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Otto Kretschmer
Otto Kretschmer (1 May 1912 – 5 August 1998) was a German naval officer and submariner in World War II and the Cold War. From September 1939 until his capture in March 1941 he sank 44 ships, including one warship, a total of 274,333 tons. For this he received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords, among other awards. He earned the nickname "Silent Otto", both for his successful use of the " silent running" capability of U-boats and for his reluctance to transmit radio messages during patrols. After the war he served in the German Federal Navy, from which he retired in 1970 with the flag rank of commodore. Early life and career Kretschmer was born in Heidau near Neisse, then in the German Empire on 1 May 1912 to Friedrich Wilhelm Otto and Alice (née Herbig) Kretschmer. His father was a teacher at the local ''Volkschule'' (primary school), which Otto attended from 1918 to 1921. He then moved to a ''Realgymnasium'' (secondary school). In the aftermath ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nysa, Poland
Nysa ( or ''Neiße'') is a city in southern Poland on the Eastern Neisse ( Polish: ''Nysa Kłodzka'') river, situated in the Opole Voivodeship. With 43,849 inhabitants (2019), it is the capital of Nysa County. It comprises the urban portion of the surrounding Gmina Nysa. Historically the city was part of Upper Silesia. One of the oldest cities in Silesia, most possibly founded in the 10th century, Nysa was historically one of the leading cities in the region, and from 1290 to 1742 the capital of an episcopally-ruled eponymous duchy. In early modern times it became a center of printing and education, place of study of several notable individuals, including King of Poland Michał Korybut Wiśniowiecki. In the 19th and 20th centuries it was the location of German-operated prisoner-of-war camps for soldiers of various nationalities, including future leader of France, Charles de Gaulle. Nysa contains several notable heritage sights in Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque styles, mos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Silent Running (submarine)
Silent running is a stealth mode of operation for naval submarines. The aim is to evade discovery by passive sonar by eliminating superfluous noise: nonessential systems are shut down, the crew is urged to rest and refrain from making any unnecessary sound, and speed is greatly reduced to minimize propeller noise. The protocol has been in use since the latter part of World War I, when hydrophones were invented to detect U-boats. The propellers have a characteristic RPM band in which no cavitation noise arises. Since this rotation speed is usually relatively low, the first electric submarines had special "silent running" engines designed for optimum performance at reduced speed. These required less active cooling (further reducing noise), and were generally equipped with plain bearings rather than ball bearing A ball bearing is a type of rolling-element bearing that uses balls to maintain the separation between the bearing races. The purpose of a ball bearing is to reduce r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Suez Canal
The Suez Canal (; , ') is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, Indo-Mediterranean, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia (and by extension, the Sinai Peninsula from the rest of Egypt). The canal is a key trade route between Europe and Asia. In 1858, French diplomat Ferdinand de Lesseps formed the Suez Canal Company, Compagnie de Suez for the express purpose of building the canal. Construction of the canal lasted from 1859 to 1869. The canal officially opened on 17 November 1869. It offers vessels a direct route between the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlantic, North Atlantic and northern Indian Ocean, Indian oceans via the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, avoiding the South Atlantic and southern Indian oceans and reducing the journey distance from the Arabian Sea to London by approximately , to 10 days at or 8 days at . The canal extends from the northern terminus of Port Said to the southern terminus of Port ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Far East
The Far East is the geographical region that encompasses the easternmost portion of the Asian continent, including North Asia, North, East Asia, East and Southeast Asia. South Asia is sometimes also included in the definition of the term. In modern times, the term ''Far East'' has widely fallen out of use and been substituted by Asia–Pacific, while the terms Middle East and Near East, although now pertaining to different territories, are still commonly used today. The term first came into use in European geopolitical discourse in the 15th century, particularly the British people, British, denoting the Far East as the "farthest" of the three "Easts", beyond the Near East and the Middle East. Likewise, during the Qing dynasty of the 19th and early 20th centuries, the term "Far West (Taixi), Tàixī ()" – i.e., anything further west than the Arab world – was used to refer to the Western countries. Since the mid-20th century, the term has mostly gone out of use for the region ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
German Cruiser Emden
was a light cruiser built for the German Navy () in the early 1920s. She was the only ship of her class and was the first large warship built in Germany after the end of World War I. She was built at the in Wilhelmshaven; her keel was keel laying, laid down in December 1921 and her completed hull (watercraft), hull was launched in January 1925. was ship commissioning, commissioned into the fleet in October 1925. Her design was heavily informed by the restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles and the dictates of the Allied disarmament commission. Displacement (ship), Displacement was capped at , though like all German warships built in the period, exceeded the size limitations. She was armed with a main battery of surplus guns left over from World War I, mounted in single gun turrets, as mandated by the Allied powers. She had a top speed of . spent the majority of her career as a training ship; in the inter-war period, she conducted several world cruises to train naval cade ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Midshipman
A midshipman is an officer of the lowest Military rank#Subordinate/student officer, rank in the Royal Navy, United States Navy, and many Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth navies. Commonwealth countries which use the rank include Royal Canadian Navy, Canada (Naval Cadet), Royal Australian Navy, Australia, Bangladesh Navy, Bangladesh, Namibian Navy, Namibia, Royal New Zealand Navy, New Zealand, South African Navy, South Africa, Indian Navy, India, Pakistan Navy, Pakistan, Republic of Singapore Navy, Singapore, Sri Lanka Navy, Sri Lanka, and Kenya Navy, Kenya. In the 17th century, a midshipman was a Naval rating, rating for an experienced seaman, and the word derives from the area aboard a ship, amidships, either where he worked on the ship, or where he was Berth (sleeping), berthed. Beginning in the 18th century, a commissioned officer candidate was rated as a midshipman, and the seaman rating began to slowly die out. By the Napoleonic era (1793–1815), a midshipman was an a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Niobe (schooner)
Segelschulschiff ''Niobe'' was a tall ship used by the ''Reichsmarine'' to train cadets and aspiring NCOs. She sank during a white squall on 26 July 1932, with the loss of 69 lives. A memorial monument to ''Niobe'' was erected at Gammendorfer Strand on Fehmarn island, within view of the site of the sinking. History Design The ship had a steel hull (watercraft), hull and displaced 645 tonnes. After her conversion into a training ship she measured in length overall, without the bowsprit, and in width. The height of the main mast was , and she carried 15 sails with of total sail area. She had an auxiliary diesel engine with . Her regular crew comprised seven officers and 27 men. Usually 65 cadets would be trained. Early service She was built as a four-masted schooner in 1913 by the Danish shipyard Frederikshavns Værft og Flydedok under her original name ''Morten Jensen'' and initially sailed as a freighter for F. L. Knakkergaard in Nykøbing Mors. In 1916 she was sold to Nor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Training Ship
A training ship is a ship used to train students as sailors. The term is mostly used to describe ships employed by navies to train future officers. Essentially there are two types: those used for training at sea and old hulks used to house classrooms. As with receiving ships or accommodation ships, which were often hulked warships in the 19th Century, when used to bear on their books the shore personnel of a naval station (as under section 87 of the Naval Discipline Act 1866 ( 29 & 30 Vict. c. 109), the provisions of the act only applied to officers and men of the Royal Navy borne on the books of a warship), that were generally replaced by shore facilities commissioned as stone frigates, most ''"Training Ships"'' of the British Sea Cadet Corps, by example, are shore facilities (although the corps has floating Training Ships also, including TS ''Royalist''). The hands-on aspect provided by sail training has also been used as a platform for everything from semesters at sea for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stralsund
Stralsund (; Swedish language, Swedish: ''Strålsund''), officially the Hanseatic League, Hanseatic City of Stralsund (German language, German: ''Hansestadt Stralsund''), is the fifth-largest city in the northeastern German federal state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania after Rostock, Schwerin, Neubrandenburg and Greifswald, and the second-largest city in the Pomeranian part of the state. It is located on the southern coast of the Strelasund, a Sound (geography), sound of the Baltic Sea separating the island of Rügen from the Pomeranian mainland.''Britannica Online Encyclopedia'', "Stralsund" (city), 2007, webpageEB-Stralsund The Strelasund Crossing with its two bridges and several ferry services connects Stralsund with Rügen, the largest island of Germany and Pomerania. The Western Pomeranian city is the seat of the Vorpommern-Rügen district and, together with Greifswald, Stralsund forms one of four high-level List of cities in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, urban centres of the region ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by the countries of Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden, and the North European Plain, North and Central European Plain regions. It is the world's largest brackish water basin. The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and from 10°E to 30°E longitude. It is a Continental shelf#Shelf seas, shelf sea and marginal sea of the Atlantic with limited water exchange between the two, making it an inland sea. The Baltic Sea drains through the Danish straits into the Kattegat by way of the Øresund, Great Belt and Little Belt. It includes the Gulf of Bothnia (divided into the Bothnian Bay and the Bothnian Sea), the Gulf of Finland, the Gulf of Riga and the Bay of Gdańsk. The "Baltic Proper" is bordered on its northern edge, at latitude 60°N, by Åland and the Gulf of Bothnia, on its northeastern edge by the Gulf of Finland, on its eastern edge by the Gulf of Riga, and in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Exeter University
The University of Exeter is a research university in the West Country of England, with its main campus in Exeter, Devon. Its predecessor institutions, St Luke's College, Exeter School of Science, Exeter School of Art, and the Camborne School of Mines were established in 1838, 1855, 1863, and 1888 respectively. These institutions later formed the University of Exeter after receiving its royal charter in 1955. In post-nominals, the University of Exeter is abbreviated as ''Exon.'' (from the Latin '' Exoniensis''), and is the suffix given to honorary and academic degrees from the university. The university has four campuses: Streatham and St Luke's (both of which are in Exeter); and Truro and Penryn (both of which are in Cornwall). The university is primarily located in the city of Exeter, where it is the principal higher education institution. Streatham is the largest campus containing many of the university's administrative buildings. The Penryn campus is maintained in conju ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abitur
''Abitur'' (), often shortened colloquially to ''Abi'', is a qualification granted at the end of secondary education in Germany. It is conferred on students who pass their final exams at the end of ISCED 3, usually after twelve or thirteen years of schooling (see also, for Germany, ''Abitur'' after twelve years). In German, the term has roots in the older word meaning "Leave (Graduation) exam/diploma", which in turn was derived from the Latin (future active participle of , thus "someone who is going to leave"). As a matriculation examination, ''Abitur'' can be compared to A levels, the '' Matura'' or the International Baccalaureate Diploma, which are all ranked as level 4 in the European Qualifications Framework. In Germany Overview The ("certificate of general qualification for university entrance"), often referred to as ("''Abitur'' certificate"), issued after candidates have passed their final exams and have had appropriate grades in both the last and second last s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
