The German torpedo boat T28 was one of fifteen Type 39 torpedo boats built for the (German Navy) during World War II. Completed in mid-1943, the ship was transferred to France in January 1944 and slightly damaged by British aircraft en route. She attacked Allied ships during the Invasion of Normandy in June 1944 and returned to Germany the following month. T28 was assigned to support German operations in the Baltic Sea. She escorted convoys and larger warships bombarding Soviet troops as well as bombarding them herself. In May T28 helped to evacuate troops and refugees from advancing Soviet forces. The ship was allocated to Great Britain after the war, but she was transferred to France in 1946. The French Navy renamed her Le Lorrain and recommissioned her in 1949. After serving with different units of the Mediterranean Squadron, she was condemned in 1955 and subsequently sold for scrap.
Design and description
The Type 39 torpedo boat was conceived as a general-purpose design, much larger than preceding German torpedo boats. The ships had an overall length of and were long at the waterline. They had a beam of , a draft of at deep load and displaced at standard load and at deep load. Their crew numbered 206 officers and sailors. The Type 39s were fitted with a pair of geared steam turbine sets, each driving one propeller, using steam from four high-pressure water-tube boilers. The turbines were designed to produce which was intended give the ships a maximum speed of . They carried enough fuel oil to give them a range of at .
As built, the Type 39 ships mounted four SK C/32 guns in single mounts protected by gun shields; one forward of the superstructure, one between the funnels, and two aft, one superfiring over the other. Anti-aircraft defense was provided by four SK C/30 AA guns in two twin-gun mounts on platforms abaft the rear funnel, six C/38 guns in one quadruple mount on the aft superstructure and a pair of single mounts on the bridge wings. They carried six above-water torpedo tubes in two triple mounts amidships and could also carry 30 mines; the full complement of 60 mines made the ships top-heavy which could be dangerous in bad weather. For anti-submarine work the ships were fitted with a S-Gerät sonar and four depth charge launchers. The Type 39s were equipped with a FuMO 21 radar and various FumB radar detectors were installed late in the war. By early 1945, the 2 cm mounts on the bridge wings and the twin 3.7 cm mounts may have been replaced by single mounts for 3.7 cm guns, either the Flak M42 or the Flak M43, or Bofors guns.
Construction and career
Originally ordered as a Type 37 torpedo boat on 30 March 1939, T28 was reordered on 10 November 1939 from Schichau. She was laid down on 24 September 1941 at their Elbing, East Prussia, shipyard as yard number 1487, launched on 8 October 1942 and commissioned on 19 June 1943. After working up, T28 and her sister arrived in Western France during late January 1944. En route the two torpedo boats were shelled by British coastal artillery and attacked by a pair of British Fairey Albacore torpedo bombers that caused some minor leaks in T28s boiler room from splinter damage. The ship began a long refit upon her arrival that was not completed until early June. As the Allies began landing in Normandy on 6 June, the 5th Torpedo Boat Flotilla, now consisting of T28 and the torpedo boats , and , sortied multiple times from Le Havre over the next week in attempts to sink Allied shipping. Despite the expenditure of over 50 torpedoes and large quantities of ammunition, they were generally unsuccessful, only sinking the destroyer on 6 June. T28 was not damaged during the air raid by the Royal Air Force on the night of 14/15 June that sank Falke and Jaguar. On the night of 21/22 July, T28 and three E-boats sailed from Le Havre to Boulogne and fought a brief action with the destroyer en route. The torpedo boat reached Germany on the 27th, having evaded multiple Allied ships on her voyage.