German torpedo boat Falke

Falke

Right elevation and plan of the Type 23
History
Germany
Name	Falke
Namesake	Falcon
Builder	Reichsmarinewerft Wilhelmshaven
Yard number	107
Laid down	17 November 1925
Launched	29 September 1926
Commissioned	15 July 1928
Fate	Sunk, 15 June 1944
General characteristics (as built)
Class and type	Type 23 torpedo boat
Displacement	923 long tons (938 t) (standard) 1,290 long tons (1,310 t) (deep load)
Length	87.7 m (287 ft 9 in) (o/a)
Beam	8.25 m (27 ft 1 in)
Draft	3.65 m (12 ft)
Installed power	3 × water-tube boilers 23,000 shp (17,000 kW)
Propulsion	2 × shafts; 2 × geared steam turbine sets
Speed	32–34 knots (59–63 km/h; 37–39 mph)
Range	1,800 nmi (3,300 km; 2,100 mi) at 17 knots (31 km/h; 20 mph)
Complement	120
Armament	3 × single 10.5 cm (4.1 in) guns 2 × triple 500 mm (19.7 in) torpedo tubes 30 mines

Falke was the sixth and last Type 23 torpedo boat built for the German Navy (initially called the Reichsmarine and then renamed as the Kriegsmarine in 1935). The boat made multiple non-intervention patrols during the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s. During World War II, she played a minor role in the Norwegian Campaign of 1940. Falke spent the next several months escorting minelayers as they laid minefields and damaged heavy ships back to Germany before she was transferred to France around September. She started laying minefields herself that month and continued to do so for the rest of the war. After a refit in early 1941, the boat was transferred to the Skaggerak where she was assigned escort duties. Falke returned to France in 1942 and was one of the escorts for the capital ships sailing from France to Germany through the English Channel in the Channel Dash. She helped to escort blockade runners, commerce raiders and submarines through the Channel and the Bay of Biscay for the next several years. The boat attacked Allied ships during the Invasion of Normandy in June 1944, but was sunk by British bombers that same month.