Z20 Karl Galster was named after
Kapitänleutnant (Lieutenant) Karl Galster who commanded the
torpedo boat and was killed in action on 21 March 1916. The ship was ordered from
AG Weser (
Deschimag) on 6 January 1936. She was
laid down at Deschimag's
Bremen shipyard as
yard number W922 on 14 September 1937,
launched on 15 June 1938, and
commissioned on 21 March 1939. She visited
Åndalsnes, Norway, in July and then participated in a torpedo training exercise the following month. When World War II began in September,
Z20 Karl Galster was initially deployed in the
German Bight where she laid defensive minefields. The ship then patrolled the Skagerrak to inspect neutral shipping for contraband goods. On the night of 17/18 October,
Konteradmiral (Rear Admiral)
Günther Lütjens, aboard his
flagship Z21 Wilhelm Heidkamp, led , , , , and
Z20 Karl Galster as they laid a minefield off the mouth of the
River Humber. The British were unaware of the minefield's existence and lost seven ships totaling . Missions on the nights of 8/9 and 10/11 November had to be aborted because of seawater contamination in
Z19 Hermann Künnes fuel. On the night of 12/13 November
Z21 Wilhelm Heidkamp, now the flagship of the
Führer der Zerstörer (FdZ) (Commander of Destroyers),
Kapitän zur See (KzS) (Captain)
Friedrich Bonte, escorted
Z18 Hans Lüdemann,
Z19 Hermann Künne, and
Z20 Karl Galster as they laid 288
magnetic mines in the
Thames estuary. Once again unaware of the minefield's existence, the British lost the destroyer and thirteen merchant ships of 48,728 GRT. The ship spent the rest of the year patrolling in the German Bight. Bonte and
Z21 Wilhelm Heidkamp led a minelaying sortie to the
Newcastle area together with Z16
Friedrich Eckoldt,
Z20 Karl Galster, and on the night of 10/11 January 1940. The destroyers and were also supposed to participate, but the former had problems with her boilers that reduced her maximum speed to and she had to be escorted back to Germany by the latter ship. The minefield only claimed one fishing trawler of 251 GRT. In retaliation for the
Altmark Incident where the
Royal Navy seized captured British sailors from the in neutral Norwegian waters on 16 February, the
Kriegsmarine organized
Operation Nordmark to search for Allied merchant ships in the North Sea as far north as the
Shetland Islands.
Z20 Karl Galster and
Z21 Wilhelm Heidkamp escorted the
battleships and as well as the
heavy cruiser during the
sortie on 18 February. Upon her return
Z20 Karl Galster began a refit that lasted until 27 May. After the catastrophic destroyer losses in the
Battles of Narvik in April, the
Kriegsmarine reorganized its surviving destroyers and
Z20 Karl Galster became the flagship of the
FdZ. In June the ship was tasked to lead the escort force for
Scharnhorst,
Gneisenau, and
Admiral Hipper during
Operation Juno, a planned attack on
Harstad, Norway, to relieve pressure on the German garrison at
Narvik. The ships sortied on 8 June and sank the
troop transport , the
oil tanker and the
minesweeping trawler en route,
Z20 Karl Galster assisting in the rescue of
Oramas survivors. The German commander,
Admiral Wilhelm Marschall, then ordered
Admiral Hipper and all four destroyers to
Trondheim because of the heavy weather, where they arrived in the morning of 9 June.
Z20 Karl Galster remained there until she had to help screen the crippled
Gneisenau as she returned to
Kiel on 25 July. After a brief refit, the ship helped to lay minefields in the
North Sea between 14 August and 7 September.
Z20 Karl Galster, now the flagship of
KzS Fritz Berger, commander of the
5th Destroyer Flotilla (), transferred to France on 9 September in preparation for
Operation Sealion, the planned invasion of Great Britain. Now based at
Brest, the ship helped to lay a minefield in
Falmouth Bay during the night of 28/29 September. Five ships totaling only 2,037 GRT were sunk by this minefield. Aboard his flagship , the
Führer der Torpedoboote (Commander of
Torpedo Boats),
KzS Erich Bey, led
Z20 Karl Galster and three other destroyers during a sortie for the
Southwest Approaches on 17 October and were intercepted by a British force of two
light cruisers and five destroyers. The British opened fire at extreme range and were forced to disengage in the face of long-range torpedo
volleys and attacks by Luftwaffe bombers without having hit any of the German ships. On the night of 24–25 November,
Z20 Karl Galster, no longer Berger's flagship,
Z4 Richard Beitzen and
Z10 Hans Lody 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
Z20 Karl Galster 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 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 destroyer . 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.
Z20 Karl Galster returned home on 5 December for a
turbine overhaul in
Wesermünde that lasted until 9 June 1941.
Arctic service Two days later, the ship was one of the escorts for the heavy cruiser
Lützow from Kiel to Norway as the latter ship attempted to break through the British blockade. Several
Bristol Beaufort torpedo bombers spotted
Lützow and her escorts en route and one managed to surprise the ships and torpedo the cruiser early on the morning of 13 June, forcing her to return to Germany for repairs.
Z20 Karl Galster was then sent to
Kirkenes, Norway, arriving on 11 July. Now a part of the
6th Destroyer Flotilla (), she participated in a sortie on 12–13 July that sank two small Soviet ships at the cost of expending 80% of their ammunition. Another sortie on 22 July saw
Z20 Karl Galster temporarily serve as the flagship for KzS
Alfred Schulze-Hinrichs, commander of the
6. Zerstörerflottille, when his usual flagship
Z10 Hans Lody had
condenser problems. The destroyers sank a small
survey ship and a
flying boat and they were repeatedly attacked by Soviet aircraft to no effect before their return on the 24th. When the British
aircraft carriers and attacked
Petsamo and Kirkenes on 29 July, the destroyers were far to the east and could not catch the British ships before they left the area.
Z20 Karl Galster was now assigned to escort convoys between
Tromsø and Kirkenes; during one of these missions, the submarine
Trident sank two troop-carrying freighters, and despite the destroyers.
Z20 Karl Galster rescued over 500 survivors from the two ships. When
Z10 Hans Lody required a refit in late September, Schulze-Hinrichs transferred his flag to
Z20 Karl Galster until she had engine problems of her own and sailed for Germany on 23 November to begin a refit that lasted until 5 May 1942. The ship, now flagship of KzS Gottfried Pönitz, commander of the
8. Zerstörerflottile (8th Destroyer Flotilla), sailed for Trondheim on 11 June. She was one of four destroyers assigned to escort the battleship during
Operation Rösselsprung, an attack on the Russia-bound
Convoy PQ 17. The ships sailed from Trondheim on 2 July for the first stage of the operation, although three of the destroyers, including
Z20 Karl Galster, assigned to
Tirpitzs escort ran aground in the dark and heavy fog and were forced to return to port for emergency repairs. The destroyer had damaged her port turbine and buckled the port propeller shaft. Escorted by two other destroyers,
Z20 Karl Galster sailed for Kiel on 12 July, steaming only on one turbine. Permanent repairs were finished by mid-November, but the ship was working up until 8 December when she was one of the escorts for
Lützows voyage to Norway, although storm damage en route forced the destroyer to put into Trondheim for repairs that lasted until 9 January 1943. Boiler damage put her back into the dockyard there until 27 February. On 11 March
Z20 Karl Galster screened
Tirpitz en route to
Bogen Bay, and continued onward to
Altafjord with
Tirpitz,
Scharnhorst, and
Lützow. Several weeks later,
Z20 Karl Galster, and the destroyers and , sailed for
Jan Mayen island on 31 March to rendezvous with the blockade runner, . They searched for several days before increasingly heavy weather forced them to return to port with storm damage. Unbeknownst to the Germans,
Regensburg had been intercepted and sunk by a British cruiser on 30 March.
Z20 Karl Galster took part in the raid on the island of Spitsbergen in 6–9 September, during which she landed troops on the island. Two months later the ship sailed for Bremen to begin an overhaul.
Further service Problems with her starboard turbine, after the overhaul was finished in April 1944, put
Z20 Karl Galster back in the dockyard for further work until about August when she began escorting convoys in southern Norway and helping to lay minefields in the Skagerrak. The ship continued to perform those duties until she began a brief refit in
Oslo, Norway, between 20 December and 13 January 1945.
Z20 Karl Galster helped to lay a minefield in the North Sea on 8 March. Afterwards, she was transferred to the Baltic and assigned to escort and patrol duties. In May, the ship was assigned to evacuate civilians and troops trapped in ports along the Baltic Sea by advancing Soviet forces. The survivors were transported to
Copenhagen,
Denmark. When the German troops in Denmark surrendered on 5 May,
Z20 Karl Galster transferred survivors to smaller ships outside the harbour to avoid having to surrender. There the ship received an open radio transmission by
Grand Admiral (
Großadmiral)
Karl Dönitz asking "everybody to "Curry" who can make it until dawn on the 8th". Dönitz had chosen the word "Curry" to obscure the fact that he wanted the ships to go on a rescue mission. The German captains knew "Curry" to be the nickname of their former
naval academy instructor, Admiral
August Thiele, commander in
Hela on the
Hel Peninsula. So the ship's final mission led back to the Peninsula, which was one of the few remaining footholds on the coast under German control on 8 May. At 22:00, two hours before the surrender became effective,
Z20 Karl Galster,
Z14 Friedrich Ihn, the destroyer and two torpedo boats, and , picked up some 1,200 to 2,000 soldiers each. Every German vessel located east of
Bornholm at midnight was to return to a port under Soviet control, but
Z20 Karl Galster, using its superior speed, managed to outrun pursuing Soviet torpedo boats and headed to
Flensburg. From there the ship was sent to Kiel, where she surrendered to the British and was
decommissioned on 10 May.
Postwar activities After the war
Z20 Karl Galster sailed to
Wilhelmshaven while the Allies decided how to divide the surviving ships of the
Kriegsmarine amongst themselves as
war reparations. The ship was allotted to the Soviet Union in late 1945 and turned over to the Soviets on 6 February 1946 in
Liepāja,
Latvia. She was renamed
Prochnyy and assigned to the
Red Banner Baltic Fleet on 5 November.
Prochnyy was converted into a training ship in 1950 and was then reclassified as an accommodation ship, designated
PKZ 99, on 28 November 1954. The ship was scrapped in 1958. ==Notes==