HMCS St. Laurent (H83)
 The St Laurent in Vancouver
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HMCS St. Laurent (H83) was a destroyer in the Royal Canadian Navy during World War II . Commissioned for the Royal Navy in April 1932 as the C-Class HMS Cygnet (H83) , it was handed over to the Canadian Navy and renamed in February 1937.
During the war, the ship was used in the North Atlantic to fight the German submarines. A few months after the end of the war, HMCS St. Laurent was removed from the list of active warships and sold. The scrapping took place in November 1945.
History of the ship
The later HMCS St. Laurent (H 83) was ordered from Vickers in Barrow on July 9, 1930 as part of the 1930 construction program. The ship was laid down under the hull number 667 on December 1, 1930 and was named HMS Cygnet when it was launched on September 29, 1930. The keel was laid and launched on the same day as the sister ship HMS Crescent (hull number 668). The HMS Cygnet was the 19th ship of the Royal Navy with this name since 1585. Most recently, from 1898 to 1920, a Thornycroft “30 knotter” of the D-class had operated.
The new Cygnet was completed on April 1, 1932 and then carried out tests with various propellers . In the speed tests over six hours, the propellers required by the Admiralty were superior to the new developments. The ship was part of the new C-class, which was reduced from the usual eight ships to four destroyers by the British Labor government in order to document its readiness for disarmament.
The new destroyer first joined the "2nd Destroyer Flotilla" and visited the Caribbean in spring 1934 during the Home Fleet's spring voyage. During the Abyssinia crisis in autumn 1935, the flotilla was sent to the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean for six months from September . After the return and overhaul, the ship went in the early phase of the Spanish Civil War to monitor neutrality in the Bay of Biscay . On September 30, 1936, she went to reserve in the Nore after she had been replaced in the flotilla by the new Hunter .
The destroyer was then handed over to the Royal Canadian Navy and commissioned as HMCS St. Laurent on February 17, 1937 in Chatham . At the same time, the sister ship Crescent was handed over . They were the largest and most modern units in the Royal Canadian Navy. The St. Laurent arrived in Halifax on April 8 and moved to Esquimalt on the Pacific coast in the spring of 1938 . In September 1939 the St. Laurent moved back to its war station in Halifax. In 1938 the other two C-class boats were also handed over to Canada, followed by the flotilla leader of the class in September 1939.
War missions
After the start of the war, the Canadian destroyer was moved to Halifax , Nova Scotia , where the St. Laurent arrived as the second of the Pacific destroyers on September 15, 1939 and used as an escort for convoys in the North Atlantic . From June 1940, however, the mission took place from the British Isles , because the submarine danger there was much greater and the ships were therefore needed there more urgently. The St. Laurent , the Restigouche and the Skeena were the first of the Canadian destroyers to arrive in Plymouth on May 31st, to which the Fraser from the Caribbean came shortly afterwards .
The following month, HMCS St. Laurent was involved in the evacuation of British troops from northern France. From June 9th she evacuated the British wounded from Saint Valery en Caux with the Restigouche , with the two destroyers being shot at by a German field battery on the 11th. For the first time, Canadian ships came under enemy fire. This was again followed by deployments with convoys in the Atlantic Ocean. The Canadian destroyer rescued 118 crew members, 109 soldiers of the guard and 713 Italian and German prisoners from the torpedoed Arandora Star on July 2, 1940 and brought them to Greenock. The unregistered 15,501 GRT troop transport was on its way to Canada with 479 German and 734 Italian civilian internees as well as 86 German prisoners of war when it was torpedoed by U 47 . 56 crew members, 91 guards and 713 Germans and Italians died when the ship went down. On September 4, the destroyer rescued 89 castaways of the Titan (9035 GRT; 6 dead), also sunk by U 47, and on September 15, 13 castaways of the Canadian Kenordoc (1,780 GRT, 7 dead), which U 99 had sunk. On December 2, she rescued 21 survivors of the U 99, also sunk by the U 99, the lone auxiliary cruiser Forfar (16402 GRT ex Montrose of the Canadian Pacific Steamships ) with the destroyer Viscount and a British merchant ship entire 53-man crew of the British tanker Conch (8376 GRT) sunk by the same submarine .
In the spring of 1941, the Canadian ships were moved back to the east coast of Canada in order to strengthen the security of the merchant ships in this area. The anti -submarine and anti-aircraft armament was reinforced for this purpose at the expense of the main guns and the torpedo tubes.
The destroyer was assigned to a Canadian escort group, which escorted the convoys to the middle of the Atlantic. In this role he worked continuously until the end of the war. During such-conduct (ONS.154) succeeded HMCS St. Laurent on December 27, 1942 north of the Azores, U 356 together with the Flower - corvette HMCS Chilliwack , HMCS Battleford and HMCS Napanee to sink.
Another success was the sinking of U 845 on March 10, 1944 in cooperation with the destroyer HMS Forester , the frigate HMCS Swansea and the corvette HMCS Owenssound on convoy SC.154.
In the summer of 1944 the destroyer was ordered back to Great Britain to help protect the landing operation in Normandy against feared submarine attacks. The mission took place in the "Support Group 11" with the Canadian destroyers Ottawa , Kootenay , Chaudière and Gatineau . The relocation to the Canadian Atlantic coast took place in December.
The end of the HMCS St. Laurent
For the first three months after the end of the war, HMCS HMCS St. Laurent was used as a passenger transport between Newfoundland and Canada to return military personnel to their homeland. On October 10, 1945 the St. Laurent was decommissioned, deleted from the list of active warships and sold for demolition. It was scrapped in 1947.
Renewed use of the name
From October 1955 to June 1974 there was another St. Laurent in service with the RCN. She was the lead ship in a series of seven Destroyer Escorts of 2263 ts that were 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, Herrsching 1968, ISBN 3-88199-009-7 .
- MJ Whitley: Destroyers of World War Two. Arms and Armor Press, London 1988, ISBN 0-85368-910-5 .
Web links
- Chronicle of naval warfare 1939–1945
- Service history HMCS St. Laurent
- HMCS St. Laurent (H83)
- HMCS ST. LAURENT (1st) (H83)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Milner: Canada's Navy: The First Century. P. 70f.
- ↑ a b Milner, p. 84
- ^ Sinking of the Arandora Star
- ^ Rohwer: Chronicle of the naval war. P. 51.
- ↑ a b c d HMCS St. Laurent (H83)
- ^ Rohwer, p. 86.
- ^ Rohwer, p. 313.
- ^ Rohwer, p. 429.
- ^ Rohwer, p. 456.
- ↑ HMCS ST. LAURENT (2nd) (205)
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