World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseGorch Fock was the lead ship of a class of three-mast barques built by Blohm und Voss of Hamburg, Germany as a training ship for the German Navy. She was built between 1932 and 1933 to replace the training ship Niobe after Niobe capsized and sank in the Baltic Sea earlier in 1932. To prevent the Niobe tragedy from happening again, she and her sister ships were designed to be able to bring them back to a upright position even when they heeled over to nearly 90 degrees. She served in her intended purpose as a training ship between 1933 and 1939, and after the European War broke out, she served as a stationary office ship at Stralsund, Germany. On 1 May 1945, after being fired upon by Soviet tanks for 45 minutes, her crew scuttled her in shallow waters off of Rügen, Germany to prevent capture.

ww2dbaseAfter the war, the Soviets ordered the Stralsund-based firm B. Staude Schiffsbergung to raise and salvage her, which was completed in 1947; the cost of the raising and salvaging was high, approximately 800,000 Reichsmark. She was restored between 1948 and 1950 then commissioned into the Soviet Navy in 1951 under the name of Tovarishch. As a training ship, she was based out of Odessa, Ukraine on the coast of the Black Sea. She made a voyage around the world in 1957, and won the Operation Sail race twice, in 1974 and 1976. In 1991, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, she was taken over by the Ukrainian Navy. In 1993, she was deactivated due to her poor state of disrepair and the lack of funding to bring her back to full operational status. In 1995, she sailed to Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, United Kingdom, where private funding were supposed to have been arranged for her repairs, but higher than expected costs caused the sponsors to retract their initial pledges. In 1999, she sailed to Wilhelmshaven, Germany, where she remained for the next four years. In 2003, she sailed to Stralsund, where she was renamed to her original name, Gorch Fock, and was converted into a museum ship. She remains in Stralsund at the time of this writing in 2021.

Barque Gorch Fock Interactive Map

Photographs

Gorch Fock Operational Timeline