Azur Lane: The Adventure of the MS München

Fate of the MS München (Rewrite)

Fixed major grammar mistakes

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Sunk on December 12, 1978 on her 62nd voyage. She left Bremerhaven on December 7, 1978, bound for Savannah, Georgia, USA. Captain at that time was Johann Dänekamp, with 27 other sailors (24 male, 3 female).

Cargo consisted of 83 lighters of steel products and a replacement nuclear reactor vessel for Combustion Engineering, Inc. She sunk with all hands for unexplainable reasons. Possibly by a large rouge wave that damaged the hull, allowing huge tons of seawater to enter the ship's compartments, bypassing all bulkheads. This is the most plausible explanation since the storm reached winds of up to 93 miles or 150 kp/h and waves easily reached nearly 50 feet or 15 meters high.

Last life signs with radio operator Heinz Löhrmann on the German registered Caribe, 2000 nautical miles away. Communication hampered by atmospheric interference. Reports of broken bullets and boiling seawater in conversation. SOS Morse signal sent by radio operator Jörg Ernst, picked up by the Greek-registered freighter Marion and the Soviet-registered ship Marya Yermolova. The ships picked up signals containing the words "forward," "50 degrees starboard," "collision," and "articas," the ship's name and location.

Probably due to the sudden danger and confusion, the words "articas" and "forward" mixed with each other due to the suddenly visible cause of the sinking, and the "50 degrees starboard" mentioning the current list of the ship as it sank, with 45 degrees being the maximum list any ship can handle before being forced to abandon or locate the ship's position. The words "articas" probably meant "antennas" and was simply a clerical error, but others suggested the Russian/Soviet ship "Artimidas" as it was the closest ship to this message, meaning the MS München was still afloat.

The words "forward" and "collision" meant the location of the damage, which would explain the antenna. The location given was 100 nautical miles from the actual position of Munich, which slowed down the rescue efforts in those critical hours.

Due to it's well known history, little to no alarm/concern was raised, but in the morning an international search and rescue mission was launched when it was realized that the MS München was still sending out SOS signals. The rescue began at 7:30 a.m. with the help of the US Coast Guard and the Canadian Air Force. Hapag-Lloyd was informed at 6:00. On December 13, an amateur radio operator in Brussels reported unknown signals containing the name and call sign of the München, and the authorities were informed.

This message was the strangest, as the ship would never be able to use this frequency, and the ship would have had to use a strong power at the time, but would not have been able to due to the possible loss of power. An unused liferaft found by a British freighter and three lighters found by the joint West German Navy and Hapag-Lloyd, an oiled covered unused liferaft and two lifebuoys were found and a third liferaft was found by the MS Badenstein.

After the weather cleared on December 17, three lifeboats and a fourth life raft were found by the Sealand Consumer, and the emergency beacon bouy was found covered in oil by the Düsseldorf Express. The ISAR attempts were called off on December 20, 1978, and the West German government and Hapag-Lloyd ended their search efforts on December 22.

More than 80 ships and 13 airplanes from the British Isles, USA, Germany, Spain and Portugal took part in this massive search without success. The last traces were found on December 16, 1979, when the car transporter Don Carlos found the starboard lifeboat of MS München.

MS München, the captain and the 28 sailors were presumed dead and their bodies swallowed by the North Atlantic, never to be seen again.

Investigations by the Maritime Bureau in Bremerhaven concluded, using the last lifeboat found as evidence, that a large force struck the MS München on the starboard side, tearing the lifeboat from it's position and the ship. No other causes could be found for the ship to have been properly manned, loaded, fueled, etc. in Bremerhaven. Due to the list, the 28 sailors and the captain weren't able to escape the ill-fated ship in time during the 33 hours they stayed afloat, and were trapped in the ship as it sank.

A Link to the Youtube film is right down here:

What sunk the MS München?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgkRPEj_zUs