HMAS Nizam (G38)
 The Nizam in October 1944
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HMAS Nizam (G38) was an N-class destroyer . Like four of its sister ships, the destroyer was loaned out by the Royal Navy to the Royal Australian Navy and entered service on December 19, 1940. During World War II he was awarded the Battle Honors Malta Convoys 1941–42 , Crete 1941 , Libya 1941 , Mediterranean 1941 , Indian Ocean 1942–44 , Pacific 1943 and Okinawa 1945 .
On October 17, 1945, the destroyer retired from the service of the RAN in Sydney , was taken over by the Royal Navy as HMS Nizam and transferred to Great Britain. The Nizam arrived in Sheerness on December 13, 1945 , where it was decommissioned and placed in the reserve. In 1955 it was sold for demolition, which began in Grays in mid-October .
history
HMAS Nizam was ordered on April 15, 1939 with a further seven units of the N-class. The ships were only slightly modified replicas of the J- and K-Class ordered in 1937. The contractors for two newbuildings each were four shipyards, which had already built two units of the order in 1937, which were delivered from 1939. The Nizam was laid down at John Brown & Company in Clydebank on July 27, 1939 as a new building with hull number 564 and launched on July 4, 1940. She was the first ship in the Navy to be named Nizam in honor of the ruling Indian Nizam of Hyderabad , Asaf Jah VII .
While equipping the eight units of the N-class, the Royal Navy decided to make all eight units available to Allied navies. Five went to the Royal Australian Navy, two to the Dutch Navy and the first went to the Polish Navy ( ORP Piorun ). On January 8, 1941, HMAS Nizam was commissioned as the third ship of the class and second for Australia.
Calls
The Nizam carried out its first test missions in the area of the North Western Approaches . To equip it for future missions in the Mediterranean Sea, it was in the shipyard when it was the target of intensive attacks by the German Air Force on February 13, 1941 ("Clydebank Blitz"). The destroyer then went back to Scapa Flow to continue training its crew with the Home Fleet .
On March 21, 1941, the laying of the Nizam began together with the sister ship and leader Napier in the Mediterranean. The Australian destroyers were assigned to an association with the old carrier Argus , who served as an aircraft transporter and had hurricane fighters on board for Malta , the light cruiser Sheffield , the submarine depot ship Maidstone and the troop carrier Highland Monarch on the way to Gibraltar as security where they arrived on the 29th. The two destroyers joined Force H , which was returning from the Atlantic to Gibraltar , before securing the Highland Monarch (14139 GRT, 1932) via Freetown (8th) and St. Helena (12th) to Cape Town on April 1st continue. After an inspection in Simonstown , the destroyers continue their laying through the Indian Ocean , the Red Sea and the Suez Canal to Alexandria , mostly to secure transporters , from Aden they escorted the two over 80,000 GRT ocean liners Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth , the came from Australia via Ceylon and had 11,600 Australian soldiers on board for deployment in the Middle East. The two destroyers joined the Mediterranean Fleet in Alexandria on May 4th after passing the Suez Canal .
There the Nizam was already used from 6 May 1941 to secure the fleet of three battleships and the carrier Formidable , which served as long-range cover for a new supply convoy to Malta, which was to reach Malta at the same time as a convoy from Gibraltar (Operation Tiger) . Parts of the western convoy from Gibraltar brought reinforcements for the Mediterranean fleet (battleship Queen Elizabeth , cruisers Fiji and Naiad ) as well as tanks and hurricanes for the Commonwealth forces in Egypt. Despite the German-Italian air raids, the Mediterranean fleet and merchant ship convoys did not lose any ships. The German attempt to occupy Crete required the deployment of all units of the Mediterranean fleet. So shelled Nizam with Jervis and Ilex on May 20, the airfield Scarpanto on Karpathos . She twice accompanied the mine-layer HMS Abdiel during the transport of reinforcements to the island. Later she took part in the evacuation of the Allied troops. In July, the destroyer was one of the units that supported the conquest of Syria by Commonwealth and Free French troops. At the beginning of June she fired at positions of Vichy-loyal troops near Beirut with the cruisers Naiad and Ajax and the destroyers Jackal , Kimberley , Havock and Hasty . From August the destroyer came in securing the supply to the besieged Tobruk used where he on 21 August by Ju-88 bombers of III./LG.1 north of Bardia was damaged. In December 1941, the Nizam was again involved in a convoy operation to supply Malta, which led to the first sea battle in the Gulf of Syrte on December 17, 1941 . The last deployment in the Mediterranean for the time being took place on December 31, 1941, when Nizam and the Australian sister ships Napier (F) and Nestor fired at positions of the German-Italian tank army near Bardia .
To the Eastern Fleet
On January 3, 1942, the Nizam moved with her sister ship Napier and Nestor in the Red Sea. Under the Eastern Fleet , the Australian destroyers first secured the aircraft carrier Indomitable, which was used as an aircraft transporter . In May 1942, the Nizam returned to the Mediterranean to participate in the “7. Destroyer Flotilla ”with the Napier , Nestor , Nizam and Norman in June to accompany supply convoys between Alexandria and Malta ( Operation Vigorous ). During this mission the Nestor was lost. ( see also => The end of Nestor )
The Nizam then moved back to the Eastern Fleet on June 25 and resumed its security operations in the Indian Ocean from Kilindini Harbor as a new base. On September 10, 1942, she was one of the units that supported the completion of the occupation of Madagascar . In addition to her, her Australian sister ships Napier , Nporman and Nepal as well as the Dutch Van Galen and Tjerk Hiddes were also used.
On October 8, the Nizam rescued the 64-strong crew of the Dutch merchant ship Gaasterkerk , which had been sunk by U 68 off Cape Town . From the end of October to December 1942, the destroyer was overhauled in Simonstoewn and then remained in service at the South Atlantic Station until June 1943 to secure shipping around South Africa, before returning to the Eastern Fleet and Kilindini. On July 31, 1943, he fished six survivors of the British merchant ship Cornish City , which had been torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U 177 two days earlier southeast of Madagascar . The defensive duties in the Indian Ocean that followed until the fall of 1944 were interrupted by an offensive operation in March 1944 when Nizam, along with other ships, including the sister ships Napier , Norman and Nepal , secured the aircraft carrier Illustrious and the American Saratoga when they secured bombed Japanese facilities on Sabang Island with their aircraft ( Operation Cockpit ).
On September 3, 1944, the Nizam arrived in Melbourne . The first visit to Australia was for a necessary overhaul. In November, the destroyer returned to the Eastern Fleet, which was preparing to support the advance of Allied forces into Burma . Nizam was not used for immediate landing support and moved to Australia in February 1945 in order to be used in the future with the newly created British Pacific Fleet (BPF).
Operations in the Pacific
In March 1945 the destroyer was assigned to the backup of the BPF supply group with Napier , Nepal and Norman . During the Battle of Okinawa , he was assigned to the BPF carrier group as a backup for the accompanying carrier operations in mid-May. At the end of May, the destroyer moved to Australia for an overhaul and vacation phase and left Australia at the end of June 1945 in order to secure the supply group of the British carrier group again in the final phase of the war during the carrier operations against the main Japanese islands. From August 12, 1945, the Nizam and the Napier belonged to combat group TG.38.5 with the carrier Indefatigable , the battleship King George V , the cruisers Gambia and Newfoundland and the destroyers Barfleur , Wakeful , Wrangler , Troubridge , Termagant , Tenacious and Teazer , which was the only British carrier group still operating off the Japanese coast when an armistice was agreed.
On September 2, 1945 ( VJ-Day ) she was present with the sister ship Napier in Tokyo Bay at the signing of the Japanese surrender.
Whereabouts
On October 17, 1945, the Australian crew disembarked in Sydney and the ship was returned to the Royal Navy . The Nizam was returned under British command but not reused, but sold for scrapping in 1955 and scrapped in November 1955.
Armament
The armament consisted of six 12 cm cannons in double mounts Mk XII for use against sea and (limited) air targets (two twin mounts in front of the bridge, the rear in an elevated position; one twin mount on a platform aft). As anti-aircraft armament, the destroyer had a two-pounder Mk VIII quadruple gun on a platform behind the funnel and eight anti-aircraft machine guns of the caliber 0.5 inch (12.7 mm). Ten torpedo tubes in two sets of five tubes each completed the armament. The originally planned rear set of torpedo tubes was replaced by a 4-inch (102-mm) anti-aircraft gun when it was commissioned.
literature
- MJ Whitley: Destroyer in World War II. Motorbuch Verlag, 1995, ISBN 3-613-01426-2 (Original: Destroyers of World War Two. Arms & Armours Press, London), pp. 114-118 (N-Class), 219, 215.
Web links
- HMAS Nizam on Royal Australian Navy (engl.)
- HMAS NIZAM (G 38) - N-class Destroyer on naval-history.net (engl.)
- HMAS Nizam on uboat.net (engl.)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b HMAS Nizam . Sea Power Center Australia. Archived from the original on November 21, 2010. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved January 2, 2011.
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. May 5-12, 1941, Mediterranean Sea, Operation Tiger.
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. May 20 – June 1, 1941, Mediterranean Sea, Operation Merkur: German air landing on Crete.
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. July 2-14, 1941, Mediterranean Sea, conquest of Syria.
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. August 21-27, 1941, Mediterranean Sea, Operation Teacle.
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. 15–19 December 1941, Mediterranean Sea, British escort operation MF.1 to Malta.
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. December 31, 1941, Mediterranean.
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. June 12-16, 1942, Mediterranean Sea, double convoy operation to supply Malta.
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. September 10 – November 5, 1942, Indian Ocean, British company to occupy Madagascar.
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. April 16–24, 1944, Indian Ocean, Operation Cockpit.
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. May 3–29, 1945, Central Pacific, operations continued around Okinawa.
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. August 9-15, 1945, Central Pacific
- ^ Allied Ships Present in Tokyo Bay During the Surrender Ceremony, September 2, 1945 . Naval Historical Center - US Navy. May 27, 2005. Retrieved January 2, 2011: Taken from Commander in Chief, US Pacific Fleet and Pacific Ocean Areas (CINCPAC / CINCPOA) A16-3 / FF12 Serial 0395, February 11, 1946: Report of Surrender and Occupation of Japan "
J-class Jackal | Jaguar | Janus | Javelin | Jersey | Jervis | Juno | Jupiter
K-class Kandahar | Kashmir | Kelly | Kelvin | Khartoum | Kimberley | Kingston | Kipling
N class Napier | Nepal | Nerissa | Nestor | Nizam | Noble (G84) | Noble (G65) | Nonpareil | Norman
Australia :
Napier |
Nepal |
Nestor |
Nizam |
Norman
