The German destroyer Z4 Richard Beitzen was one of four Type 1934 destroyers built for the German Navy (Kriegsmarine) during the mid-1930s. Completed in 1937, the ship spent most of her time training although she did participate in the occupation of Memel in early 1939. At the beginning of World War II in September 1939, the ship was initially deployed to blockade the Polish coast, but was soon transferred to the Kattegat where she inspected neutral shipping for contraband goods. In late 1939 and early 1940, the ship laid two offensive minefields off the English coast that claimed 17 merchant ships. Z4 Richard Beitzen was in reserve during the Norwegian Campaign of early 1940 and was transferred to France later that year, where she made several attacks on British shipping.
The ship returned to Germany in early 1941 for a refit and was transferred to Norway in June as part of the preparations for Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union. Z4 Richard Beitzen spent some time at the beginning of the campaign conducting anti-shipping patrols in Soviet waters but these were generally fruitless. She escorted a number of German convoys in the Arctic later in the year. The ship was briefly transferred to France in early 1942 in preparation for the Channel Dash where she was one of the escorts for two battleships and a heavy cruiser as they sailed from Brest, France, through the English Channel, to Germany, before returning to Norway. Z4 Richard Beitzen escorted several heavy cruisers at the beginning and end of their anti-shipping raids in 1942. She participated in the Battle of the Barents Sea when Convoy JW 51B was attacked on 31 December 1942 near the North Cape, Norway.
Z4 Richard Beitzen spent much of 1943 escorting ships to and from Norway until she ran aground in November. Badly damaged, repairs lasted until the following August when she returned to Norway and resumed her former duties. The ship had another grounding incident in October 1944 and was under repair until February 1945. While escorting a convoy in April, she was badly damaged by aircraft and was still under repair when the war ended on 9 May. Z4 Richard Beitzen was eventually allocated to the British, when the surviving German warships were divided between the Allies after the war. They made no use of the ship before scrapping her in 1949.
Design and description Design work on the Type 34 destroyers began in 1932, around the time that Weimar Germany renounced the armament limitations of the Versailles Treaty which had ended World War I. Initial designs were for large ships more powerful than the French and Polish destroyers then in service, but the design grew as the Kriegsmarine expected it to serve as a small cruiser. The design work appears to have been rushed and not well-thought out as the short forecastle and lack of flare at the bow compromised the ships' seakeeping abilityKoop & Schmolke, pp. 13–14 and their stability was inadequate.Gröner, p. 199 The only real innovative part of the design, the high-pressure water-tube boilers, were an over-complicated system that received almost no shipboard testing before being installed in the Type 34s, and frequently broke down throughout the life of the ships.Whitley, pp. 22–24
The class had an overall length of and were long at the waterline. The ships had a beam of and a maximum draft of . They displaced at standard load and at deep load. The two Wagner geared steam turbine sets, each driving one propeller shaft, were designed to produce using steam provided by six Wagner boilers. The ships had a design speed of , but their maximum was . The Type 34s carried a maximum of of fuel oil which was intended to give a range of at a speed of but proved top-heavy in service and 30 percent of the fuel had to be retained as ballast low in the ship.Whitley, p. 18 The effective range proved to be only at 19 knots.Koop & Schmolke, p. 26 The crew of the Type 34 class ships numbered 10 officers and 315 enlisted men, plus an additional 4 officers and 19 enlisted men if serving as a flotilla flagship.
The Type 34s carried five SK C/34 guns in single mounts with gun shields, two each superimposed, fore and aft. The fifth gun was carried on top of the aft superstructure. The guns were numbered from one to five from front to rear. Their anti-aircraft armament consisted of four SK C/30 guns in a pair of twin mounts abreast the rear funnel and six C/30 guns in single mounts. The ships carried eight torpedo tubes in two power-operated mounts. A pair of reload torpedoes was provided for each mount.Whitley, p. 68 Z4 Richard Beitzen had four depth charge launchers mounted on the sides of her rear deckhouse, supplemented by six racks for individual depth charges on the sides of the stern, with either 32 or 64 charges carried.Whitley, p. 215 Mine rails could be fitted on the rear deck that had a maximum capacity of 60 mines. A system of passive hydrophones designated as 'GHG' (Gruppenhorchgerät) was fitted to detect submarines.Whitley, pp. 71–72
Modifications An active sonar system was scheduled to be installed in June 1940 but it is uncertain when it was done. During the war, the light anti-aircraft armament was augmented several times. Improved 2 cm C/38 guns replaced the original C/30 guns and three additional guns were added sometime in 1941. The two guns on the aft shelter deck were replaced by a single 2 cm quadruple mount, probably during her late 1941 refit. Z4 Richard Beitzen appears not to have had any additional AA guns added after this time.Whitley, pp. 72–75 After mid-1941 the ship was fitted with a FuMO 24 search radar above the bridge.Koop & Schmolke, p. 40
Construction and career Z4 Richard Beitzen was named after Lieutenant (Kapitänleutnant) Richard Beitzen, an Imperial German Navy officer who commanded the 14th Torpedo Boat Flotilla in World War I and was killed in action in March 1918. The ship was ordered on 7 July 1934 and laid down at Deutsche Werke, Kiel, on 7 January 1935 as yard number K245. She was launched on 30 November and completed on 13 May 1937.Whitley, p. 203 After being completed, Z4 Richard Beitzen made a port visit to Ulvik, Norway, in April 1938, together with her sister ships and . Upon her return she was taken in hand by Deutsche Werke to have her bow rebuilt to reduce the amount of water that came over it in head seas. This increased her length by . The ship participated in the August Fleet Review and the following fleet exercise.Whitley, pp. 79–80 On 26 October, she was assigned to the 1st Destroyer Flotilla (1. Zerstörer-Flottille) and in December, Z4 Richard Beitzen, together with her sisters , Z2 Georg Thiele and Z3 Max Schultz, sailed to an area off the coast of Iceland to evaluate their seaworthiness in a North Atlantic winter with their new bows. From 23 to 24 March 1939, the ship was one of the destroyers that escorted Adolf Hitler aboard the pocket battleship to occupy Memel.Koop & Schmolke, p. 80 She participated in the fleet exercise the next month in the western Mediterranean and made several visits to Spanish and Moroccan ports in April and May.Whitley, p. 81 Upon her return, Z4 Richard Beitzen was accidentally rammed in the stern by the escort ship F9.
When World War II began in September 1939, Z4 Richard Beitzen was initially deployed in the western Baltic to enforce a blockade of Poland, but she was soon transferred to the Kattegat to inspect neutral shipping for contraband goods, beginning in mid-September as one turbine was not operational.Whitley, p. 82Haarr, pp. 52, 75 On the night of 12/13 December, German destroyers sortied to lay minefields off the British coast. Under the command of Commodore (Kommodore) Friedrich Bonte in his flagship Z19 Hermann Künne, Z4 Richard Beitzen, Z8 Bruno Heinemann, Z14 Friedrich Ihn and Z15 Erich Steinbrinck laid 240 mines off the mouth of the River Tyne, where the navigation lights were still lit.Hervieux, p. 113Whitley, p. 91 The British were unaware of the minefield and lost eleven ships totaling .Rohwer, p. 11 En route home, the destroyers were ordered to escort the crippled light cruisers and which had been torpedoed by the submarine while covering the destroyers' withdrawal. Despite their escort, the submarine managed to sneak inside the anti-submarine screen and fired a salvo of six torpedoes at Leipzig in the Elbe estuary the following day. Two of the torpedoes struck F9 which sank three minutes later with heavy loss of life but the other torpedoes missed.Haarr, pp. 213–14
Bonte led a destroyer minelaying sortie to the Newcastle area on the night of 10/11 January with Z14 Friedrich Ihn, Z21 Wilhelm Heidkamp, , Z22 Anton Schmitt, Z4 Richard Beitzen and Z20 Karl Galster. Ihn had problems with her boilers that reduced her maximum speed to and she had to be escorted back to Germany by Z4 Richard Beitzen. This minefield only claimed one fishing trawler of 251 tons. Z3 Max Schultz, Z4 Richard Beitzen and Z16 Friedrich Eckoldt laid 110 magnetic mines in the Shipwash area, off Harwich, on 9/10 February 1940 which sank six ships of 28,496 GRT and damaged another.Hervieux, pp. 113–14
Operation Wikinger On 22 February 1940, Z4 Richard Beitzen and the destroyers, Z3 Max Schultz, Z1 Leberecht Maass, , and Z16 Friedrich Eckoldt, sailed for the Dogger Bank to intercept British fishing vessels in Operation Wikinger. En route, the flotilla was erroneously attacked by a Heinkel He 111 bomber from Bomber Wing 26 (Kampfgeschwader 26). Z1 Leberecht Maass was hit by at least one bomb, lost steering and broke in half, sinking with the loss of 280 of her crew. During the rescue effort, Z3 Max Schultz hit a mine and sank with the loss of her entire crew of 308. Hitler ordered a court of inquiry to be convened to investigate the cause of the losses and it concluded that both ships that been sunk by bombs from the He 111. The Kriegsmarine had failed to notify its destroyers that the Luftwaffe was making anti-shipping patrols at that time and had also failed to inform the Luftwaffe that its destroyers would be at sea.Whitley, pp. 92–94 Postwar research revealed that one or both ships struck British mines laid by the destroyers and .Rohwer, p. 15
German invasion of Norway Z4 Richard Beitzen was held in reserve for Operation Weserübung, the German invasion of Norway on 9 April. Two days later, she escorted the light cruiser home to Wilhelmshaven. The ship helped to lay a minefield in the Kattegat from 28 April to 20 May and then began a refit that lasted until September. She was transferred to Brest, France, in October. On the night of 24/25 November, Z4 Richard Beitzen, and Z20 Karl Galster sortied from Brest, bound for the Land's End area. En route they encountered some fishing ships south-west of Wolf Rock and engaged them with gunfire with little effect. The German ships then spotted a small convoy and sank one of the three merchantmen and damaged another. The flash from the guns alerted the five destroyers of the British 5th Destroyer Flotilla but they could not intercept the German destroyers before dawn. Three nights later the German ships sortied again for the same area. They encountered two tugboats and a barge but only sank one of the former and the barge, totaling 424 GRT. This time the 5th Destroyer Flotilla was able to intercept the ships around 06:30 on 29 November. The Germans opened fire first, each destroyer firing four torpedoes, of which only two from Z10 Hans Lody hit their target, . The torpedoes hit at each end of the ship and blew off her bow and stern, but the British were able to tow her home.Whitley, pp. 110–14