O and P class
 The onslow
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||
The O- and P-Class were a destroyer class of the British Royal Navy . The destroyers were ordered in 1939 on the occasion of the war that had broken out. In Great Britain they were therefore also called the "1st and 2nd Emergency Flotilla". The Oribi was the first ship to enter service on July 5, 1941 . Fifteen other ships followed by October 30, 1942. During the World War, they were primarily used in escort service. Five of the ships were lost in World War II .
After the war, one ship became Turkey and three ships were given to Pakistan . In the 1950s, five of the destroyers were converted into fast anti -submarine frigates, including two of the Pakistani ships. As the last ship of the class, the Pakistani Tippu Sultan (ex Onslow ) was scrapped in 1980 . The last ship in service with the Royal Navy was the Petard , which was scrapped in 1967.
Building history
Four shipyards received orders for two ships each of the new O-Class, the first destroyers of the War Emergency Program immediately after the outbreak of war. In terms of hull and drive design, the ships were a further development of the J-Class , the first ships of which had joined the Royal Navy just before the war began. The hull was largely new and over 3 m shorter. The forecastle had been modified to improve the behavior in rough seas. The drive system was adopted almost identically.
Six weeks later, eight more destroyers were ordered as P-Class. The ships originally ordered as identical ships, each with a slightly modified flotilla lead ship, were ultimately built in three different versions. Four ships of the O-class and all ships of the P-class received instead of the originally intended main armament with 12-cm-cannons (as with the fleet destroyers from the A- to I-class ) also 102-mm-artillery suitable for aircraft defense. In addition, a ship under construction at Fairfield and one under construction at John Brown on the second order exchanged their names with two ships on the first order from Hawthorn, Leslie & Company , which were completed as P-class ships. The O-class ships ordered from Denny Brothers and Thornycroft also received the modified main armament and could also be converted to mine layers.
The O-Class
The O-Class formed two groups of four ships each.
The ships with 12 cm cannons
Only the first ships of Fairfield, Oribi and Offa , and the Onslaught, started there as Pathfinder , and Onslow (ex Pakenham ) by John Brown received the originally intended main armament with 120 mm Mk.IX cannons . These guns could only be raised up to 40 ° and could therefore only be used to a very limited extent for aircraft defense. Therefore, these ships received a 102 mm Mk.V gun instead of the rear torpedo tube set for aircraft defense . In addition, the ships, like all ships of the O- and P-Class, had a 2-pounder “pom-pom” quadruplet and were also to receive two quadruple Vickers 0.5 Fla-MGs . However, it had already been shown that machine guns were hardly effective against modern aircraft. Where possible, they were replaced with 20mm Oerlikon automatic cannons, of which up to six were installed. With the Fla-MGs only Oribi and Offa were probably completed.
Oribi , Offa and Onslow were the first three ships of the class to enter service. Their first practical test was the deployment in the command company "Archery" at the end of December 1941 against Vågsøy . For the first time, a Norwegian unit was also involved in the company. After Operation Claymore against Lofoten in March 1941, it was the second Allied commando operation against a location on the Norwegian coast. At the same time, with Operation Anklet, another diversionary maneuver was carried out against the Lofoten .
The ships formed from the beginning of 1942 the 17th destroyer flotilla ("17th destroyer flotilla ") in the Home Fleet . The Onslaught , completed as the eleventh ship of the O and P classes, also joined this flotilla in June 1942.
The O-class mine layers
.jpg)
The second group of the O-class was equipped with the ability to lay mines after a decision of March 1941. In addition, they received a modified stern, through which the 60 mines placed on the deck on rails should be dropped during a mine operation. However, the ships had to leave their depth charges, a torpedo tube set and the stern gun ashore during such a mission. The ships of this group received four 102 mm Mk.V guns as main artillery in protective shields newly developed for the class, as they had already received the ships of the P-class, which were completed in the meantime. The rest of the armament corresponded to the other ships of the O- and P-class; however, the ships in the second group always carried two sets of torpedo tubes.
Opportune , Obdurate , Orwell and Obedient joined the Home Fleet between August and October 1942 .
Further missions
The O-Class ships were primarily used in the North Sea. On December 31, 1942, the defense of the convoy JW 51B , which was attacked by the German heavy cruisers Admiral Hipper and Lützow and six destroyers, was successful . The commander of the Onslow and the convoy protection, Captain Sherbrooke, decided to counterattack with Obedient , Obdurate and Orwell , from which the battle in the Barents Sea developed. Obedient and Obdurate received hits. The Onslow was badly hit and suffered 17 deaths in addition to many injuries. The seriously injured Commander Sherbrooke was awarded the Victoria Cross for his courageous leadership of the destroyers, which prevented the Germans from working together effectively and gave the British local security the time to intervene in the battle .
In the summer of 1943, the ships were used in the North Atlantic in the anti-submarine defense, in the summer of 1944 in the Channel and the Biscay . In April 1945, the three still serviceable ships of the second group were used as mine layers when they laid mine blocks against German submarines in front of the Kola Fjord together with the mine cruiser Apollo with the consent of the Soviets (Operation "Trammel"). The Obdurate has not been operational again since a heavy torpedo hit in January 1944.
After the end of the war, the ships were used to monitor the conditions of surrender, called at liberated ports and were temporarily used as guard ships in German ports. Some accompanied the returning Norwegian government and on June 5, 1945 also the Norwegian King Haakon VII. To Oslo . Several were involved in the destruction of the German submarines ( Operation Deadlight ) in the winter of 1945. No O-class ship was lost in the war.
P-class
The P-class destroyers should actually correspond to those of the O-class. The doubts about an effective anti-aircraft defense with the 12 cm cannons led after various alternative considerations with mixed armament or 102 mm twin guns to a uniform armament with five 102 mm single guns optimized for air defense, of which mostly four were newly developed larger ones Received protective shields. The low weight of the main artillery made it possible to carry a larger supply of depth charges from the start. The eight ships came, starting with the Panther , in December 1941 to August 1942 in the service of the Royal Navy and were used in the Mediterranean. On December 9, 1942, the Porcupine was the first ship to fail permanently. As a security ship, she was torpedoed by U 602 off the Algerian coast . The heavy hit almost broke the destroyer's hull. In order to bring the ship to a suitable shipyard, it was cut up completely and the two part hulls were brought to Dartmouth via Gibraltar . However, the repair was never started in earnest, and the hull parts eked their lives until the end of the war under the nicknames Pork and Pine as harbor ships. A few days later the Partridge was sunk by U 565 off Oran . In April 1943 the flotilla leader of the class, the Pakenham , could not be towed to safety near Sicily after a battle with Italian torpedo boats and was sunk by the paladin accompanying them . On October 9, 1943, the Panther was lost to a German plane in the Aegean Sea .
While supporting landings by British troops in the Bay of Bengal near Arakan , the Pathfinder received bomb hits from Japanese planes on February 11, 1945. The severely damaged ship was able to return to Great Britain with only one serviceable drive shaft, but was there judged to be no longer repairable and rejected as a "constructive loss" - a fate that also met Pork and Pine . Only three P-class ships ( Paladin , Penn , Petard ) survived the war in distant Burma , and they returned by 1946.
Whereabouts of the ships
The four O-class destroyers with 12 cm cannons were handed over to other navies.
In January 1946, the Oribi went to Turkey as a replacement for the destroyer Gayret , which was not delivered during the war , which was so badly damaged in the service of the Royal Navy as Ithuriel by an air raid in the port of Bône on November 28, 1942 that it could not be repaired made sense. The Gayret / Oribi remained in service with the Turkish Navy from June 1946 to 1965 . Until 1960 she was in service with three Demirhisar- class destroyers , which were similar to the British I-class .
At the end of 1949, the newly founded Pakistani Navy received the Offa and Onslow , which were used as Tariq and Tippu Sultan , respectively. 1951 arrived in Pakistan the sister ship Onslaught , which was named Tughril . In 1957 the Tippu Sultan and Tughril went to Great Britain and were converted to the pattern of the Royal Navy's Type 16 fast anti -submarine frigates. This limited conversion was essentially just a rearmament. The ships returned to Pakistan in 1959 and remained in service until the late 1970s. The Tariq was returned to the Royal Navy in 1959 and sold for demolition.
After the end of the war, the Royal Navy had sorted out the two remains of the Porcupine and the heavily damaged Pathfinder . In 1949 Penn followed for demolition.
The future threat in war was seen primarily in submarines in the late 1940s. The Royal Navy therefore planned to convert a large number of the existing destroyers into fast anti-submarine frigates . At times, 57 destroyers were to be converted into frigates of the "Type 15" (the "full conversion"). In the end, there were 23 conversions of R- to Z-class destroyers from 1949 to 1957. Three similar conversions were made in Canada and four in Australia.
The Royal Navy decided early on to procure a cheaper version of the Type 16 frigate. This “limited conversion” was then only carried out on ten ships. It began with the conversion of seven T-class ships of the Royal Navy, and finally three O- and P-class ships, the Orwell , Paladin and Petard, were also converted. The conversion of the Orwell began in 1952. In the course of the conversion, the affected ships were re-armed. After the conversion, the defensive armament consisted of a 102 mm Mk XIX twin gun in front of the bridge, a 40 mm Bofors Mk V twin gun and three 40 mm Bofors Mk IX single guns for the O / P ships. Two Squid triple mortars were available against submarines . A quadruple torpedo tube set gave little fighting power against surface opponents. The Orwell was followed by the Paladin until 1954 and the Petard, which had already been considerably modernized during the war, was moved to the shipyard. The opportunity was separated in 1955 and sold for demolition. The remaining Obedurate and Obedient waited a long time for a fundamental modernization, but this did not happen until they were sold for demolition in 1964. So they stayed in service longer than the converted Paladin , which had been sold for demolition in 1962. The Orwell then took this route in 1965 and the Petard followed as the last ship of the class in the Royal Navy in 1967 . At that time only the two Pakistani ships Tippu Sultan ex Onslow and Tughril ex Onslaught were in service with a Navy.
The ships of the O and P class
| Surname | Shipyard | Launch | finished | Final fate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Oribi G66 |
Fairfields construction no. 680 |
01/14/1941 | 5.07.1941 | 1946 to Turkey: Gayret , 1965 for demolition |
|
Offa G29 |
Fairfields construction no. 681 |
03/11/1941 | 09/20/1941 | 1949 to Pakistan: Tariq , 1959 for demolition |
|
Onslow G17 |
John Brown construction no. 571 |
March 31, 1941 | October 8, 1941 | 1949 to Pakistan: Tippu Sultan , 1957–1959 “Type 16” conversion, 1980 for demolition |
|
Onslaught G04 |
Fairfields construction no. 684 |
10/9/1941 | 06/19/1942 | 1951 to Pakistan: Tughril , 1957–1959 "Type 16" conversion, 197? to abort |
|
Opportune G80 |
Thornycroft construction no. |
02/21/1942 | 08/14/1942 | 1955 for demolition |
|
Obdurate G39 |
Denny construction no. 1352 |
02/19/1942 | September 3, 1942 | 1964 for demolition |
|
Orwell G98 |
Thornycroft construction no. |
April 2, 1942 | 10/17/1942 | 1952 "Type 16" conversion, 1965 for demolition |
|
Obedient G48 |
Denny construction no. 1353 |
04/30/1942 | 10/30/1942 | 1964 for demolition |
|
Paladin G69 |
John Brown construction no. 572 |
06/11/1941 | 12/12/1941 | 1954 "Type 16" conversion, 1962 for demolition |
|
Panther G41 |
Fairfields construction no. 682 |
05/28/1941 | 12/12/1941 | Sunk by the Luftwaffe near Karpathos on September 10, 1943 |
|
Pakenham G06 |
Hawthorn Leslie construction no. 625 |
01/28/1941 | 4.02.1942 | Heavily damaged by Italian torpedo boats off Marsala on April 16, 1943 , sunk by Paladin |
|
Penn G77 |
Vickers Armstrong Walker yard, building no. 22nd |
02/12/1941 | 02/10/1942 | 1949 for demolition |
|
Partridge G30 |
Fairfields construction no. 683 |
August 5, 1941 | 02/22/1942 | Sunk by U 565 off Oran on December 18, 1942 |
|
Pathfinder G10 |
Hawthorn Leslie construction no. 626 |
04/10/1941 | 04/13/1942 | Badly damaged by Japanese bombers off the island of Ramree in the Bay of Bengal on February 11, 1945 , decommissioned, demolished in 1948 |
|
Petard G56 |
Vickers Armstrong Walker yard, building no. 23 |
April 2, 1942 | 06/15/1942 | 1953 to 1955 "Type 16" conversion, 1967 demolition |
|
Porcupine G93 |
Vickers Armstrong Walker yard, building no. 24 |
06/10/1941 | 08/31/1942 | 9 December 1942 torpedoed and broken in the Mediterranean by U 602 , the two parts used as port ships Pork and Pine , demolished in 1947 |
literature
- Maurice Cocker: Destroyers of the Royal Navy, 1893-1981 , Ian Allen (1983), ISBN 0-7110-1075-7
- Norman Friedman: British Destroyers: From Earliest Days to the Second World War , Seaforth Publishing (Barnsley 2009), ISBN 978-1-84832-049-9 .
- HT Lenton: Warships of the British and Commonwealth Navies , Ian Allan 1969,
- Antony Preston: Destroyers , Hamlyn, ISBN 0-600-32955-0
- Alan Raven, John Roberts: War Built Destroyers O to Z Classes , Bivouac Books, London 1978, ISBN 0-85680-010-4
- MJ Whitley: Destroyers of World War 2 , Naval Institute Press, Annapolis 1988, ISBN 0-87021-326-1
Web links
- O and P groups destroyers
- OPERATION ARCHERY ~ VAAGSO - 27TH DEC 1941
- Operation Archery
- Pakistan Navy
Footnotes
- ↑ Rohwer, p. 314f.
- ↑ HT Lenton: Warships of the British & Commonwealth Navies , Ian Allan, London 1969, p. 77
- ↑ Pictures of the Porcupine