HMCS Skeena (D59)
| HMCS Skeena |
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| Technical specifications | ||
| Ship type : | destroyer | |
| Displacement : | 1,337 ts standard | |
| Length: | 97.53 m | |
| Width: | 9.91 m | |
| Draft : | 3.20 m | |
| Drive : | 3 Thornycroft-3-drum boilers 2 Parsons - steam turbines with single transmission 32,000 hp (22,526 kW ) |
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| Fuel supply: | 380 t of heating oil | |
| Speed: | 35 kn (64.8 km / h ) | |
| Range: | 4,800 nm at 15 kn | |
| Crew: | 138 | |
| Armament: | 4 x 4.7-inch naval guns (4 * 1) 2 × 2-pounder - Flak (2 * 1) 8 × 21-inch torpedo tubes (2 * 4) |
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HMCS Skeena (D59) was a destroyer that was built on the basis of the A-class of the British Royal Navy for the Royal Canadian Navy and was then also used in World War II .
history
The ship was on 10 October 1930 as part of the first class destroyer of the Royal Navy / Royal Canadian Navy after the end of the First World War, was built at Thornycroft in Woolston , Southampton , from the stack. It was put into service on June 10, 1931. Experience with two previously built prototypes was incorporated into the planning and construction. It was the second larger warship after the sister ship HMCS Saguenay , which had ever been commissioned by Dominion Canada .
Before the war began, HMCS Skeena was used on the Canadian Atlantic and Pacific coasts. During its service time in the war, the destroyer was then used almost exclusively as an escort ship in the Atlantic .
After the war began, HMCS Skeena initially escorted convoys , such as the convoy HX 65 , on the North Atlantic route. Since 1940 this happened as part of a Canadian escort group. In the course of the war, these took on an ever larger part of the escort duties. In the course of routine visits to the shipyard, the anti -submarine and anti-aircraft armament was reinforced for this task at the expense of the main artillery and a torpedo tube set.
Most of the operations to secure convoys in the Atlantic were uneventful, especially because the convoys could be guided around the detected submarine positions as much as possible thanks to radio direction finding and Ultra . During one of these escorts, however, on July 31, 1942, HMCS Skeena succeeded in sinking the German U 588 together with the corvette HMCS Wetaskiwin .
In the summer of 1944, the focus of operations was then in the course of the landing in Normandy in the English Channel and in the Bay of Biscay , where the destroyer was hunting German submarines and outpost boats . In the repeated skirmishes, the flotilla to which he belonged succeeded in sinking several outpost boats. However, it was damaged several times in the process.
In the following months the submarine hunt was moved to the Iceland - Faroe Islands - Shetland Narrows. On October 25, 1944, the destroyer sought protection in the port of Reykjavík from a heavy storm. When the anchors no longer held, HMCS Skeena stranded on the island of Viðey in the harbor basin . 15 crew members were killed. Rescue was not possible, so the ship was demolished on the spot.
literature
- Michael J. Whitley: Destroyers of World War Two. An international encyclopedia. Arms and Armor Press, London et al. 1988, ISBN 0-85368-910-5 .
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