HMS Bonaventure (31)
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HMS Bonaventure was a British light cruiser of Dido class during the Second World War . She entered service with the Royal Navy on May 24, 1940 as the first cruiser of the class .
The Bonaventure was also the class's first wartime loss when sunk by an Italian submarine in the Mediterranean on March 31, 1941 .
construction
The Bonaventure was built at the Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company yard in Greenock on the Clyde . On August 30, 1937, the keel of the cruiser financed from the 1937 budget was laid, which was part of the first order of March 21, 1937, which included seven newbuildings. The ship was launched on April 19, 1939 and on May 24, 1940, the Bonaventure came into service with the Navy as the first cruiser of the new class. She was already the tenth ship of the Royal Navy with this name, the last a protected cruiser of Astraea class had worn, which had been used since 1910 as a base ship for submarines and scrapped 1920 1892 been launched.
The shipyard was also taken into account in both of the following two orders for cruisers of the Dido class and began building the Scylla on April 19, 1939 , which finally received a different main armament, and on March 21, 1940, building the Royalist of the improved sub-group Bellona .
Armament and special features
Like all units of the Dido class, the Bonaventure was to be provided with a main armament consisting of ten 13.3 cm guns . Due to production bottlenecks, however , the Bonaventure was only completed with eight 13.3 cm guns in four twin towers. Aft on the upper turret position (position X) was instead an older 10.2-cm gun for firing light grenades installed and possibly also to reinforce the anti-aircraft defense. In addition, the ship had the planned light anti-aircraft armament with two "pom-pom" quad mounts on the side of the rear funnel and two heavy quadruple Vickers machine guns at the rear of the bridge house. There were also two triple torpedo tube sets on the sides of the rear funnel.
Calls
Second World War
After commissioning at the end of May 1940, the Bonaventure was placed under the Home Fleet . From July 5, 1940, she secured the passenger ships Sobieski , Monarch of Bermuda and Batory on their way to Canada with a huge cargo of gold (part of Operation Fish ). On the 18th the cruiser returned from Halifax via Bermuda back to Scapa Flow and on the 25th took up service with the 15th cruiser squadron (flagship sister ship Naiad , plus Ajax ), which monitored the access routes to the British Isles at the Home Fleet.
First missions
During one such mission, the WS-5A convoy was attacked on the morning of December 25, 1940 by the German heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper . During the attack on the convoy, the troop transporter Empire Trooper (ex German Cap Norte , 13,994 GRT) and the Arabistan (5874 GRT) were damaged. The convoy included ten troop carriers and twelve transport ships, which were supposed to bring 13,800 men and material for British and New Zealand tank units to Suez; In addition, the aircraft carriers Furious and Argus ran in the convoy as aircraft transporters with loads for Takoradi . In addition to the Bonaventure , the heavy cruiser Berwick and the old Dunedin , six destroyers and four corvettes secured the convoy, which dispersed for its safety during the attack. The German cruiser exchanged a few salvos with the Berwick , but then withdrew despite the hits on the Berwick due to the overall strength of the security forces and lack of confidence in its own machinery.
On December 28, the Bonaventure intercepted the German blockade breaker Baden (8,336 t) on the way from Tenerife to France about 325 nautical miles northeast of Ponta Delgada in the Azores . Since hijacking was not possible due to the bad weather, the Baden was sunk by a torpedo at position 43 ° 0 ' N , 23 ° 50' W. Immediately after this mission, the Bonaventure was assigned to the Mediterranean.
Mediterranean Sea
From January 1st to 3rd, 1941, the Bonaventure secured the destroyers Duncan , Firedrake , Foxhound , Jaguar and Hero . The destroyers followed a Vichy-French convoy from Casablanca to Oran . The convoy, consisting of the combined ship Chantilly (9986 GRT), the tankers Octane (1950 GRT) and Suroit (554 GRT), as well as the Danish freighter Sally Maersk (3252 GRT) and an armed fish steamer, had passed the Strait of Gibraltar unhindered by the British . The British destroyers stopped the convoy in front of Oran, with the Jaguar firing light weapons at the Chantilly. Two passengers were killed and others injured. With prize commands on board, the French and Danish ships were brought to Gibraltar and then to Great Britain.
This was immediately followed by Operation Excess , a supply convoy to Malta , in January 1941. The Bonaventure formed with the destroyers Jaguar , Here Ward , Hero and Hasty the Force F named Nahsicherung the convoy to the motorboat Essex (11,063 GRT) 4000 t ammunition, 3000 t seed potatoes and 12 Hurricane -Jägern for Malta and three other cargo for Piraeus. The Force H secured the convoy with the Ark Royal
up to the Skerki Canal behind Bizerta . On January 9th, Force B joined the light cruisers Gloucester and Southampton and the destroyers Ilex and Janus , which had landed around 500 soldiers in Malta the day before, coming from the Aegean Sea . Together, Italian air strikes were repulsed, with the anti-aircraft cruiser shooting down three attackers. On January 10, the Italian torpedo boats Circe and Vega attacked the convoy Excess south of Pantelleria . In the defense of the attack, the Vega was sunk by the artillery fire of the Bonaventure and a torpedo shot by the Hereward . Two crew members were killed on the Bonaventure during the firefight. The Italian submarine Settimo missed the British ships with its torpedoes. While the freighters destined for Piraeus were taken over by units of the Mediterranean fleet that had come from Alexandria , Bonaventure then ran at Malta with the Force B and the Essex transport . The Force B ran back to Alexandria the following day, was attacked by German dive bombers, with the Southampton being so badly hit that it had to be abandoned.
The Bonaventure switched to the 15th cruiser squadron of the Mediterranean fleet in Malta and left the island for Alexandria on January 14 with the cruisers Perth and Orion and the Jaguar . From there it was used in the eastern Mediterranean.
On March 22, the anti-aircraft cruiser suffered damage from near hits while on another visit to Malta.
Downfall
In the following years the Bonaventure took part in the Greek campaign. On March 31st, she was under Capt. Henry Jack Egerton, RN, south of Crete in position from the Italian submarine Ambra torpediert while escorted a convoy en route from Greece to Alexandria . 139 crew members died when the ship went down.
literature
- Roger Chesneau (Ed.): Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships. 1922-1946. Conway Maritime Press, London 1980, ISBN 0-85177-146-7 .
- James J. Colledge, Ben Warlow: Ships of the Royal Navy. The complete record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy from the 15th century to the present. New revised edition. Chatham, London 2006, ISBN 1-86176-281-X .
- Bernard Ireland: The Illustrated Guide to Cruisers. Hermes House, London 2008, ISBN 978-1-84681-150-0 .
- Alan Raven, H. Trevor Lenton: DIDO class Cruisers (= Ensign. 2). Bivouac books, London 1973, ISBN 0-85680-003-1 .
Web links
- Jürgen Rohwer, G. Hümmelchen: Chronicle of the Naval War 1939–1945 , Library for Contemporary History - Württemberg State Library (Stuttgart 2007)
- HMS BONAVENTURE (i) - Dido-class AA cruiser
- Cruiser in WWII (English, four pictures)
- HMS Bonaventure on Uboat.net
- another photo
Individual evidence
- ↑ Mike J. Whitley: Cruisers in World War II. Classes, types, construction dates. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-613-01842-X , p. 130
- ↑ Jürgen Rohwer, Gerhard Hümmelchen: Chronik des Maritime War 1939–1945 , December 15, 1940 - February 16, 1941 Atlantic / Indian Ocean , accessed on January 29, 2016
- ^ Rohwer: Seekrieg, December 24-28, 1940 North Atlantic , accessed on January 29, 2016
- ↑ Rohwer: naval warfare , 01/01/1941 Mediterranean operation "ration".
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War , January 6-13, 1941 Mediterranean, Operation "Excess" to strengthen the island of Malta.
- ↑ HMS BONAVENTURE (i) - Dido-class AA cruiser .