MV Mar Negro
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Mar Negro)
Jump to navigationJump to search
"Mar Negro" redirects here. For the Brazilian horror film, see Dark Sea.
Mar neg ca.JPG
MV Mar Negro
History
Spain
Name: Mar Negro
Namesake: Black Sea
Owner:Compañía Marítima Del Nervión
Builder: Euskalduna of Bilbao
Launched: 1930
Fate: Requisitioned by the Spanish Republican Navy, 1937
Operator: Spanish Nationalist navy
Builder: SECN
Commissioned: 20 May 1938
Out of service: 19 October 1939
Reclassified: Auxiliary cruiser, 1937
Fate: Returned to original owner
General characteristics
Displacement: 6,632 tn
Length: 123.39 m (404.8 ft)
Beam: 16.61 m (54.5 ft)
Draught: 7.8 m (26 ft)
Propulsion:
2 x 6-cyl diesel engines
7,600 hp (5,670 kW)
Speed: 15 knots (28 km/h)
Range:60,000 nmi (110,000 km) at 10 knots (19 km/h)
Armament:
4 × 152 mm
4 × 88 mm AA
4 × 47 mm AA
3 × 20 mm AA
3 × depth charge launchers
Mar Negro was an armed merchantman of the Nationalist Spanish Navy during the Spanish
Civil War. The cargo ship was launched in 1930 along with her sister ship MV Mar
Cantábrico, and after five years with the Compañía Marítima Del Nervión company, she was
first requisitioned by the Spanish Republican Navy in 1936. Captured by a group of
Nationalist sympathizers from her crew off Algeria in 1937, she entered in service in 1938
after being converted to an auxiliary cruiser.
Contents
1 Civilian career
2 Under Republican flag
3 Career as Nationalist auxiliary cruiser
3.1 End of the war
3.1.1 Incident with HMS Sussex
3.1.2 Fall of Gandía
4 Last years
5 Notes
6 References
Civilian career
Mar Negro was built in 1930 along with her sister ship by the Spanish shipbuilder company
Eskalduna at Bilbao. She was a 6,632-ton motor vessel and was part of a series of four
ships of different tonnage. Two of them were 4,700-ton steamers (Mar Blanco and Mar
Caribe), while Mar Negro and Mar Cantábrico were propelled by two diesel engines. The
merchantmen were owned by the Compañía Marítima del Nervión, based at Bilbao.[1] The
cargo vessels were engaged in trade between Spain and United States ports at the Gulf of
Mexico. Both of them ended up as auxiliary cruisers of the Nationalist navy.[2]
Under Republican flag
At the beginning of the war in 1936, Mar Negro was moored at Barcelona, a city which
remained under the control of the Government. She was fitted out as a troop transport, and
was one of the Republican ships which took part of the abortive landing on Mallorca in
August 1936. Months later, she became involved in the maritime traffic between the Soviet
Union and the Spanish Republic, and survived the attack of an Italian submarine.[2]
Career as Nationalist auxiliary cruiser
In September 1937, the ship, bound to Barcelona from Odessa, was diverted by her captain
and part of the crew towards Cagliari, Sardinia, where the Nationalists had an improvised
naval base with the support of Fascist Italy. After seeing some activity as a supply ship, Mar
Negro was converted into a naval unit at the same shipyard where she and her sister had
been built, the SECN facilities on the Nervion River, near Bilbao. She was equipped with four
152 mm Vickers main guns, four 88 mm, four 47 mm Armstrong, three 20 mm Scotti and
three depth-charge launchers.[3]
Completed in May 1938, the auxiliary cruiser joined the maritime blockade on Republican
ports in the Mediterranean.[2] Between 19 and 22 December 1938, Mar Negro seized three
Greek steamers in short succession near the channel of Sicily; the tanker Atlas, and the
freighters Aris and Oropus, without opposition of non-intervention forces.[4] On 28 January
1939, the Nationalist cruiser shelled Palamós, one of the last Republican-held ports in
Catalonia, scoring several hits on a British freighter and damaging some shore facilities. Mar
Negro was fired on by an enemy 155 mm coastal gun during this action.[5] Spanish
Republican sources say that the only British steamer at Palamós at the time was the largely
disabled Lake Lugano, damaged by a flying boat attack on 6 August 1938 and later beached
outside the docks. The complement, with the exception of his captain, had abandoned the
ship after a second airstrike on 9 August 1938. She endured further bombings from German
