Komet (HSK7) was an auxiliary
cruiser of the German Kriegsmarine in the Second
World War, intended for service as a commerce
raider.
Launched on 16 January 1937 as the merchant
ship Ems at Deschimag shipyards in Bremen for
Norddeutscher Lloyd, she was requisitioned at
the start of the Second World War in 1939, converted
into an auxiliary cruiser at Howaldtswerke in
Hamburg, and commissioned into the Kriegsmarine
on 2 June 1940. The ship was 115.5 m long and
15.3 m wide, had a draught of 6.5 m, and registered
3,287 GRT. She was powered by two diesel engines
that gave her a speed of up to 16 knots.
As commerce raider, Komet was armed with six
15 cm guns, one 7.5 cm gun, one 3.7 cm and four
2 cm AA guns, as well as 6 torpedo tubes. She
also carried a small 15-ton fast boat ("Meteorit",
of the "LS2" class) intended to lay
mines and a seaplane of the type Arado 196 A1.
Her crew numbered 274.
Under the command of Captain Robert Eyssen,
"HSK7" departed for her first raiding
voyage from Gotenhafen on 3 July 1940. With
the consent of the then neutral Soviet Union
and with assistance from Soviet icebreakers,
Komet passed through the Arctic Ocean north
of Russia and entered the Pacific Ocean. In
November and December 1940, Komet sank one Norwegian
and six British merchant ships, with a combined
tonnage of about 41,000 tons, that had been
waiting off the island of Nauru to load phosphate.
On 27 December 1940 she shelled the phosphate
processing and loading facilities on Nauru.
Cooperating with another German auxiliary cruiser,
Orion, she sank two more British ships in August
1941 and captured the Dutch 7,300 ton freighter
Kota Nopan which was sent as a prize to Bordeaux.
Komet then sailed through the West and East
Pacific, around Cape Horn and north through
the Atlantic, returning to Cherbourg (France),
thus circumnavigating the Globe. She reached
Hamburg on 30 November 1941 after a voyage of
516 days and about 100,000 nautical miles.
Her second raid, under the command of Captain
Ulrich Brocksien began in early October 1942.
However, only a week out of Hamburg, on 14 October,
she was attacked by British motor torpedo boats
near the Cap de la Hague. She was hit by a torpedo
from MTB 236 and sank with no survivors.
