. Later during the construction process, the aerial complement was reworked to consist of thirty Ju 87s and twelve Bf 109s, and the Fi 167s were removed altogether. As designed, *Graf Zeppelin* was to be fitted with eight 15 cm SK C/28 guns for defense against surface warships. This number was later increased to sixteen. Her anti-aircraft battery consisted of ten 10.5 cm SK C/33 guns—later increased to twelve—twenty-two 3.7 cm SK C/30 guns, and twenty-eight 2 cm guns. The ship's flight deck was protected with up to 45 millimeters (1.8 in) of *Wotan Weich* steel armor. A 60 mm (2.4 in) thick armored deck was located under the deck to protect the ship's vitals from aerial attacks. *Graf Zeppelin* had a waterline armor belt that was 100 mm (3.9 in) thick in the central area of the ship." - Wikipedia.

## Graf Zeppelin

### Location of Fate

55°51'43.2"N 18°28'28.8"E

The Graf Zeppelin's Construction, Launch, and Sinking

Construction on the Graf Zeppelin began December 28th, 1936, when her keel was laid down at the Deutsche Werke shipyard in Kiel. Named in honor of *Graf* (Count) Ferdinand von Zeppelin. The ship was incomplete when World War II broke out and the ship's construction was abandoned in September of 1939, so it was never operational due to shifting construction priorities necessitated by the war. The Graf Zeppelin remained in the Baltic Sea for most of the war, with Germany's defeat coming closer. During this time of near defeat, the ship's custodians shuttled the vessel just outside of Stettin in March 1945. In March 1946, the Soviet Union raised the ship fro the Baltic Sea floor and ended up sinking it during weapons tests just South of Poland seventeen months later. The carrier's history and fate after Germany's surrender was unknown outside the Soviet Union for decades after the war. The Soviets could not repair the ship in the length of time specified by the terms of the Allied Tripartite Commission, so she was designated a "Category C" ship. This classification required that she would be destroyed or sunk in deep water by 15 August 1946. Instead, the Soviets decided to salvage the damaged ship and it was refloated in March 1946. A number of speculations from Western historians about the ship's fate arose in the decades after the end of the war. According to German historian Erich Gröner, after the Soviets raised the scuttled ship, they towed her to Leningrad. While en route, she reportedly struck a mine off Finland during a storm. After arriving in Leningrad, *Graf Zeppelin* was broken up for scrap in 1948–1949. Naval historians Robert Gardiner and Roger Chesneau state that the ship was towed out of Stettin in September 1947, but she never arrived in Leningrad; they speculated that a mine sank the ship while she was under tow.

The Wreck of the Graf Zeppelin

The vessel's wreck was discovered in July 2006 by a Polish Survey ship and was mapped using sonar technology. An expedition to dive to the wreck can be watched on the National Geographic show "Drain the Oceans". The exact position of the wreck was unknown for decades. On 12 July 2006, the research vessel RV *St. Barbara*, a ship belonging to the Polish oil company Petrobaltic, found a 265-meter-long (869 ft) wreck 55 km (34 mi) north of Władysławowo, which they thought was most likely *Graf Zeppelin*. The wreck rests at a depth of more than 80 m (260 ft) below the surface. After the wreck was located, the Polish Navy began a two-day survey of the wreckage to confirm its identity. Using remote-controlled underwater robots, they concluded that they were "99% certain" it was *Graf Zeppelin*.