HMS Boadicea (H65)
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
HMS Boadicea (H65) was a B-class destroyer of the British Royal Navy . The destroyer was awarded the Battle Honors "Atlantic 1941-1943", "North Africa 1942", "Arctic 1942-1944" and "Normandy 1944" during the Second World War . The Boadicea sank on June 13, 1944 after two air torpedo hits twelve nautical miles southwest of Portland . Of the 186 men on board, only twelve could be saved.
History of the ship
The ship was ordered from Hawthorn Leslie in Hebburn, Newcastle upon Tyne on March 4, 1929 as part of the Royal Navy's second class destroyer, built after the end of World War I. The keel-laying of the ship with the hull number 566 took place on 11 July 1929. As a fourth destroyer the shipyard to Active , Antelope and Blanche ran Boadicea on 23 September 1930 by the stack. The destroyer entered service on April 7, 1931. It was the fifth ship in the Royal Navy since 1797, which was named after Boudicca , a British queen and military leader of the first century. Last had Spähkreuzer (Scout) Boadicea out this name from 1909 to 1926 in the Royal Navy.
The destroyer Boadicea and its sister ships were first assigned to the "4th Destroyer Flotilla" in the Mediterranean Fleet . Since the British Mediterranean fleet mostly received the latest destroyers, the flotilla was relocated to Home Fleet in 1935 and replaced by the "2nd Destroyer Flotilla" in the Mediterranean, which had just been converted to the latest H-class destroyers. In January 1939, the ship was used as a backup destroyer for the aircraft carriers of the Mediterranean fleet and was part of the reserve fleet in the Nore from May , because in the meantime a large number of modern destroyers had been put into service and costs were also to be reduced.
War missions
At the beginning of the war, the destroyer was reactivated and assigned to the 19th destroyer flotilla. His tasks included in particular the securing of convoy trains in the English Channel , which included in particular the troop transports to France , as well as patrols in the Strait of Dover . Special events during this time were the planned participation of the destroyer in November 1939 in a patrol trip into the North Sea with the destroyers Gipsy , Griffin , Keith and the Polish Grom . Shortly after leaving Harwich, the Gipsy overran a magnetic mine that had been dropped by a German He-59 seaplane and broke. The British destroyers were able to save 115 men from the sinking Gipsy .
On February 6, 1940, the British Prime Minister, the War Cabinet and the Chiefs of Staff used the Boadicea and her sister ship Beagle to cross the canal from Boulogne to Dover after consulting the French government . On March 4, 1940, the Boadicea was able to tow the tanker Charles F. Meyer (10,568 GRT), which had run into a mine in the canal, to Southampton . The destroyer did not take part in Operation Dynamo because it was in the shipyard at the time. However, he was used in the further evacuation of British troops from northern France. On June 10, 1940 , the Boadicea was badly damaged by three bomb hits off Dieppe during a German air raid and suffered considerable personnel losses. Thanks to a bank of fog, the maneuverable destroyer escaped further air attacks and was towed back by the destroyer Ambuscade to just outside Dover , where salvage tugs brought him into port and later towed to Portsmouth for repairs.
In the course of the repairs, the anti -submarine and anti-aircraft armament was reinforced at the expense of the main guns and a torpedo tube set. It was not until February 1941 that the ship was operational again and came to the “4th Escort Group” stationed in Greenock. In the following months the Boadicea was used to secure convoy trains in the North Atlantic .
At the end of April 1942, the Boadicea was used for the first time as an escort of a northern sea convoy , through which the Soviet Union was supplied with war material. Together with the destroyers Somali , Matchless , Venomous , the Hunt-destroyers Badsworth and the Norwegian St Albans the secured Boadicea the Convoy PQ 15 . The convoy reached Murmansk on May 5, 1942 with 22 of its originally 25 merchant ships . The destroyer remained there to accompany the counter-escort QP 12 with Venomous , Badsworth and the Norwegian St Albans as well as reinforced by Inglefield and Escapade to the west from the end of May . This convoy was discovered by the Air Force, but was able to shoot down an air sensor holder through the hurricane of the accompanying catapult ship ( CAM ship ). The convoy reached Iceland without being attacked , as the air force and navy attacked convoy PQ 16 , which was also going to the Soviet Union .
At times the Boadicea was assigned to a special escort group, whose task was to escort large troop transports across the Atlantic. In November 1942, the ship escorted one of the large convoys for Operation Torch ; during the actual landing, the Boadicea was damaged by an artillery hit by a French destroyer. On November 11, 1942, the destroyer tried to tow the troop transporter Viceroy of India (19,648 GRT) torpedoed by the German submarine U 407 off Oran . However, the badly damaged van sank. The Boadicea was able to take 450 survivors on board and bring them to Gibraltar . Only four men of the Viceroy of India lost their lives.
In the winter of 1942/43 the destroyer was assigned to the "20th Escort Group" in December and used to secure the northern sea convoys JW 51A , JW 53 and RA 53 . Since the northern sea convoys were not carried out in the summer of 1943 due to the long summer days and the associated special hazards as well as the experience of the previous year, the destroyer moved to Freetown in May in order to secure convoys or important single ships passing through the mid-Atlantic for the next four months.
On July 18, 1943, the Boadicea was able to rescue 222 crew members and passengers of the British Incomati (7369 GRT) together with the sloop Bridgewater south of Lagos and bring them to Takoradi . The lone passenger ship was torpedoed by U 508 . Only one crew member lost his life in the sinking.
After an overhaul on the Tyne from November 1943 to February 1944, further operations in the North Sea followed . From February to May 1944, the destroyer was used to secure the northern sea convoys JW 57 , RA 57 , JW 58 , RA 58 and RA 59 . To carry out the latter, the Boadicea ran with other escort ships to Murmansk to return ships and personnel to Great Britain after the end of the winter season and to have them available for the upcoming landing in Normandy. The Boadicea had fourteen passengers on board on the return journey with RA 59 .
The end of the Boadicea
On landing in Normandy in June 1944, the destroyer secured convoys to the invasion area. In the days after June 6th he regularly commuted with escorts across the English Channel. The HMS was Boadicea on 13 June 1944 by a German Ju-88 - torpedo bomber before Portland Bill attacked. One of the two torpedoes hit the front magazine , which then exploded. The ship sank within a short time with considerable losses among the crew. Of the 186 men on board, only twelve could be saved.
The stern part of the wreck, which extends approximately to the front end of the engine room, is at the position 50 ° 25 ′ N , 2 ° 45 ′ W at 52 m Depth on sandy bottom. One of the 4.7-inch cannons on the stern is still pointing skyward, as are several anti-aircraft guns. The ship's bell was recovered some time ago. The position of the broken bug is so far unknown. HMS Boadicea has been protected by the Protection of Military Remains Act of 1986 since 2006 . The wreck can be viewed from the outside by divers, but entering or collecting souvenirs is prohibited.
Remarks
- ↑ The St Albans had left the Royal Navy to the Norwegian Navy in exile. The destroyer was one of the 50 four-chimney destroyers of the US Navy, which had been given to the British in 1940 and were referred to as the Town class there.
- ↑ In the summer of 1942, some of the northern sea convoys had extremely high losses, especially PQ 17 .
See also
- for other ships with the same name, see HMS Boadicea
literature
- Norman Friedman: British Destroyers From Earliest Days to the Second World War. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis MD 2009, ISBN 978-1-59114-081-8 .
- MJ Whitley: Destroyers of World War Two. Arms and Armor Press, London 1988, ISBN 0-85368-910-5 .
Web links
- HMS Boadicea (H 65) - B-class Destroyer
- Boadicea 1931
- HMS Boadicea (H 65)
- Chronicle of naval warfare 1939–1945
- Report on the military operations of the ship (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f Service History HMS Boadicea.
- ↑ a b c HMS Boadicea. uboat.net
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War . April 26 - May 12, 1942, North Sea
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War . May 25 - June 1, 1942, North Sea
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War . 15-25 December 1942, North Sea, JW51A
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War . 3rd-11th April 1944, North Sea, RA 58
HMS Keith (Flotilla Leader) †
HMS Basilisk † |
Beagle |
Blanche † |
Boadicea † |
Boreas / Salamis 
|
Brazen † |
Brilliant |
Bulldog