HMS Afridi (F07)

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Afridi
TribalDD HMS Afridi.jpg
Ship data
flag United KingdomUnited Kingdom (Naval War Flag) United Kingdom
Ship type destroyer
class Tribal class
Shipyard Vickers Armstrongs
Newcastle
Build number 6th
Keel laying September 24, 1936
Launch June 8, 1937
Commissioning May 3, 1938
Whereabouts sunk by the German Air Force on May 3, 1940 .
Ship dimensions and crew
length
114.9 m ( Lüa )
108.4 m ( Lpp )
width 11.12 m
Draft Max. 2.75 m
displacement Standard : 1,854 ts
maximum: 2,519 ts
 
crew 190-217 men
Machine system
machine 3 Admiralty three drum boilers
2 Parsons - geared turbines
Machine
performance 		44,000 PS (32,362 kW)
Top
speed 		36 kn (67 km / h)
propeller 2
Armament

The HMS Afridi ( ship identification : F07) was the lead ship of the destroyers of the Royal Navy's second tribal class , which was the first of the class to enter service in May 1938. The Afridi was the class's second war loss when, after exactly two years of service, it was sunk off Norway on May 3, 1940 by two German Junkers Ju 87 dive bombers.

History of the destroyer

The Afridi was one of the seven destroyers of the new Tribal class ordered first. Vickers-Armstrong's High Walker Shipyard in Newcastle received the order for two ships of the new class on March 10, 1936, which had been approved in the 1935 construction program. The keel laying of the two destroyers with hull numbers 6 and 7 took place on June 9, 1936. The low hull number was a result of the takeover of the Armstrong-Whitworth company by Vickers in 1928 . The new owners wanted to concentrate shipbuilding on their parent shipyard in Barrow . The shipbuilding site that was built in High Walker in 1913 as the Armstrong shipyard was only to be built in exceptional cases. Priority was given to full utilization of the Barrow shipyard.

The Armstrong-Whitworth High Walker Yard began work in 1913 with the keel-laying of the battleship HMS Malaya . The new construction site near the company's Low Walker shipyard became necessary because the previous main construction site for warships in Elswick (further upstream) was no longer suitable for the increasing size of the warships built by Armstrong. Due to the First World War, however, the final decommissioning was delayed until 1920. The last significant new warship to be built in Elswick was the aircraft carrier HMS Eagle (construction number 858), which began as the Chilean battleship Almirante Cochrane and was completed at the State Shipyard in Portsmouth. The Malaya , built under construction number 867 in High Walker, was launched on March 15, 1915 and was delivered in February 1916. The shipyard had already taken on orders for a wide variety of new buildings. In High Walker 73 ships were built by 1929, including the battleship HMS Nelson from 1922 to 1927 (hull number 991). The last new building was the motor ship Brimanger (4884 BRT, construction number 1051) for Norwegian accounts, which was delivered in November 1929 after the merger with Vickers. The construction numbers of the ships built in High Walker did not have their own sequence of numbers under the aegis of Armstrong.

Vickers used the High Walker Yard from 1931 to build the luxury liner Monarch of Bermuda for the Furness Bermuda Line , followed by the construction of the hulls of the destroyers HMS Fame and Firedrake in 1933/34 , which were completed by Parsons Marine Turbine Co. in Wallsend . From the light cruiser Newcastle , started in 1934 , the High Walker Yard was finally a shipyard of the Vickers Group with its own construction number sequence.

The Afridi keel was laid on June 9, 1936 together with that of the sister ship Cossack . Both ships were launched on June 8, 1937. After the two destroyers of the F-class and the destroyers Hero and Hereward , the shipyard built two destroyers side by side for the third time. After initial considerations to give the large destroyers their own type designation, a new "tribal class" was chosen, as the first tribal class implemented by the former First Sea Lord , John Fisher , also meant a similarly significant increase in the number of boats built up to that point.

The first HMS Afridi

With Afridi and Cossack names of first class boats were also taken up again. The first Afridi was completed in 1909 as the only first class boat by the forerunner Armstrong-Whitworth at the old shipyard in Elswick. The new Afridi was the first ship of the new class to be completed on May 3, 1938.
The shipyard in High Walker not only built the sister ship Cossack , but with Eskimo and Mashona on two ships of the follow-up order for the new class and four other ships for the Royal Canadian Navy between 1940 and 1943.

Mission history

The sister ship Mohawk with the signs of the "Non-Intervention Patrol" on the second tower

On June 3, 1938, the Afridi arrived in Malta to serve as a flotilla leader for the destroyers of the Mediterranean fleet . In July she was assigned to the “Non-Intervention Patrol” off the Spanish coast. She also visited Barcelona and Marseille before returning to Malta. From August, the Afridi took part in the exercises and the visit program of the Mediterranean fleet. After visiting Greek ports, she visited Istanbul in September with the heavy cruiser Devonshire and the sister ship Cossack . Because of the Sudeten crisis, planned visits to ports on the Black Sea were not made and the ships returned from Istanbul to Alexandria. At the end of October the Afridi still visited Cyprus and then ran to Malta for a routine overhaul where the identifier was changed to F07 .

In February, the ship moved with the sister ships to Gibraltar in order to take part in the annual exercises of the Home Fleet and Mediterranean Fleet with over 100 ships in March. The "1st Tribal destroyer flotilla (Med)" had now reached its full strength of eight ships after the Maori was the last ship to arrive. After a collision with the cruiser Penelope during the delivery of the mail , the Afridi could not take part in the visits of the Mediterranean fleet in southern French ports , but ran to Malta for repairs. In April, the ship returned to the flotilla, which was renamed "4th Destroyer Flotilla". The bulk of the Mediterranean fleet had been stationed in Alexandria since the Italian invasion of Albania . The Afridi visited in late May with the Gurkha Marsa Matruh and then Greek ports. Because of the prospect of becoming involved in a war with Italy, the British fleet practiced in the Aegean Sea. From these exercises the Afridi returned to Alexandria on August 18, 1939. The Red Sea was intended as a war station for the destroyer .

War missions

When the war with Germany broke out, the Afridi moved with the sister ships Sikh , Gurkha and Mohawk on September 3, 1939 from Alexandria to the Red Sea . The destroyers cleared the coasts from Italian East Africa to Somaliland . On the 10th the destroyers were ordered back to Alexandria. In October the 4th destroyer flotilla was withdrawn home. The Afridi was assigned to the Humber Force stationed in Immingham , which consisted of the 2nd cruiser squadron and the 7th destroyer flotilla. In November the destroyer moved to Rosyth to be used to secure convoy trains between Great Britain and Norway.

In January 1940 the Afridi showed the same damage to the turbine blades as well as some cracks on the hull as on other ships of the class and she came to West Hartlepool for repairs . It was only ready for use again in mid-March after two months. On April 8, she left Rosyth in a union with the cruisers Devonshire , Berwick , York , Glasgow and the sister ships Gurkha , Sikh , Mohawk , Zulu and Cossack to reinforce the units of the Royal Navy already operating off Norway against the Navy. On the 9th she was part of a newly formed attack group against Bergen with the cruisers Manchester , Southampton , Sheffield and Glasgow and the sister ships Gurkha , Sikh , Mohawk , Somali , Matabele and Mashona and the joining Aurora . The attack was interrupted due to a misjudgment of the German strength when 47 Junkers Ju 88 of KG 30 and 41  Heinkel He 111 of KG 26 attacked the British ships southwest of Bergen and sank the destroyer Gurkha , as well as damaging the cruisers Southampton and Glasgow with close-up impacts. The battleship Rodney and the heavy cruiser Devonshire were also slightly damaged in the main part of the Home Fleet . Four Ju 88s were shot down.
The Afridi is one of the units (two cruisers, six tribals ) that immediately returned to Norway from Scapa Flow after replenishing the fuel and ammunition stocks and were supposed to support the landing of Allied troops in Namsos after the situation was cleared up . The British units were repeatedly attacked from the air.
After the advance detachments had been set down on the 14th, Afridi waited for the transporters to arrive on the 15th and put the troops from the transporters ashore with her sister ships. On the 18th, the Afridi ran back to Great Britain with the Nubian to replenish fuel and ammunition.
On the 26th, she accompanied the destroyers Witherington and Amazon to a supply convoy to Åndalsnes for the Allied troops landed there on the 18th. There, too, the British ships were attacked from the air. On the 28th, the Afridi was assigned to the Navy units in front of Namsos.

The end of the Afridi

The Afridi should now support the evacuation of the Allied troops from Namsos. On May 1, 1940, thick fog prevented the ships from entering. The four foremost destroyers under Lord Mountbatten on Kelly came through the fog into the fjord, but had to turn back after air raids.

The flak cruiser HMS Carlisle

On the night of May 3, Captain Vian with the destroyers Afridi , Nubian and the cruiser York , followed by the French auxiliary cruisers El Djezair , El Mansour and El Kantara (originally Mediterranean ferries ) and the destroyer Bison, managed to penetrate into the port and reach 5400 Man (of which 1850 French) on board. The flak cruiser HMS Carlisle had been providing anti-aircraft protection in the port since April 17th . Afridi picked up a British battalion and handed it over to the El Kantara in the fjord . Vian stayed with the Afridi as the last ship in port to take up the British rearguard. With his artillery, the destroyer destroyed the vehicles left behind by the Allies. At sea the cruisers Devonshire and the French Montcalm crossed with the destroyers Grenade , Griffin and Imperial as a cover group .

Destroyer bison

On the march back, the unit was attacked several times from the air northwest of Trondheim on May 3 and first lost the destroyer Bison 110 nautical miles west of the island of Vega with over 130 deaths through Stuka attacks of the 1st squadron of Sturzkampfgeschwader 1 . The British destroyers Grenade , Imperial and Afridi stayed with the sinking ship and took over the shipwrecked French ship, which was eventually sunk by the latter. The macerating for association Afridi was then two of the bombs German Ju 87 hit and dropped with 49 crewmembers, 13 army soldiers and 30 survivors of the Bison in position 66 ° 14 '0 "  N , 5 ° 45' 0"  O coordinates: 66 ° 14 ′ 0 ″  N , 5 ° 45 ′ 0 ″  E on the second anniversary of its commissioning. The survivors were taken over by the Imperial , which had come alongside , while the Griffin fought off the attackers.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Construction list for the Armstrong-Whitworth High Walker Yard
  2. ↑ build queue Elswick, last several submarines
  3. ^ HMS Eagle
  4. ^ HMS Nelson
  5. ↑ MV Brimanger
  6. ^ History of the HMS Fame
  7. ↑ VICKERS ARMSTRONG (Shipbuilders) Ltd, List of ships built at the Naval shipyard, Walker-on-Tyne
  8. ↑ Lyon: HMS Cossack , S 28 "scout", "corvette", "cruiser destroyer"
  9. ^ Rohwer: Sea War. Pp. 39, 42.

Web links

literature