German torpedo boat Albatros

German torpedo boat Albatros.
Albatros was the fourth of six Type 23 torpedo boats built for the German Navy. Launched in July 1926 and commissioned in May 1927, she often served as a flagship of various torpedo boat units. The ship made multiple non-intervention patrols during the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930s. After an attack by aircraft of the Spanish Republican Air Force that killed German sailors in 1937, Albatros participated in the retaliatory bombardment of Almería. At the beginning of World War II in 1939, she helped to lay minefields and made anti-shipping patrols before participating in Operation Weserübung, the German invasion of Norway in April 1940. Albatros fired the first shots of the campaign when she encountered and crippled a Norwegian patrol boat. She was lightly damaged during the Battle of Horten Harbor. Albatros then ran aground and was wrecked while maneuvering in an attempt to avoid Norwegian coastal artillery.