German tanker Altmark

Altmark in early 1940, Jøssingfjord, Norway
History
Nazi Germany
Name	Altmark
Namesake	Altmark
Builder	Howaldtswerke, Kiel
Laid down	15 June 1936
Launched	13 November 1937
Commissioned	14 August 1939
Renamed	Uckermark, 6 August 1940
Fate	Destroyed by accidental explosion, 30 November 1942
General characteristics [1]
Displacement	20,858 t (20,529 long tons) full load
Length	178.25 m (584 ft 10 in) o/a 174.65 m (573 ft) w/l
Beam	22 m (72 ft 2 in)
Draught	9.3 m (30 ft 6 in)
Propulsion	4 × MAN 9-cylinder diesel engines, 22,000 shp (16,405 kW), 2 shafts
Speed	21.1 knots (39.1 km/h; 24.3 mph)
Range	12,500 nmi (23,200 km) at 15 kn (28 km/h; 17 mph)
Complement	94–208
Armament	3 × 15 cm (5.9 in) L/48 C36 guns 2 × 3.7 cm (1.5 in) Flak 4 × 2 cm (0.79 in) Flak 8 × machine guns

Altmark was a German oil tanker and supply vessel, one of five of a class built between 1937 and 1939. She is best known for her support of the German commerce raider, the "pocket battleship" Admiral Graf Spee and her subsequent involvement in the "Altmark Incident". In 1940 she was renamed Uckermark^[2] and used as supply tanker for the battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau during Operation Berlin before sailing to Japan on September 1942 as a blockade breaker.

Footage of Altmark appears briefly in the 1942 British wartime propaganda movie The Day Will Dawn.^[3]