German torpedo boat Falke
Falke was the sixth and last Type 23 torpedo boat built for the German Navy (initially called the "Reichsmarine" and then renamed as the "Kriegsmarine" in 1935). The boat made multiple non-intervention patrols during the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s. During World War II, she played a minor role in the Norwegian Campaign of 1940. "Falke" spent the next several months escorting minelayers as they laid minefields and damaged heavy ships back to Germany before she was transferred to France around September. She started laying minefields herself that month and continued to do  so for the rest of the war. After a refit in early 1941, the boat was transferred to the Skaggerak where she was assigned escort duties. "Falke" returned to France in 1942 and was one of the escorts for the capital ships sailing from France to Germany through the English Channel in the Channel Dash. She helped to escort blockade runners, commerce raiders and submarines through the Channel and the Bay of Biscay for the next several years. The boat attacked Allied ships during the Invasion of Normandy in June 1944, but was sunk by British bombers that same month . Design and armament. Derived from the World War I-era large torpedo boat , the Type 23 torpedo boat was slightly larger, but had a similar armament and speed. The Type 23 had an overall length of and was long at the waterline. The ships had a beam of , and a mean draft of . They displaced at standard load and at deep load. "Falke" was fitted with a pair of Vulcan geared steam turbine sets, each driving one propeller, that were designed to produce using steam from three water-tube boilers which would propel the ship at . The torpedo boats carried  enough fuel oil to give them an intended range of at , but it proved to be only at that speed in service. Their crew consisted of 4 officers and 116 sailors. As built, the Type 23s mounted three SK L/45 guns, one forward and two aft of the superstructure; the aft superfiring gun was on an open mount while the others were protected by gun shields. They carried six above-water 50 cm (19.7 in) torpedo tubes in two triple mounts and could also carry up to 30 mines. After 1931, the torpedo tubes were replaced by tubes and a  pair of C/30 anti-aircraft guns were added. During the war a quadruple 2 cm mount was added just forward of No. 2 gun, three 2 cm guns were positioned around the aft funnel and another pair were mounted on the bridge wings, all in single mounts. Around 1944 a FuMB 4 "Sumatra" radar detector was installed as was radar. Construction and career. Named after the Falcon, the boat was laid down at the "Reichsmarinewerft Wilhelmshaven" (Navy Yard) on 17 November 1925. as yard number 106, launched on 29 September 1926 and commissioned on 15 July 1928. The boat was  initially assigned to the 4th Torpedo Boat Half Flotilla. By the end of 1936 "Falke" was assigned to the 4th Torpedo Boat Flotilla and the boat made several deployments to Spain during the Spanish Civil War. Second World War. Now assigned to the 5th Torpedo Boat Flotilla, "Falke" was used in the North Sea mining operations that began on 3 September 1939. Together with three destroyers and her sisters and , "Falke" was tasked with anti-contraband patrols in the Kattegat and Skaggerak from 3 to 5 October that impounded four ships. Together with the torpedo boat , "Falke" impounded six ships  in the Skaggerak during a contraband patrol in 14–16 December. During the Norwegian Campaign, "Falke" and "Jaguar", among other ships, briefly rendered assistance to the torpedoed heavy cruiser before continuing onwards to Kristiansand on 11 April with reinforcements. On 4–5 June "Falke" and "Jaguar" provided the anti-submarine screen from Kiel, Germany, to the Skaggerak for an unsuccessful attempt to intercept the Allied convoys evacuating Northern Norway by the battleships and and the heavy cruiser . From 21–23 June, "Falke" was one of the escorts for the badly damaged "Scharnhorst" from Norway to Kiel. Now assigned to the 5th Torpedo Boat  Flotilla, "Falke", her sister , and the torpedo boats "Jaguar", , and escorted minelayers as they laid a minefield in the southwestern North Sea on 7–8 August. The flotilla escorted other minelaying missions in the same area on 14–15 August, 31 August – 2 September and 6–7 September. Reinforced by the torpedo boat , the flotilla made an unsuccessful sortie off the Isle of Wight on 8–9 October. They made a second, more successful, sortie on 11–12 October, sinking two Free French submarine chasers and two British trawlers. The 5th Flotilla was transferred to St. Nazaire later that month and its ships laid a  minefield off Dover on 3–4 December and another one in the Channel on 21–22 December. 1941–1944. Now based in Norway, "Falke" and the torpedo boat escorted a minelaying mission from Stavanger on the night of 26/27 January 1941 and then another one the following night. "Falke" escorted another such mission on 3–4 February, together with the 1st and 2nd Torpedo Boat Flotillas. The boat was refitted in Rotterdam, Netherlands, from March to May 1941. She was transferred afterwards to the Skagerrak where she was on convoy escort duties until January 1942 when she rejoined the 5th Flotilla in the West . The flotilla joined the escort force for "Scharnhorst", "Gneisenau" and the heavy cruiser on 12 February 1942 off Cap Gris-Nez during the Channel Dash. From 12 March to 2 April, the flotilla escorted the commerce raider through the Channel despite heavy British attacks, damaging the British destroyers and . The flotilla escorted the commerce raider through the English Channel from 12 to 19 May. In heavy fighting on the 13th, British motor torpedo boats (MTBs) sank her sister, , and the torpedo boat while losing one of their own boats. "Falke" was refitted in Wilhelmshaven from June to August and returned  to France. "Falke" and "Kondor" and the torpedo boats and escorted the Italian blockade runner, , from Bordeaux through the Bay of Biscay on 29–30 November. "Falke", "T2", "T12", "T23", and the torpedo boat escort another Italian blockade runner, "Himalaya", but she turned back on 28 March 1943 when spotted by a British reconnaissance aircraft. "Falke", "Greif", "Kondor", "Möwe" and "T22" laid two minefields in the English Channel on 4–6 June. Later that month the ships returned to the Bay of Biscay to help escort U-boats through the Bay and continued to do so into early August. The flotilla was  ordered to transfer from Cherbourg to Le Havre and departed on the night of 23/24 May 1944. "Möwe", "Greif", "Falke", "Kondor" and "Jaguar" were attacked by Allied aircraft early the next day and "Greif" was struck by two bombs that set her forward boiler room on fire and caused her to take on water forward. With both boiler rooms subsequently flooded, she was unmaneuverable and accidentally collided with "Falke". The latter was only slightly damaged, but "Greif"s bow was badly bent which caused problems for "Möwe" when she began to tow her sister. Around 06:00 "Greif" lost all power and  sank at 06:32. At 07:43 "Kondor" struck a mine and had to be towed by "Möwe" for the remainder of the voyage. As the Allies began landing in Normandy on 6 June, the 5th Flotilla, now consisting of "Möwe", "Falke", "Jaguar" and the newly refitted torpedo boat , sortied multiple times from Le Havre over the next week in attempts to sink Allied shipping. Despite the expenditure of over 50 torpedoes and large quantities of ammunition, they were generally unsuccessful, only sinking the destroyer on 6 June. During an air raid by the Royal Air Force on the night of 14/15  June, bombs sank "Falke" and "Jaguar" and badly damaged "Möwe".