HMS Audacity (D10)
.jpg) The Audacity in the summer of 1941
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
.svg){kind=small}
HMS Audacity (D10) was an escort carrier of the British Navy , who during the Second World War was used and was sunk 1,941th The Audacity was created through the conversion of the German station wagon Hanover , which was captured by the Royal Navy in 1940, and was the first escort aircraft carrier to be deployed on the Allied side during the Second World War. After a short but successful period of service, the ship went to 43 ° 45 ′ 0 ″ N , 19 ° 54 ′ 0 ″ W on December 21, 1941 after torpedo hits by the German submarine U 751 , Lost
prehistory
Hanover
On March 7, 1940, the British light cruiser Dunedin and the Canadian destroyer Assiniboine stopped the German freighter Hanover , which had previously left Curaçao and a combined ship of the North German Lloyd, measured at 5,537 GRT in the Mona Passage . It belonged to a series of nine motor ships that had been built for the German West Coast Service. The Hannover was launched on March 29, 1939 as the last ship of the series at Bremer Vulkan in Vegesack and was delivered to Norddeutscher Lloyd on May 10, 1939, which operated seven of the ships. The HAPAG took part in the service to the South American west coast, among other things with the two other ships of the series. The Hannover had started her maiden voyage from Bremen to Valpareiso on June 22, 1939 with 20 German passengers, eight of whom were recorded as emigrating Jews. There were also two foreign passengers on board.
On August 8, 1939, the ship began its first return voyage from Chile to Europe, which ended at the end of the month in Willemstad ( Curaçao ), where the ship - like many German merchant ships - sought refuge after German warnings about a possible outbreak of war. On the night of March 6, 1940, the Hannover broke out of the port of the Dutch colony with the combination ships Mimi Horn and Seattle . While the two before Hannover expired ships escaped from the Caribbean, which was Hannover from the Assiniboine discovered and prosecuted.
The German ship first fled to the three-mile zone of the Dominican Republic . However, since the destroyer was still waiting in the immediate vicinity, the Germans set their ship on fire in the hold in the early morning hours of March 8, around 1 a.m., and rowed the dinghies to the nearby coast. Since the sea valves had not been opened and the fire did not ignite the cargo as suspected, the Hannover did not sink and could be boarded by a prize squad from the Dunedin on the morning of the same day . The British needed almost four days to finally extinguish the smoldering fires on board, but were able to save the ship and tow it to Jamaica .
Sinbad
Since the freighter was not even a year old, after the damage caused by the fire had been repaired, it was sold to the British shipping company Cunard-White Star Ltd. in June 1940 . who took it into service under the new name Sinbad (in German-speaking countries, the spelling Sindbad often appears incorrectly ).
Empire Audacity
In November 1940, the Sinbad was taken over by the Royal Navy to be converted into an Ocean Boarding Vessel (OBV). These makeshiftly armed ships, not unlike auxiliary cruisers , had the task of looking for enemy blockade breakers , boarding them if necessary and bringing them in as prizes . As a result, the Sinbad was given the new name Empire Audacity in mid-November 1940 and was under the Royal Navy .
At the same time, the British convoy routes in the Atlantic were heavily attacked by German submarines and by long-haul Focke-Wulf Fw 200 aircraft. This led to the Roal Navy pushing ahead with the construction of so-called CAM ships . Since these catapult ships, however, represented a purely and unsatisfactory workaround and, moreover, did not prove themselves excessively (the catapulted aircraft could not land on these ships again and were often lost through ditching ), the demand for pure escort aircraft carriers , on the one hand the German long-range combat aircraft , was soon voiced and on the other hand should push the submarines under water and fight them. In this context, it was decided to convert the Empire Audacity into a makeshift aircraft carrier. The ship was moved to Blyth in January 1941 and docked there with the Blyth Dry Docks & Shipbuilding Company . The renovation work took almost half a year.
Technical details
All superstructures, the chimney and all masts and cranes have been removed. Instead, the ship was given a flight deck 140.22 m long and 18.21 m wide. The total length of the ship was 142.42 m. The extensive reconstruction, however, brought with it problems, as the hull became considerably lighter due to the dismantling of all superstructures. In order to prevent the resulting top-heaviness , almost 3,000 ts of ballast had to be accommodated in the lower part of the hull. The maximum water displacement of the carrier increased to around 12,000 ts. The machinery of the former Hanover , a MAN diesel engine with 5200 hp that acted on a shaft, was left unchanged.
The armament consisted of a single 10.2 cm cannon Mark V aft and a 5.7 cm cannon for signaling purposes, as well as four 4 cm anti-aircraft guns and also four 2 cm Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns . A type 79B aerial warning radar also came on board, which had a range of about 90 kilometers.
The interior of the fuselage was largely left in its original state, apart from an enlargement of the crew quarters. Only tanks for around 45,500 liters of aviation fuel were installed. There were no hangars , no catapults and no aircraft elevators on board the escort carrier, which is why the aircraft (initially six, later eight Martlet machines ) had to be parked on the flight deck. In 1941 the crew consisted of 480 men, around 210 of whom were responsible for flight operations.
Working time
The official commissioning of the new escort carrier, which initially still bore the name Empire Audacity , took place on June 17, 1941. After take-off and landing exercises (the first landing on the ship took place on July 10, 1941), the carrier was on July 31 in Audacity was renamed and given the identifier D10 . This renaming took place because one wanted to avoid name conflicts with the civilian cargo ships of the Empire type . After six Martlet fighter-bombers of the 802. FAA Squadron came on board at the beginning of August 1941 , the Audacity left for its first missions and was used in the Western Approaches from September to carry Allied convoys on the route between the United Kingdom and Gibraltar to protect. The carrier was in command of Commander Douglas W. Mackendrick.
First convoy operations
Between September and December 1941, the Audacity secured a total of four convoys on the route mentioned, including the convoys OG-74 and OG-76. Martlet fighters from the Audacity succeeded in shooting down three German long-range Focke-Wulf Fw 200 bombers ; the first shot was scored on September 21, 1941.
The battle for convoy HG-76
From mid-November 1941 stationed in Gibraltar, the escort carrier was with his support group (the destroyer Stanley and the escort destroyers Exmoor and Blankney ) from 14 December 1941 to protect the convoy HG 76 used. This convoy, consisting of 32 merchant ships, strongly protected by the "36th Escort Group" under Commander Frederic John Walker with the sloops Stork and Deptford and the seven corvettes Rhododendron , Marigold , Convolvulus , Penstemon , Gardenia , Samphire and Vetch , left on December 14th 1941 Gibraltar. The expiry of the convoy reported agents the Germans who the convoy on 16 December by a Fw 200 of I./KG 40 discovered, after which the German side next eight Fw 200, the five submarines existing submarine pack of pirates on the convoy was scheduled.
During the following days, German submarines tried again and again to approach the convoy, and on December 17, 1941, a Martlet fighter-bomber from Audacity was able to damage the German submarine U 131 by throwing bombs ; However, the Martlet was shot down by the anti-aircraft gun of the submarine during the attack (some sources refer to the downed aircraft as a Fairey Swordfish ; machines of this type were not on board the carrier and not in service with the 802. FAA Squadron at the time) . The submersible boat had to sink itself in the approach of British surface forces ( Stork , Blankney , Exmoor and Stanley ); the entire crew of 55 men was saved by the British.
.jpg)
On December 18, the Blankney and Stanley did the same with the sentient U 434 (42 castaways captured, two dead) and the Audacity aircraft shot down two Fw 200s. On December 19, U 574 was able to sink the destroyer Stanley (136 dead, 25 survivors), but was rammed and sunk by the Stork itself (25 dead, 19 survivors). Five more submarines could be brought in and for the first time the convoy lost a steamer, the Norwegian freighter Annavore (3,324 GRT), whereby only four of 38 crew members could be rescued. The machines of the Audacity were shot down again two Fw 200s and they were able to push a submarine away from the convoy. On the following two days there were repeated attacks on convoy HG 76 , whereby submarines were able to sink the British freighter Ruckinge ( 2,869 GRT); 39 of the 42 crew members were rescued.
Fall of the Audacity
In the evening of December 21, 1941 broke the operating on the HG-76 German submarine U 751 under the command of Lieutenant Gerhard Bigalk the convoy assurance and scored to 21:37 a torpedo hit on the Audacity . The torpedo hit the stern of the carrier, destroyed the steering gear and caused a severe fire. Although the ship did not sink, some of the crew jumped overboard in a panic. The security ships nearby then began rescuing seafarers swimming in the water.
Almost 20 minutes later ran U 751 , largely unhindered by the employees with life assurance measures ships, a renewed attack and scored against 22 o'clock two torpedo hits on the Audacity . One of the torpedoes hit a tank with jet fuel in the forecastle, which triggered a devastating subsequent explosion. The burning girder quickly listed to starboard and began to sink. The Audacity capsized a short time later and disappeared from the surface of the water at 10:10 p.m. The place of ruin is about 520 nautical miles west of Cape Finisterre .
The torpedo strikes and the sinking killed 73 crew members. In addition, seven aircraft that were carried were lost. Due to the confusion of the night battle, some of the 407 survivors could only be rescued after four hours. At night, the recessed Deptford with water bombs still U 567 under Lieutenant Engelbert Endrass .
Aftermath
Although the Audacity itself was sunk by a submarine, it showed the effectiveness of the escort aircraft carrier concept in terms of securing convoys. In the course of the war, especially from late 1942, more and more British and American escort aircraft carriers were put into service; by the end of the war there were a total of 129 ships. These not only helped to secure the sea areas from the air, which could not be reached by the land-based Allied air surveillance, they were used in the later course of the war to form their own, independently operating anti-submarine groups ( hunter-killer groups), which made a large contribution bringing about the turning point in the Atlantic battle to the detriment of the German submarines from May 1943.
literature
- Jochen Brennecke: The turning point in the submarine war. Causes and consequences 1939-1943 . Wilhelm Heyne Publishing House. Munich 1998.
- Ludwig Dinklage / Hans Jürgen Witthöft: The German merchant fleet 1939-1945 . Nikol publishing company. Published by the Working Group for Defense Research in Stuttgart. Hamburg 2001, p. 342f.
- Bodo Herzog: 60 years of German submarines 1906-1966 , JF Lehmanns Verlag, Munich 1968
- Robert Hewson: The World War II Warships Guide . Chartwell Books. Edison 2000.
- Heinz J. Nowarra: Focke Wulf Fw 200 Condor , Bernhard & Graefe, Koblenz, 1988, ISBN 3-7637-5855-0 .
- Ray Sturtivant: The Squadrons of the Fleet Air Arm , Air-Britain publication, Tonbridge 1984, ISBN 0-85130-120-7 .
Web links
- HMS AUDACITY, Ocean Boarding Vessel / Escort Carrier
- The Audacity in Naval History (English)
- Information about the ship at uboat.net (English)
- The Audacity with the Royal Navy Research Archive (English)
- Convoy HG 76
Footnotes
- ↑ a b Kludas: Passenger Shipping , Vol. 5, p. 72.
- ^ Kludas: History of German Passenger Shipping , Vol. 5, p. 70.
- ↑ see passenger lists Hanover June 22, 1939
- ^ Dinklage, Ludwig / Witthöft, Hans Jürgen: The German merchant fleet 1939-1945 . Nikol publishing company. Published by the Working Group for Defense Research in Stuttgart. Hamburg 2001, p. 342f.
- ↑ Archive link ( Memento from February 12, 2012 on WebCite )
- ↑ Brennecke, Jochen: The turning point in the submarine war. Causes and consequences 1939-1943 . Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 1998, p. 298.
- ↑ http://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono-05CVE-Audacity.htm
- ↑ http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/41-12.htm
- ↑ http://www.wlb-stuttgart.de/seekrieg/41-12.htm
- ↑ Sturtivant: Squadrons of the FAA, p. 167 ff.
- ↑ a b c Brennecke: U-boat war . P. 102f.
- ↑ a b to Nowarra: Fw 200 Condor , a total of two machines were lost. These were on December 19, F8 + IH, WNr.0086, OLt. Hase and on December 21, F8 + FH, WNr.0073, OLt. Schreyer
- ↑ http://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono-05CVE-Audacity.htm