 Sister ship Z39 underway after the war
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| History | |
|---|---|
 Nazi Germany | |
| Name | Z34 |
| Ordered | 19 September 1939 |
| Builder | AG Weser (Deschimag), Bremen |
| Yard number | W1004 |
| Laid down | 15 January 1941 |
| Launched | 5 May 1942 |
| Completed | 5 June 1943 |
| Captured | 6 May 1945 |
| Fate | Scuttled, 26 March 1946 |
| General characteristics (as built) | |
| Class and type | Type 1936A (Mob) destroyer |
| Displacement | |
| Length | 127 m (416 ft 8 in) (o/a) |
| Beam | 12 m (39 ft 4 in) |
| Draft | 4.62 m (15 ft 2 in) |
| Installed power |
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| Propulsion |
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| Speed | 36 knots (67 km/h; 41 mph) |
| Range | 2,950 nmi (5,460 km; 3,390 mi) at 19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph) |
| Complement | 316–336 |
| Armament |
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Z34 was a Type 1936A (Mob) destroyer built for the Kriegsmarine (German Navy) during World War II. Completed in 1943, the ship spent all of 1944 in Norwegian waters, and was twice damaged by British aircraft attacking the battleship Tirpitz. She escorted troop convoys from northern Norway when the Germans began evacuating the area beginning in October. Z34 was transferred to the Baltic with two of her sister ships at the beginning of 1945 and participated in the action of 28 January 1945 when they were intercepted off the Norwegian coast by a pair of British light cruisers. The ship was only lightly damaged during the battle and all three destroyers were able to disengage.
Over the next several months, she escorted evacuation convoys and German cruisers as they bombarded Soviet positions. She also attacked Soviet troops with her own guns. Z34 was badly damaged by a Soviet torpedo in mid-April and had to be towed to port for emergency repairs. They sufficed to allow her to take a group of refugees and cut-off troops to Denmark in early May. After the end of the war the ship was surrendered to the Allies in Germany, and was allocated to the United States when they divided up the surviving ships of the Kriegsmarine. Still not fully repaired from the torpedo hit in 1945, the ship was scuttled in early 1946.