Kriegsmarine Togo ship Rugard festival newspaper
Festival newspaper of the Rugard from the estate of Kurt Petsch of the 2nd WO, 2nd watch officer on the Togo, approx. 26 pages and an original photo, in a dust jacket.
The "Rugard", named after the Slavic castle wall near Bergen on Rügen, was launched on March 13, 1927 at the Stettiner Oderwerke and was put into service in June 1927 as a steam passenger ship for the "Stettiner Steamship Company J.F. Braeunlich". On 08/20/1940 she became the commanding ship of the commander in charge of securing the Baltic Sea and from 11/08/1942 she was the escort of the 31st minesweeping flotilla.
The task of this Togo 82 was to bring the night fighters to the enemy ships in the night and then sink them.
Nachtjagdleitschiff was in the German Navy the name for an armed and specially equipped ship that was used for early detection and warning of Allied air raids and to bring night fighter planes of the German Air Force.
The only ship designated as a night fighter ship and put into service as such was the Togo, which was used in the Baltic Sea to guide and support the night fighter squadrons against attacks by enemy bombers. The ship was a former general cargo carrier, which was first used by the Navy as a mine ship (Schiff 14), then as an auxiliary cruiser under the name Coronel and was converted into a night fighter ship in 1943. In addition to flak and headlight batteries, the Togo was equipped with special location and fire control devices.
After the war, Togo went through various changes of ownership, name and function before it was finally destroyed off the Mexican coast in 1984.
The estate comes from Kurt Petsch, who already sailed on the support ship Rugard as I.W.O. After that, Petsch was 2nd officer on watch on the Togo and author of the book Nachtleitschiff Togo and the book Seafaring for Brandenburg - Prussia. Petsch also received the original Togo ship's coat of arms, a large oil painting of the ship, a ship model, which is in a museum, the on-board stamps, photo albums, a marine dagger and much more. You can find all these things in our shop if you enter Togo under the search term.
