HMAS Swordsman

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flag
S class
The HMAS Swordsman
The HMAS Swordsman
Overview
Type destroyer
units 5 RAN (67 built)
Shipyard

Scott's , Greenock

Keel laying April 1917
Launch December 28, 1918
delivery January 27, 1920
Whereabouts December 21, 1929 Reserve,
June 1937 for demolition
Technical specifications
displacement

1075 ts

length

84.1 m (276 ft) above sea level
80.7 m (265 ft) pp

width

8.17 m (26 ft 10 in)

Draft

3.3 m (10 ft 10 in)

crew

99 men

drive

3 Yarrow boilers,
Brown Curtis turbines,
27,000 hp, 2 shafts

speed

33 kn

Range

2990 nm at 11.5 kn / 250 t oil

Armament
Sister boats

Swallow 18-36,
Strenuous 19-32,
Stronghold 19-42 †,
Sturay 19-40

The HMAS Swordsman (H11) of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) was one of five destroyers of the S-Class of the Royal Navy have been released, the 1920, the RAN. For their use during the First World War , the Royal Navy gave a number of surplus boats to Australia (so-called "gift fleet").

The five previously unused, new destroyers and the flotilla leader Anzac were little used in the post-war period, were never all in service during the Great Depression and were decommissioned until 1935, as the later scrap iron was now used by the Royal Navy at the end of 1933 flotilla with the flotilla leader Stuart and the larger destroyers Vampire , Vendetta , Voyager and Waterhen of the Admiralty V- and W-class was handed over to Australia.

In 1937 the five S-Class destroyers were sold for demolition. The hardly used boats could probably have been used well in World War II .

Building history

Nine shipyards received orders for the new S-Class, which was based on the modified R-Class and how it had two chimneys. Armament, length and width were congruent. At the same time and until July 1917, further destroyers of this type were ordered from other shipyards, which were built in the shipyards between or next to boats of the V and W class originally developed as a flotilla leader for the S class . All boats had names beginning with "S" or "T". Three slightly different groups with 55 boats based on the Admiralty's design and seven based on a Yarrow shipyard design and five Thornycroft "specials" were completed. All boats had a long forecastle and a high bridge behind the deck jump.

The majority of the boats (41) were not put into service until after the end of the First World War. Nevertheless, at the beginning of the Second World War only eleven boats were still in service, and mostly only in subordinate tasks. Most of the boats had been scrapped in the 1930s, also to meet the requirements of the London Naval Treaty of 1930, which also limited the permitted tonnage of destroyers.

The Success in the service of RAN .

The contract to build the Swordsman went to Scott's Shipbuilding in Greenock on the Clyde . The shipyard, which was founded in 1711, had already processed orders for the Royal Navy, such as in 1905 with the armored cruiser Argyll and then in 1912 with the battleship HMS Ajax . But it was not until the World War that the shipyard was involved in the construction of the destroyer and had already received orders for six M-class boats , two of the modified R-class and two of the W-class . Under the hull number 492, the Swordsman was launched there on December 28, 1918 as the third S-destroyer from this shipyard after Swallow and Strenuous (BN ° 491/493; August / November 1918). The first two boats were completed by the shipyard in September 1918 and January 1919 and came to the Royal Navy. Two other boats were completed as Stronghold and Sturdy (BN ° 494/495) in July and October 1919 for the Royal Navy. The latter two were still present in 1939.

The S-Class destroyers had a displacement of 1075 ts and were 84.1 meters long. They were powered by three Yarrow boilers with oil firing and mostly by Brown Curtis geared turbines , which enabled a top speed of 32 knots via two shafts with 27,000 hp. The planned maximum speed of 36 knots was not achieved. The crew of the boats consisted of 99 men with six officers.

102 mm Mk.IV cannon on the Satyr

The boats were armed with three 102 mm Mk.IV rapid-fire cannons and a 40 mm anti-aircraft gun . For this they had five machine guns of the types Vickers and Lewis and two 21 inch torpedo tube twins. The boats had two water bombers and two flow paths for water bombs.

The third boat was intended to be passed on to the Royal Australian Navy and was taken over by them in January 1920 and put into service. On February 20, HMAS Swordsman began the march to Australia with the Success built by Doxford and the Tasmania and Tattoo built by Beardmore . Six days later the flotilla leader Anzac followed with the fifth destroyer, the Stalwart built by Swan Hunter . Only the Anzac , completed by Denny Brothers in April 1917 , had actually been in service with the Royal Navy in the 14th destroyer flotilla of the Grand Fleet until early 1919 ; the five S-class destroyers for Australia were accepted by the Navy from the shipyards, but not used.

To the so-called. "Gift fleet" to the Australians in recognition of their achievements in the war were three more than minesweepers provided sloops of the Flower-class ( Mallow, Marguerite, Geranium ) that arrived in early June 1919 in Australia and six submarines of the J-Class who arrived in their new home in August 1919 , accompanied by the cruiser Sydney . Four boats ( J1, J2, J4 and J5 ) were eliminated in 1924, J3 and J7 followed in 1926.

Mission history

HMAS Anzac

The six boats of the new destroyer flotilla of the Royal Australian Navy ran through the Mediterranean Sea and the Suez Canal to India and visited various ports along the route. Several ports were also called in the Dutch East Indies . It was to be the boats' last trip abroad. The poor economic situation after the World War led to such a tight budget that the boats at most - and even this seldom - ran as far as the former German New Guinea . There were usually only three boats in service. Success , Tasmania and Tattoo went into reserve in October 1921 but were later reactivated. The Swordsman followed into the reserve in September 1922 and was replaced by the Tasmania in active service. At the end of 1925 the Success replaced the Stalwart in active service, although the latter was not reactivated. A six-week activation of the Tattoo in March / April 1926 briefly led to four active boats. In August 1926, the Swordsman replaced the Anzac as flotilla leader. When the Anzac was reactivated in January 1928, she resumed the task of flotilla commander and the Tasmania finally retired from active service. The budget difficulties of the Australian fleet then led to the end of December without replacement for Swordsman and in May 1930 for Success . When the Anzac was also taken out of service in 1931 as the only boat still in active service, the Tattoo came back into active service until the end of June 1933. This boat was then the only boat that was regularly put back into service for exercises from Melbourne until June 1936 , while the tasks with the fleet task force from December 1933 were taken over by the newly arrived boats Stuart , Vampire , Vendetta , Voyager and Waterhen . As a rule, two of the new boats were also in the reserve.

Final fate

The stalwart was last active at the end of 1925. Tasmania followed in early 1928 into the reserve, Swordsman in late 1929, Success in mid 1930 and Tattoo in mid 1935. The flotilla leader Anzac had already been singled out at the end of July 1931 and was the first boat sold for demolition in 1935, actually only cannibalized and in May 1936 as a target ship sunk. In January 1937, the Swordsman , which is said to have seldom left Sydney Harbor during its active time, was sold for demolition. Your success , Stalwart , Tasmania and Tattoo followed in June 1937 . Since the end of the year, the destroyers have been replaced by a flotilla with the Flotilla Commander Stuart and the larger destroyers Vampire , Vendetta , Voyager and Waterhen of the V- and W-Class, which Goebbels gave it as the scrap iron flotilla during the World War ("Scrap iron flotilla") made a name of honor through their work in the Mediterranean.

The S-class boats of the RAN and sister boats of the Swordsman

Surname Shipyard Keel laying Launch finished Final fate
Success  H02 Doxford & Sons building no. 522 1918 06/29/1918 04/15/1919 May 21, 1930 out of service, demolished in 1937
Stalwart H14 Swan Hunter construction no. 1087 4.1918 10/23/1918 5.04.1919 December 1st, 1925 out of service, demolished in 1937
Tasmania H25 Beardmore construction no. 591 December 18, 1917 11/22/1918 01/22/1919 January 9, 1928 out of service, demolished in 1937
Tattoo H26 Beardmore construction no. 592 December 21, 1917 12/28/1918 7.4.1919 June 30, 1933 out of service, demolished in 1937
Swallow D61 Scott's construction no. 491 1917 08/01/1918 9.1918 September 1936 for demolition
Swordsman  H11 Scott's  construction no. 492 1917 12/28/1918 3.1919 Dec. 21, 1929 out of service, demolished in 1937
Strenuous G64 Scott's construction no. 493 1918 11/9/1918 1.1919 August 1932 for demolition
Stronghold  H50 Scott's construction no. 494 3.1918 May 6, 1919 7.1919 Sunk March 4, 1942,> 40 dead
Sturdy H28 Scott's  construction no. 495 3.1918 06/25/1919 10.1919 Sunk October 30, 1940, 5 dead

literature

  • Vic Cassells: The Destroyers: their battles and their badges , Simon & Schuster, East Roseville, NSW (2000), ISBN 0-7318-0893-2
  • 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 .
  • H.St.A. Malleson: The Sclass Destroyers 1918-1945 , in Warship N ° 16, October 1980, Conway Maritime Press 1980, ISBN 0-85177-208-0
  • Antony Preston: Destroyers , Hamlyn, ISBN 0-60032955-0
  • Conway's All The World's Fighting Ships 1906-1921 , Conway Maritime Press (1985), p. 72f.
  • Jane's Fighting Ships of World War I (Ed. John Moore), Studio (London 1990), ISBN 1-85170-378-0 .

Web links

Commons : S Class Destroyer  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d The Gift Fleet
  2. ↑ a b c d e Cassells: The Destroyers , p. 122f.
  3. ↑ a b c d Cassells, p. 113f.
  4. ↑ a b c Cassells, p. 126f.
  5. ↑ a b c d Cassells, pp. 130f.
  6. ↑ a b c Cassells, pp. 103f.
  7. ↑ The Scrap Iron Flotilla
  8. ^ HMS Success
  9. ^ HMS Stalwart
  10. ^ HMS Tasmania
  11. ^ HMS Tattoo
  12. ↑ HMS Swallow
  13. ^ HMS Swordsman
  14. ^ HMS Strenuous
  15. ^ HMS Stronghold
  16. ↑ HMS Stronghold (H50) († 1942)
  17. ^ HMS Sturdy
  18. ↑ The Sturdy memorial ( Memento of the original dated February 2, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / tiree.blogspot.de
  19. ^ HMS Sturdy (H28) +1940