HMS Boreas (H77)
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The HMS Boreas (H77) was a B-class destroyer of the British Royal Navy . During the Second World War , the destroyer was awarded the Battle Honors “English Channel 1940”, “Atlantic 1941–42” and “North Africa 1942–43”.
After a lengthy overhaul, the destroyer was put into service as Salamis for the Greek Navy on March 25, 1944 . In spring 1951 the destroyer was returned to the Royal Navy and then scrapped from April 1952 as the last B-class destroyer.
History of the ship
The B-class destroyers Boreas and Brazen were ordered on March 22, 1929 from the Palmers shipyard in Jarrow am Tyne . The keel laying of the two destroyers took place at Palmers on July 22, 1929 under construction numbers 996 and 997. They were the shipyard's first new destroyers since the end of the First World War . The Boreas was launched on July 18, 1930 and the destroyer was taken over by the Royal Navy on February 20, 1931.
The new destroyer was the fourth ship in the Royal Navy to be named the North Wind, Boreas , in Greek mythology. Most recently, a mail ship had carried the name until 1807.
Mission history
The Boreas and the other ships of the new class put into service between February and June 1931 replaced older destroyers of the V and W class in the “4th Destroyer Flotilla” in the Mediterranean Fleet . At the end of 1936 the flotilla with the B-class destroyers was relocated to the Home Fleet and replaced by the Mediterranean Fleet with the "2nd Destroyer Flotilla", which had just been converted to the latest H-class destroyers. Because of the increasing political tension, individual ships of the flotilla were temporarily moved to Gibraltar and took part in the so-called neutrality patrols off the Spanish coasts because of the Spanish civil war . On March 6, 1938, the ship, together with Kempenfelt, who served as flotilla leader after the accident of the Keith, saved around 469 men of the Spanish national heavy cruiser Baleares after the sinking in the Battle of Cabo de Palos . The Spanish national cruisers Canarias and Almirante Cervera , which took part in the battle with the Baleares , had left the sinking cruiser behind. Shortly after the sinking, the British destroyers Brilliant and Boadicea also arrived at the sinking site to support the rescue operation . On the morning of March 6th, the Spanish national cruisers reappeared on the battlefield and began taking the wounded from British ships. In anticipation of a Republican attack, however, no boats were launched from the Canarias . In fact, nine Tupolev SB-2s of the Republican Air Force attacked and bombed the ships, killing one man and wounding four on the Boreas . When the “4. Destroyer Flotilla "was dissolved and replaced by a tribal flotilla in the Home Fleet, the Boreas took over the task of a" plane guard vessel "for the aircraft carriers of the Home Fleet, while most units of the class came to the reserve fleet because in the meantime a large number more modern destroyers had been put into service. The Boreas took part in the testing and training of the Ark Royal , the Royal Navy's first new aircraft carrier built in December 1938.
War missions
At the beginning of the war, the destroyer was ready for action and, together with the sister ships, formed the newly formed “19. Destroyer Flotilla ”in Dover . The flotilla was intended to secure trade and the use of warships in the southern North Sea and the Dover Strait . The Boreas secured several defensive mining operations and most recently secured convoys from Rosyth on the British east coast. After the start of the German offensive in the west, the destroyer was moved to Harwich Auf dem Marsch to support military operations in the Netherlands. On May 15, the Boreas collided with her sister ship Brilliant on the way to Hoek van Holland with a demolition squad on board . The repair of the destroyer lasted until June 20, 1940. The destroyer was therefore not available for the evacuation of the British troops from Dunkirk ( Operation Dynamo ) and was assigned to the reorganized “1st Destroyer Flotilla” on the canal after the repair . On July 25, 1940, the destroyer fought together with the Brilliant with German speedboats . Both destroyers were then attacked by Ju-87 Stukas of the German Air Force . The Boreas leaked from a close hit, was only maneuverable to a limited extent and could only run 17 knots . The Boreas then received two direct bomb hits, killing 22 men and rendering the destroyer unable to maneuver. It was brought to Dover and then brought to Millwall for repairs , where it was again slightly damaged in an air raid in January 1941.
In the Atlantic 1941
At the end of January the Boreas was ready for action again. Now they had a radar device, a 76-mm-L / 45 (12 pdr) -Flak in place of the rear torpedo tube set and two 20-mm-Oerlikon - automatic cannons . For this purpose, the depth of charge had been increased to 60. Together with the Brilliant , it should now be deployed from Freetown in Sierra Leone in the Middle Atlantic. They were supposed to replace the destroyers Foxhound and Duncan at the "18th Destroyer Flotilla" , which only left Freetown in July. On April 28, the Boreas arrived in Freetown and returned to Great Britain for an overhaul from mid-August to secure convoy HG 70 . The overhaul of the destroyer took place in South Shields from September 19 to January 4, 1942. Then the destroyer was relocated to the "18th Destroyer Flotilla" in Freetown, where it arrived on January 25.
Deployments in 1942/1943
In the following months Boreas was used to secure convoys in the Central and South Atlantic . From October 1942, the destroyer was partly moved around the Cape of Good Hope to Alexandria to secure convoy trains , where it arrived on November 11, 1942. He immediately took part in Operation Stoneage , which successfully brought supply ships to Malta on November 20. In January 1943, the destroyer was moved across the Mediterranean to the "13th Destroyer Flotilla" in Gibraltar. In February the Boreas returned to Freetown and took over their old duties. All of the B-Class destroyers still in existence were temporarily in use there. In June 1943 the destroyer was relocated to Gibraltar in order to strengthen the underground defense there with a view to Operation Husky . The Boreas was then converted into a destroyer escort at Cammell Laird from September 1943 to February 1944 . The comprehensive overhaul was also carried out with a view to the planned transfer of the ship to the Greek Navy. The ship received new radar equipment over the bridge, which also replaced the previous fire control system.
In Greek service
In 1943, considerations began to make destroyers available to the Greek Navy for use in the Mediterranean. The Greek Navy had ten destroyers at its disposal in 1941 when the German Empire intervened in the Italo-Greek War ( Balkan campaign ).
Of these, six were able to escape to Egypt, but were of limited use. The Vasilissa Olga of 1414 ts delivered by Yarrow in 1939 was the most modern of these destroyers and corresponded to the British G-Class , but had to be re-armed for service with the Allies, as it had originally received German guns. The successfully deployed destroyer was lost on September 26, 1943 off Leros . Two ships belonged to the Kondouriotis class originally comprising four units of 1329 ts, which had been delivered from Italy in 1932/33. Kountouriotis and Spetsai were modernized in 1941/42. Their operational capability suffered due to the lack of (Italian) spare parts and in autumn 1943 led to the two destroyers being launched in Port Said . The three small destroyers Aetos , Ierax and Panthir of 1013 ts were originally built for Argentina at Cammel Laird in 1912 together with the Leon , which was lost in 1941 , and were sold to Greece before delivery. The destroyers, which were converted by White from 1925, were converted in Calcutta in 1942 as escort vehicles for use in the Indian Ocean. From 1942, the Royal Navy had already submitted the Greek navy escort destroyer of the Hunt class available. In the summer of 1942, the Greek Navy took over four completed new buildings.
Unlike other navies "in exile", such as the Polish (e.g. Hurricane ), Dutch (e.g. Tjerk Hiddes ) or Norwegian (e.g. Stord ), the Greeks only received used naval destroyers.
The salamis
During a longer stay in the shipyard, HMS Boreas was loaned to the Greek Navy on February 11, 1944 and then put back into service as Salamis by the Greek Navy on March 23, 1944 after the repair was completed. After the Greek island of Salamis and the victory of the Greeks over the Persian fleet there , a battleship that was in the AG Vulcan in Hamburg in 1914 was named that was never completed. The Salamis ex Boreas was finally assigned to the 12th (Greek) destroyer flotilla and mainly used in the Mediterranean until the end of the war. From April 5, 1944, the Greek Navy had a second former British destroyer, the Navarinon ex Echo .
After the war ended, the destroyer Salamis served as a training ship in the Greek Navy until it was returned to the Royal Navy in September 1951. Two months later, HMS Boreas was sold for demolition, which took place in Charlestown near Rosyth from April 1952 .
literature
- John English: Amazon to Ivanhoe. British Standard Destroyers of the 1930s. World Ship Society, Kendal 1993, ISBN 0-905617-64-9
- 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 BOREAS (H 77) / later Greek HHelMS SALAMIS - B-class Destroyer
- Boreas 1931
- HMS Boreas (H 77)
- RHS Salamis (H 77)
- Rohwer: Chronicle of Naval Warfare 1939–1945
Individual evidence
- ↑ Rohwer: July 25–26, 1940 Canal
HMS Keith (Flotilla Leader) †
HMS Basilisk † |
Beagle |
Blanche † |
Boadicea † |
Boreas / Salamis 
|
Brazen † |
Brilliant |
Bulldog