HMS Blankney (L30)
 The Blankney in June 1943.
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The HMS Blankney (L30) was a destroyer escort of the British Navy , which was used in World War II . The ship belonged to the Type II of the Hunt class and had been approved shortly after the outbreak of war in September 1939. The Blankney was the seventh ship of its type of construction on 17 May 1940 the shipyard of John Brown & Company in Scotland Clydebank laid down on and ran on 19 December 1940 by the stack. The commissioning took place on April 11, 1941. First in command of the ship was Lieutenant Commander Philip Frederick Powlett.
Working time
The Blankney was first in after her commissioning and completion of sea trials Londonderry ( Northern Ireland stationed) 12. Escort Security Group ( 12th escort group assigned) and secured from October 1941 Allied convoys in the Western Approaches and between the United Kingdom and Gibraltar .
Battle for convoy HG-76
In this context, the Blankney took part in securing the convoy HG-76 in December 1941, whereby the ship, together with the destroyer HMS Stanley and supported by aircraft from the escort aircraft carrier HMS Audacity , succeeded in securing the two German submarines U 131 and Sink U 434 . With the exception of two seamen, a total of 97 crew members were rescued from both boats, including the entire crew of U 131 . However, the Blankney herself was damaged during these operations when she sank the unclear U 434 by ramming it. As a result of the damage to the bow, the ship broke off the escort operation, ran to Gibraltar and was repaired there until the end of January 1942.
1942/43: Operations in the Arctic Ocean
From the spring of 1942, the Blankney was used to secure arctic sea convoys to the Soviet Union , among other things, the ship escorted the convoys PQ-16 , PQ-17 , QP-12, QP-14 , JW- between March 1942 and February 1943 . 51B and RA-52 . Here, the reach destroyer escort any success, but the Blankney itself was the end of July 1942 in Murmansk significantly damaged by a collision with a cargo ship and had for nearly six weeks at the shipyard.
1943/44: Mediterranean missions
In March 1943 the Blankney was detached to the Mediterranean , with Lieutenant Commander Douglas HR Bromley, a new commander on board, on March 11, 1943 . From June 1943, the destroyer escorted there secured the troop transport convoys that took place in the run-up to the Allied landing in Sicily . In September 1943 Blankney took over security duties in front of the Allied landing head in the Bay of Salerno .
Used for submarine hunting operations between October 1943 and March 1944 , the Blankney took part in the sinking of the German submarine U 450 off Anzio by five Allied escort ships on March 8, 1944 , with all 42 German submarine drivers being saved could become.
The Blankney achieved another success , again in cooperation with three other security vehicles and several aircraft, on May 4, 1944, when the ship north of Constantine was involved in the sinking of the German submarine U 371 . The boat was tracked for nearly 36 hours before surfacing and sunk. In this case, too, almost all of the boat's crew survived; 49 out of 52 seafarers were rescued.
Later war missions
Between June 1944 and February 1945, the Blankney , meanwhile withdrawn from the Mediterranean , was used in British home waters and provided fire support during the Allied landing in Normandy in front of the Gold Beach landing section . After securing tasks in the English Channel , a longer shipyard layover in Liverpool followed in November 1944 . Used between January and March 1945 as a guard ship off the British east coast, with the search for German speedboats and small weapons at the center of activities, after the German surrender in May 1945 the decision was made to relocate the Blankney to the Pacific in order to do so could still take part in the fight against Japan there. During the transfer, however, sea damage occurred and the destroyer escort had to be docked in Durban, South Africa . The repairs were completed just days before Japan surrendered and the Blankney was ordered back to the UK.
Whereabouts
Decommissioned in May 1946, the Blankney was laid up in Sheerness from 1948 and transferred to the reserve , in which the ship remained for around ten years. After the former destroyer escort was released for scrapping on October 22, 1958, the Blankney was scrapped in Blyth from March 1959 .
Individual evidence
literature
- Maurice Cocker, Ian Allan: Destroyers of the Royal Navy 1893-1981 . Ian Allan, London 1981.
- Robert E. Gardiner (Ed.): Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1922-1946 . Conway Maritime Press, London 1980.
- Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronicle of the naval war 1939-1945. Manfred Pawlak Verlag, Herrsching 1968, ISBN 3-88199-009-7 .
- Mike J. Whitley: Destroyer in World War II. Technology, classes, types . Motorbuchverlag, Stuttgart 1991.