HMCS Assiniboine (D18)
.jpg) The Kempenfelt
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The HMCS Assiniboine (D18) was a destroyer taken over by the Royal Canadian Navy in 1939 . It was 1932 flotilla HMS Kempenfelt for the destroyer of the C-Class of the Royal Navy have been completed, of which they differed only slightly due to the bodywork. During the Second World War , the Assiniboine was used to secure convoy on the North Atlantic and during the landing in Normandy in the anti-submarine defense of the landing area.
In August 1945 she was removed from the list of active warships. On the way to the scrapping yard , the towline broke and the ship was stranded on Prince Edward Island in November 1945 .
History of the ship
The ship was launched on October 29, 1931 at J. Samuel White in Cowes , Isle of Wight , as the second HMS Kempenfelt . The first Kempenfelt was a Flotilla leader of 1600 tons of the Marksman class built at Cammell Laird in Birkenhead , who was in service with the Royal Navy from 1915 to 1921.
The new Kempenfelt was put into service on May 30, 1932 as the C-class flotilla commander. Compared to the four flotilla boats, the Kempenfelt differed in that it had a slightly larger aft deckhouse. Equipped in terms of armament, mine detection and anti-submarine armament were not carried in order to save space and weight. Compared to the previous flotilla leaders of the A and B classes , HMS Codrington and HMS Keith , it followed the model of the Keith , which hardly differed from the flotilla boats and was not an enlarged version like the Codrington with a greater length and five main artillery guns.
The British Labor Government wanted to document its readiness for disarmament by halving the class strength of the associated destroyers from the usual eight ships to four destroyers.
Mission history
In the spring of 1933 the new ship was used for the first time in the Mediterranean. In March 1934, the Kempenfelt took part in the Home Fleet's spring voyage to the West Indies. In the summer the ship made another tour to Scandinavia. After participating in the naval parade for the silver jubilee of King George V in the Spithead on July 16, 1935, the Kempenfelt was one of the units of the Royal Navy that were sent to the Mediterranean fleet because of the Italian attack on Ethiopia . With the other ships of the "2nd Destroyer Flotilla" she was sent to the Red Sea in August 1835 to observe the Italian movements. In April 1936 the units were ordered back home. After a short overhaul in Devonport , the Kempenfelt was used at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War to evacuate British citizens from various Spanish ports.
After a lengthy lay in the shipyard, the Kempenfelt was called back to the so-called neutrality patrols, which were supposed to prevent arms deliveries to the warring parties in the Spanish Civil War and protect British merchant ships. The ship saved about 469 men in the western Mediterranean together with HMS Boreas on March 6, 1938 after the sinking of the nationalist heavy cruiser Baleares in the battle of Cabo de Palos . The Baleares caught fire after being hit by torpedoes by the republican destroyers Sanchéz Barcáiztegui , Lepanto and Almirante Antequera and drove without drive with a considerable list. They had left the nationalist cruisers Canarias and Almirante Cervera accompanying them, returned on the morning of the 6th and began taking over the wounded. No boats were launched from the Canarias in anticipation of a Republican attack . In fact, after just under two hours, nine Tupolev SB-2 bombers attacked and bombed the ships, with one person killed and four wounded on the Boreas .
Because the C-Class did not fit into the structure of the Royal Navy due to the number of its ships , the destroyers including the associated destroyer leader were gradually ceded to the Canadian Navy from 1937 as soon as the appropriate funds were available. After Crescent and Cygnet in February 1937 and Comet and Crusader in June 1938, it was only after the outbreak of the Second World War on October 19, 1939 that the HMS Kempenfelt was also handed over during a stay in the shipyard after a collision in Devonport and at the same time renamed HMCS Assiniboine . She arrived in Halifax , Nova Scotia on November 17th .
In service with the Canadian Navy
Initially, the ship was used on the Canadian east coast and into the Caribbean . In February 1940, together with the cruiser HMS Dunedin , the German blockade breaker Hannover succeeded in the Mona Passage , which was later converted into the first escort carrier Audacity .
Since April 1940, the Assiniboine was used as an escort for convoys in the North Atlantic . The anti -submarine and anti-aircraft armament was reinforced for this purpose at the expense of the main guns and the torpedo tubes. From January 1941, however, the operation took place from the British Isles , because the submarine danger there was much greater and the ships were therefore needed there more urgently. When firmly established "Ocean Escort Groups" were formed in April 1942, the Assiniboine was the lead destroyer of the Canadian EG C 1, which with the former USN destroyer HMCS St. Croix and six corvettes of the Flower class - including two French ships and two of the Royal Navy - Secured Convoy HX 189 in Halifax on May 10 . From June 8th to 10th, EG C 1 had to repel the attack of the first planned cooperating German submarine group "Hecht" with six boats on the ONS 100 convoy (37 ships) secured by it. During the first attack, U 124 sank the corvette Mimosa , from which the Assiniboine can only save four castaways. Two of the protected ships were lost by U 94 before the U-boat group lost contact.
When defending convoy SC 94 , the flotilla leader succeeded on August 6, 1942 after a lengthy battle in which he was severely damaged himself , to ram the German submarine U 210 southwest of Cape Farvel , Greenland , and thereby sink it. The repairs took four months.
In March 1943, the ship was damaged again when depth charges , which were set at too low a water depth under his stern exploded. After further escort service, the ship was ordered back to Great Britain in the summer of 1944 to help protect the landing operation in Normandy . The focus of operations was in the English Channel and the Biscay , where the destroyer leader hunted German submarines and outpost boats .
On August 12, 1944, the Assiniboine with Support Group 14 (HMCS Restigouche , Qu'Appelle , Saskatchewan and Skeena as well as the Hunt destroyer HMS Albrighton ) sank three armed German fish steamers south of Brest, which were used as outpost boats.
The end of the Assiniboine
The flotilla leader did not return to Canada until after the war in Europe. There he was deleted from the list of active warships on August 8, 1945. When the HMCS Assiniboine was to be towed to the scrapping yard in November , the towline broke and the ship ran aground on Prince Edward Island . In 1952 it was demolished on site.
HMCS Assiniboine (DDH 234)
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From August 1956 to 1995 there was another ship in service with the RCN, the HMCS Assiniboine (DDH 234). She was one of the series of seven St. Laurent- class destroyer escorts of 2263 ts built in Canada. The ships were a modification of the British Whitby-class frigates (Type 12).
literature
- Marc Milner: Canada's Navy: The First Century. University of Toronto Press, 2010, ISBN 0-8020-9604-2 .
- Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronicle of the naval war 1939-1945. Manfred Pawlak VerlagsGmbH, Herrsching 1968, ISBN 3-88199-009-7 .
- Michael J. Whitley: Destroyers of World War Two. An international encyclopedia. Arms and Armor Press, London et al. 1988, ISBN 0-85368-910-5 .
Web links
- Chronicle of naval warfare 1939–1945
- Original report on the sinking of U 210 (Engl.)
- Service history Kempenfelt / Assiniboine
- HMS Kempenfelt (1)
- HMCS Assiniboine (I 18)
- HMCS ASSINIBOINE (1st) (D / I18)
Individual evidence
- ^ Rohwer: Chronicle of the naval war. P. 32.
- ^ Rohwer, p. 238
- ^ Rohwer, p. 245
- ^ Rohwer, p. 267
- ^ Rohwer, p. 472
- ↑ HMCS ASSINIBOINE (2nd) (234)
HMS Kempenfelt / HMCS Assiniboine .svg){kind=small}
(Flotilla Leader)
Comet / Restigouche |
Crescent / Fraser † |
Crusader / Ottawa † |
Cygnet / St.Laurent
HMS Duncan (Flotilla Leader)
Dainty † |
Daring |
Decoy / Kootenay |
Defender † |
Delight |
Diamond † |
Diana / Margaree † |
Duchess †