HMAS Voyager (D31)
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.jpg) The HMAS Voyager |
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| Overview | |
| Type | destroyer |
| Shipyard |
Alexander Stephen and Sons , Glasgow - Linthouse , building no. 483 |
| Keel laying | May 7, 1917 |
| Launch | May 8, 1918 |
| Commissioning | June 24, 1918 |
| Whereabouts | abandoned and blown up on September 25, 1942. |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement | |
| length |
95.1 m (312 ft) overall, |
| width |
8.9 m (29.5 ft) |
| Draft |
up to 4.9 m (13.66 ft) |
| crew |
110 men |
| drive |
3 Yarrow boiler , |
| speed |
34 kn |
| Range |
3,500 nm at 15 kn |
| Armament |
4 × 4 "102 mm Mk.V gun |
| Fuel supply |
367 tons of oil |
| Sister boats |
18 Admiralty W class boats |
| similar |
5 boats of the V-Leader class , |
The HMAS Voyager (D31 / I31) was a destroyer of the Admiralty W class, in 1918 to 1933, the Royal Navy as HMS Voyager (G36 / G16 / D31) and then at the Royal Australian Navy as HMAS Voyager was on duty. On September 25, 1942, the Voyager , which had run aground on the 23rd in front of Betano ( Portuguese Timor ), was blown up by its own crew, as it was not possible to recover the ship due to ongoing Japanese air raids.
Building history
The Alexander Stephen and Sons shipyard in Glasgow - Linthouse began building warships during World War 1916 and manufactured sixteen destroyers for the Royal Navy by 1919. She received orders for six Admiralty M-Class boats for the first time , followed by four of the Admiralty R-Class and two of the Admiralty V-Class with Vesper and Vidette , before the HMS Voyager was laid down on May 7, 1917 . It was launched on May 8, 1918. Although starting with V, she was a W-class boat and the only one built by Stephen. The shipyard then built three boats of the somewhat smaller S-Class , which were not completed until 1919.
The 19 Admiralty-W- class destroyers were one of six classes that entered service at the end of World War I. Very similar were the Admiralty V class (23 boats), which preceded the subgroup of the Admiralty V class leader (5) and the slightly different boats of the Thornycroft V and W class (4) and Thornycroft modified W class (2 ) and the Admiralty modified W class (14 completed, 38 not completed). Of all sub-classes, 67 boats were completed. Between the two world wars, the V- and W- class ships formed the backbone of the British destroyer flotillas until they were replaced by newer, more modern ships from the early 1930s. By the mid-1930s, most of the ships had been transferred to the reserve fleet. Many of them were later used as escort ships for supply convoys during World War II . The Royal Navy developed three standard conversions, which freed up more modern ships for use with the fleet units.
Mission history
On June 24, 1918, the HMS Voyager was handed over to active service with the British Royal Navy and still took part in the warfare of the First World War. She came to the 11th destroyer flotilla of the Grand Fleet .
In 1919 it was one of the British units in the Baltic Sea that intervened in the Russian Civil War and ensured the independence of the Baltic states. Together with the cruisers HMS Cleopatra , Dragon and Galatea and the destroyers HMS Wallace , Vanessa , Wryneck , Versatile , Vivacious and Walker , it blocked the red fleet in Saint Petersburg from the end of May 1919 . On June 2, 1919, the Voyager attacked the Soviet destroyers Asard and Gavriil off St. Petersburg with the Vivacious .
She later belonged to the British Atlantic Fleet and then to the Mediterranean Fleet , where she was most recently a member of the 1st Destroyer Flotilla.
The HMS Voyager was handed over to the Royal Australian Navy on October 11, 1933 in Portsmouth and formally renamed HMAS Voyager . In addition to her, the destroyers HMS Vampire , HMS Vendetta , HMS Waterhen of the Admiralty V- and W-Class and the flotilla commander HMS Stuart were surrendered to Australia. The boats replaced the previous Australian flotilla, which consisted of the flotilla leader HMAS Anzac and the destroyers of the S-class HMAS Stalwart , Success , Swordsman , Tattoo and Tasmania and was to be scrapped. On April 14, 1936, the Voyager was assigned to the reserve of the Australian Navy and replaced in the active fleet by HMAS Waterhen . On April 26, 1938, however, the destroyer was put back into service. When the Second World War broke out, she left Australia with the other Australian destroyers on October 14, 1939 to do service at China Station . During the approach, the decision was made to use the destroyers in the Mediterranean, where the boats were referred to by German propaganda as the "scrap iron flotilla". The five destroyers left Singapore on November 13 for their new area of operation.
War missions
However, the Voyager left the flotilla three days later, together with the Vampire , to join a hunting group with the heavy cruisers HMS Kent and the French Suffren , which was supposed to look for the German armored ship Admiral Graf Spee , which was suspected in the Indian Ocean , but which is already there was on the march back to the Atlantic. At the beginning of December, the British knew the location of the German ship and placed it in front of Montevideo on December 13th . The Australian destroyers had meanwhile continued their march into the Mediterranean via Aden and Alexandria . Voyager reached Malta on December 24th . When Italy entered the war in June 1940, the destroyers moved to Alexandria and formed the 10th destroyer flotilla there with British destroyers. On June 29, 1940, Voyager was involved in a submarine group with HMS Dainty , HMS Ilex and HMS Decoy in the sinking of the Italian submarine Uebi Scebeli south of Crete. In the naval battle at Punta Stilo on July 9th, she and other destroyers, including the vampires , belonged to the security of Force C. In December 1940, she was assigned to one of the four Australian destroyers (excluding Stuart ) newly formed Force B, which provided land forces with Supported advance in Cyrenaica . From April 1941, the Voyager was involved in evacuations from Greece , then Crete . In July 1941, the Voyager was released to Australia for a thorough overhaul.
On September 23, 1942, the HMAS Voyager ran aground due to the strong current off Betano ( Portuguese Timor ) when it was supposed to drop 450 soldiers and pick up 600. Recovery was impossible. After a Japanese plane was shot down and bombers attacked the next day, the destroyer eventually had to be abandoned. The crew of the ship could not be rescued until September 25, 1942 by the corvettes HMAS Kalgoorlie and HMAS Warrnambool , as Japanese aircraft were constantly attacking.
The HMAS Voyager was then carried explosive charges in position 9 ° 15 '0 " S , 125 ° 45' 0" O destroyed. Their remains are still with Betano today. An advance by the Japanese reached the place from Dili on September 27, but could no longer achieve anything.
See also
literature
- Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronicle of the naval war 1939-1945. Manfred Pawlak VerlagsGmbH, Herrsching 1968, ISBN 3-88199-0097 .
- Antony Preston: Destroyers. Bison Books, London 1977, ISBN 0-600-32955-0
Web links
- HMAS Voyager , Stephen, BauNr.483
- HMAS VOYAGER - V&W-class Destroyer in WORLD WAR 2
- HMAS VOYAGER official website of the RAN
- Estonians honor Britain's 'forgotten fleet'