Wreck of German Auxiliary Cruiser Stier (HSK 6)

 Second World War 1939-1945, navy, shipwreck, cruiser, auxiliary

Laid down at the Germaniawerft shipyard at Kiel in 1936 as breakbulk cargo freighter for service with the Atlas Levant Line (ALL), the Stier began her life plying commercial trades as the merchant freighter MS Cairo in early 1937. Maintaining her peacetime role up to the outbreak of the Second World War, the Cairo was requisitioned for service with the Kriegsmarine in November 1939 and was hastily converted into a troop transport.

After initial operations throughout the Baltic Sea in support of rapidly advancing German ground forces, the Cairo re-entered the shipyard and was given a comprehensive modification to turn her into an armed minelayer, with a forecasted role in the September 1940 Invasion of England. Renamed as the Stier, referring to the Taurus constellation, the Minelayer and her crew engaged type training while preparing for their role in “Operation Sealion”, only to receive standown orders when the operation was cancelled by both the rapid approach of the Winter and the Luftwaffe’s inability to gain control of the skies over England. Remaining largely inactive during the Winter of 1940, the Stier was eventually selected for conversion into a Auxiliary Cruiser for use in Germany’s Commerce Raiding efforts, and following an extensive conversion she put to sea with the hull designation of HSK-6 in May 1942 to begin her career hunting Allied shipping.

Skillfully breaking out through the English Channel after completing her shakedown cruise, the Stier and her crew called briefly at Royan to provision for her maiden deployment before steaming into the open Atlantic, where during the next four months she actively hunted her quarry and succeeded in sinking her first ship on June 4th, 1942. Claiming her second ship two days later, the Stier and her crew sank their third enemy ship in early August while proceeding along the African coast, but after finding no further targets and running low on supplies she changed her course to the North and plotted an intercept course with the supply ship Tannenfels for reprovisioning in the Central South-Atlantic.

Successfully linking up with the Tannenfels during the late evening hours of September 26th, the crew of the Stier set about transferring stores, fuel and munitions between the two ships during the night, aided in their efforts by an increasing fog layer which kept the two vessels out of view from enemy aircraft or submarines. As dawn on the 27th broke, both ships were concluding their transfer when lookouts aboard the Stier sighted an unidentified ship appearing out of the mist only 4000 yards distant, prompting her Captain to order his gun positions manned until he could identify the vessel. Still wearing her ‘hidden’ guise of a merchant ship, the Stier’ crew sent a plain language radio message to the mystery ship to stop and heave to, a request which was ignored by the American merchant ship SS Stephen Hopkins, a Liberty Ship steaming in ballast for Parimaribo. Ordering his batteries unmasked and the German Naval Ensign raised, the Captain of the Stier ordered a warning shot sent across the bow of the merchantman, which responded by opening fire with its onboard machine guns and turning Stern-to the German Raider, allowing her rear deck gun to pepper the Stier with numerous rounds across her waterline.

Joined by the Tannenfels, the Stier began to chase down the now-identified American ship, which despite being raked with fire by the Stier’s 5.9-inch guns was still ferociously fighting back against her attackers. Taking dozens of hits in her engine room and bridge from the Hopkins’ Stern-mounted 4-inch gun and machine guns, the Stier’s gunners eventually succeeded in striking the enemy vessel in her engine room and silenced her rear gun, prompting the crew of the Hopkins to begin to abandon ship as she slowed to a halt. Closing in to continue shelling the hapless merchantman, no crew aboard the Stier noticed a single sailor aboard the Hopkins re-manning her aft gun until he began single-handedly firing the weapon, sending several more shells to the Stier’s engine room and knocking out her steering control gears before a second direct hit to the gun tub silenced it for good. After less than a half hour of violent fighting, the Stephen Hopkins was afire and sinking from the efforts of the gunners aboard Stier, however their ship was in equally dire straits: struck by no fewer than 35 4-inch shells and dozens of .50 caliber rounds, the Stier’s upper works were badly damaged and much of her engine room either on fire or flooding.

After hasty damage control efforts failed to get the ship underway or steering restored to her shell-holed rudder, the decision was made by the Stier’s Captain to rig scuttling charges and abandon the ship. With all but two of her crew safely taken aboard the nearby Tannenfels from their liferafts, the listing, burning and abandoned Stier was rocked by several blasts as explosives strapped to her scuttles went off, allowing catastrophic flooding to sink the ship at this location at 1140hrs on September 27th, 1942.