HMS Calcutta (D82)

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HMS Calcutta
HMS Calcutta
HMS Calcutta
Ship data
flag United KingdomUnited Kingdom (Naval War Flag) United Kingdom
Ship type Light cruiser (from 1918)
1939: Anti-aircraft cruiser
class C-Class
Carlisle sub -class
Shipyard Vickers , Barrow
Build number 548
Order June 1917
Keel laying October 18, 1917
Launch July 9, 1918
Commissioning August 28, 1919
Whereabouts sunk by Luftwaffe in the Mediterranean on June 1, 1941
Ship dimensions and crew
length
137.56 m ( Lüa )
129.54 m ( Lpp )
width 13.33 m
Draft Max. 4.27 m
displacement Construction: 4,290 ts
maximum: 5,250 ts
 
crew 432 men
Machine system
machine 6 Yarrow boilers
2 Parsons - geared turbines
2 shafts
Machine
performance 		40,000 PS (29,420 kW)
Top
speed 		29 kn (54 km / h)
propeller 2
Armament

from 1939 (as anti-aircraft cruiser):

Armor

Side armor: 38–76 mm
deck, shields, bulkheads: 25 mm Navigational bridge
: 76 mm

Sensors

only British flak cruiser without radar

HMS Calcutta (D82) was a C-class light cruiser of the Royal Navy and the third ship of this class to be built by Vickers in Barrow . The ship belonged to the five-ship Carlisle sub-class. The ship ordered in 1916 - like all of this sub-group - was only ready for operation after the war had ended. When, after two test conversions, the Royal Navy decided to convert all ships of the class into anti-aircraft cruisers , the Calcutta was converted as the second ship from 1938 and came back into service in July 1939 as the fourth flak cruiser of the class before the outbreak of World War II . After operations off Norway, Dunkirk and since mid-1940 in the Mediterranean, the cruiser was sunk by the German Air Force on June 1, 1941.

History of Calcutta

The cruiser Calcutta , approved in April 1916, was the fifth ship in the history of the British Navy to be named after the Indian city . Calcutta was built under hull number 497, was laid down on October 18, 1917 and launched on July 9, 1918. It was finally put into service on August 28, 1919.

Technical details and modifications

The Calcutta was 137.56 m long and 13.33 m wide, the mean draft was 4.27 m. Six oil-fired Yarrow boilers of the 3-drum type as well as two Parsons geared turbines enabled the cruiser with an engine output of 40,000  WPS , a top speed of over 29  knots (almost 55 km / h). During the test drives in 1917, 40,240 hp were measured and thus 28.07 kn. The fuel supply was originally a maximum of 950 tons of oil; the sea ​​endurance of the Calcutta was up to 5900  nautical miles at 10 kn cruising speed.
Was armed the light cruisers with five 152-mm-L / 45-Mk.XII - cannons , two 76-mm-L / 45-Mk.I -Mehrzweckgeschützen, four 3-PDR (47-mm) - Hotchkiss -Geschützen as well as two 40 mm L / 39 (2pdr) "pompom" flak for defense against enemy aircraft. There were also four 533 mm twin torpedo tube sets, which were set up offset on the sides of the ship.

After the Royal Navy had decided, after two trial conversions with ten individual 102 mm guns (also) suitable for anti-aircraft defense, to convert all of the C- class light cruisers , which are now considered obsolete, to anti-aircraft cruisers , the Calcutta belonged to the first conversion lot. However, the main armament was changed to the installation of four more modern 102 mm double mounts Mk.XVI and stronger interventions were made in the structure of the superstructure. In 1938 the conversion began with the sister ships Cairo and Calcutta , which were converted at the naval shipyards in Portsmouth and Chatham .

Calls

On July 2, 1919, HMS Calcutta came into service for the first time for tests of the shipyard with the Navy and moved to Portsmouth. The final inspection took place in front of Greenock on the Clyde. On August 24, the cruiser was the flagship for those in North America and West Indies Station stationed 8th Light Cruiser Squadron put into service. On the 28th the cruiser left Portsmouth and ran via Devonport until October 9, 1919 to its new station Bermuda . The service there consisted of visits to US ports and ports around the Caribbean.

The accrued Raleigh .

In addition, there were association exercises off the Canadian coast and larger visits to Canadian ports. In August 1922, the cruiser supported the flagship Raleigh , which had run aground in the fog at L'Anse Amour in Belle-Isle-Strasse , but could not be removed. On October 21, 1926, the Calcutta was pressed against the quay and the coast in a severe storm in Bermuda and was significantly damaged. After a makeshift repair, he left the station in November and was decommissioned on December 4, 1926 in Chatham . The majority of the crew switched to the cruiser Despatch .

At the end of April 1928, the repair of the ship began, which was to be relocated to the 6th Cruiser Squadron at the South Africa Station as the flagship . On September 18, the Calcutta was put back into service to replace the old Birmingham in South Africa . In October the cruiser left for its new base in Simonstown . The Calcutta remained on the South African station until February 1931. Back at home, the ship was assigned to the reserve.

In August 1938, the conversion to an anti-aircraft cruiser began at Chatham Dockyard , which was completed in August 1939. When she was put into service, the Calcutta was the fourth C-class ship to be converted into an anti-aircraft cruiser and came to the Home Fleet .

Second World War

The cruiser came to Scapa Flow as an air defense cruiser and then secured convoys in the North Sea and fleet movements. The Calcutta was one of the units deployed there early after the German attack on Norway . On April 16, 1940, together with Effingham , York and Ashanti , she was looking for German warships that were supposedly moving from Ålesund to Trondheim . On the 20th she ran to Åndalsnes to secure the harbor against air raids. On board was Rear Admiral  Vivian, the commander of all flak cruisers, who then remained in Namsos . On the 22nd, together with the cruiser Birmingham and the French destroyers Bison and Foudroyant , she secured French landing forces on the transporter  Ville d'Alger on the way to Namsos. The transporter was picked up in the coastal waters by the destroyer Maori and the sloop Auckland , which the Calcutta followed to take over anti-aircraft defense in Namsos. Ville d'Alger was only able to land 750 in Namsos due to a snow storm of 1,100 men. In the following days, the flak cruiser changed its location several times as a guard ship in the Romsdalfjord and was temporarily also in Andalsnes and Molde . When the Sickle Force was evacuated over Andalsnes on the night of May 2 , the cruisers Manchester and Birmingham took 1,500 men on board , the Calcutta and Auckland the almost 1,000 men in the rear guard. On May 12, the Calcutta and the destroyer Zulu found the Norwegian steamer Nord-Norge (996 BRT, 1924) too late in front of Hamnesberget , which had transported 300 mountain fighters from the German Feuerstein combat group to the north, bypassing the Allied Scissor Force . They sank the steamer and destroyed camps set up by the Germans.

After securing the withdrawal of the Allies from further north, the Calcutta accompanied a convoy back to Scapa Flow, which consisted of two transporters, the severely damaged cruiser Penelope and the destroyer Isis with damage to both screws. Both warships had to be towed. The security also included the radar- equipped anti-aircraft cruiser Coventry and the destroyers Zulu , Campbell and Witch .

The Calcutta was then to move with three sloops to the Mediterranean and moved to Chatham for equipment . There she was used to evacuate British troops from mainland Europe and evacuated 534 men from Dunkirk to Sheerness on May 28, and another 1,200 men on May 29. Then it was only used to repel enemy air strikes.

The HMCS Fraser

After the end of Operation Dynamo , the cruiser took part in securing the rescue of other British people via other French ports. Most recently, on June 23, she took troops and British personnel on board in Saint-Jean-de-Luz near the Spanish border and brought the passengers to Portsmouth . On June 25th, she searched for vehicles carrying refugees in the Gironde along with the Canadian destroyers Fraser and Restigouche . On the 26th, there was a collision with the Fraser off Bayonne at high speed , the forecastle of which broke off and sank. The cruiser was able to save 150 survivors of the 216-man crew and then sank the other part of the destroyer. Accompanied by the destroyer Highlander , the cruiser ran to Devonport , where the shipwrecked were disembarked. On the deck of the cruiser, parts of the Fraser bridge were still on the march back . The cruiser then marched on to the Tyne , where the ship was repaired by mid-July 1940. On the 20th, Calcutta secured the laying of a mine barrier  by the  1st Minelaying Squadron in South West Approaches (Operation SN31).

At the end of August, Calcutta was preparing to move to the Mediterranean Fleet in Alexandria. From August 20, she ran with the half-sister Coventry as well as the battleship Valiant and the new carrier Illustrious , which should also be part of the Mediterranean fleet, only to Gibraltar together with the cruiser Sheffield intended for Force H and seven destroyers of the 8th Destroyer Flotilla . The transfer of Valiant , Illustrious , Calcutta and Coventry through the Mediterranean from Gibraltar to Alexandria, known as Operation Hats , was secured in the western Mediterranean by the Force H under Vice Admiral Sommerville with the battle cruiser Renown , the carrier Ark Royal , the Sheffield and twelve destroyers. On September 1, early intervention nine Fairey Swordfish of the Ark Royal before turning the Force H Port Elmas on Sardinia. After passing the Strait of Sicily, the Mediterranean fleet south of Sicily with the battleships Warspite and Malaya , the carrier Eagle , the 3rd cruiser squadron ( Kent , Gloucester , Liverpool ), the 7th cruiser squadron ( Orion , Sydney ) and 13 destroyers of the 2nd, 10th and 14th Destroyer Flotilla . At the same time, the supply convoy MF.2 marches under cover of the Mediterranean fleet and reached Malta from the east on September 2, while Valiant , Calcutta and Coventry arrived from the west. On the march back, Admiral Cunningham divided the Mediterranean fleet into Force E ( Malaya , Eagle , Coventry and 6 destroyers) and Force I ( Warspite , Valiant , Illustrious , Calcutta and 7 destroyers). The first association ran south of Crete , the second north of Crete in the Italian Dodecanese .

On September 15, 1940, parts of the Mediterranean fleet ran out to attack with aircraft of the Illustrious Benghazi . On the 16th, the association met the flak cruisers Calcutta and Coventry West of Crete and marched to the starting point for the planes that attacked the port of Benghazi with mines and torpedoes on the night of the 17th and torpedoed a destroyer and two freighters. The following month the supply convoy MB.6 followed to Malta with four transporters, secured by the flak cruisers Calcutta , Coventry , the Australian destroyers Stuart , Voyager , Waterhen and the Wryneck from Alexandria. In thunderstorms, the convoy reached Malta unnoticed on October 11th.

At the end of the month, British Army and Air Forces began landing in Greece and Crete. On October 29, a convoy left the cruisers Coventry , Calcutta , the destroyers Waterhen , vampires , Voyager , Defender of the 10th Destroyer Flotilla, the Armed Boarding Vessels Fiona and Chakla , the network Leger Protector and the Navy tankers Olna and Brambleleaf and sat on one November British troops in Suda Bay to set up a base. At the same time, the relocation of British troops to mainland Greece began.
During Operation MB.8 from November 4, the Mediterranean Fleet secured convoys AN.6 and MW.3 in the Aegean Sea and Malta and carried out parts of the carrier attack on Taranto . The Malta convoy brought Coventry and the destroyers Dainty , Vampire , Waterhen and Voyager to their destination. Calcutta took over the security of the partial convoy in the Aegean Sea, with which it arrived in the Suda Bay on the 5th and then returned to Alexandria from there. As part of Operation Excess , reinforcements were brought to Malta and a special convoy was carried out from Gibraltar via Malta to Piraeus and Alexandria. Calcutta secured with the destroyers Defender and Diamond and four corvettes from January 7, 1941 parts of the convoy MW.5 from Alexandria to Malta. Like all parts of the Mediterranean fleet at sea, this escort was the target of German dive bombers who had arrived in the Mediterranean to support the Italians.

The Calcutta then remained in the eastern Mediterranean and secured the transport of four British divisions (around 58,000 men without significant failures) from Alexandria to Piraeus and Volos in Greece ( Operation Luster ) with the flak cruisers Coventry and Carlisle . The convoys ran in a three-day rhythm and were mostly covered by a battleship or cruiser group and destroyers. A total of 25 ships with 115,026 GRT were lost during the operation, but mostly after unloading, but only seven ships in these convoys. During this time, the Calcutta was defending convoys against air attacks, and was on March 25 with the Coventry in Suda Bay for refueling when Italian explosive devices hit the heavy cruiser York and the Norwegian tanker Pericles (8324 GRT, 1936 Gothenburg), both of them went aground, but still protruded from the water. It also remained undamaged. when on April 7th the Air Force attacked Piraeus and the Clan Fraser exploded. In mid-April, the old anti-aircraft cruiser was still involved in a supply operation for the Mediterranean fleet for Malta together with the new anti-aircraft cruiser Phoebe to provide local security for the transporters.

After German troops broke through the British blocked position at Thermopylae , the evacuation of Greece by the British Army and its evacuation by the Royal Navy ( Operation Demon ) began. A total of 50,672 men were embarked and transferred to Crete and Egypt. The flak cruisers Calcutta , Carlisle , Coventry and Phoebe were also involved in securing the evacuation . When the operation started on the night of April 26, 1941 , the corvette Salvia and the landing ship Glengyle took over 5400 people in Porto Rafti , Megara and Nauplia Calcutta and brought them to Suda Bay on Crete. On the night of the 27th, the transporters Slamat and Khedive Ismail , as well as Calcutta and three destroyers in Nauplia, were supposed to take about 4,500 members of the army on board. Attacked on the approach, the landing ship Glenearn had to turn around after bomb hits and was towed to Crete by the destroyer Griffin ; the other two transporters were also hit and suffered minor bomb damage. The failure of the landing craft and its boats delayed the reception of the waiting soldiers, for whom there was also insufficient space. Contrary to what had been agreed, the return march was delayed, which should bring the ships as far as possible out of the range of German aircraft when it was bright. The last Dutch Slamat, which had 500 soldiers on board, was bombed in the morning by fighter bombers from Jagdgeschwader 77 and attacked with machine gun fire. It caught fire and had to be evacuated. The destroyers Diamond and later Wryneck came to the aid of the Slamat and took the survivors on board. After the attack by the German Air Force, the Calcutta , which also had around 900 soldiers on board, as well as Hotspur and Isis with another 900 soldiers and the transporter Khedive continued their journey towards Crete. Diamond and Wryneck continued to march back after taking over the shipwrecked Slamat and sinking the burning ship. They were attacked by the air force in the afternoon and sunk by dive bombers. Of over 1000 people on the three ships, only 1 officer and 49 men were saved in the end.

The Calcutta then secured a convoy that carried evacuated troops from Suda Bay to Alexandria.

On May 5, 1941, British Operation Tiger , a simultaneous operation by Force H from Gibraltar and the Mediterranean Fleet from Alexandria, began operating five fast transporters and reinforcements for the Mediterranean Fleet (battleship Queen Elizabeth , cruiser Fiji and Naiad ) from Gibraltar through the The Mediterranean should be transferred to Alexandria and Malta should be supplied from Alexandria. Calcutta secured the supplies destined for Malta on four transporters and two tankers with the flak cruisers Dido , Phoebe , Coventry and Carlisle , three destroyers and two corvettes. On May 8, the first attacks on the cover-giving naval units in the west and east took place. On the following two days, poor visibility largely prevented air attacks by the Axis powers. An Italian cruiser advance was scheduled too late and unsuccessful. The British associations achieved their goals largely undisturbed by May 12th. Of the freighters that left Gibraltar, the New Zealand Star , Clan Campbell , Clan Chattan and Clan Lamont reached under the protection of the aforementioned flak cruisers with 238 (out of 295) Matilda II and Crusader tanks and 43 (out of 53) hurricane fighters on board Alexandria. Only the new Empire Song (9228 BRT, 1941) was lost shortly before Malta after a mine hit.

The end of Calcutta

On May 20, 1941, the German air landing on Crete ( Operation Merkur ) began. The British Mediterranean fleet was at sea with the bulk of its units to prevent a German advance, but was surprised by the air landing. Since the 22nd Calcutta belonged to Force C under Rear Admiral King with the cruisers Naiad , Perth and Carlisle as well as the destroyers Kandahar , Nubian and Kingston , which tried to destroy the second German motor sailer squadron. Because of the skilful defense of the Italian torpedo boat Sagittario and rolling air attacks by Ju 88 of I./LG.l and III./KG. 30 and Thursday 17 of the KG. 2 the German convoy lost only two vehicles. Naiad and Carlisle were damaged by bomb hits and Force C turned to join the heavy cover group, which in the course of the afternoon were also the target of heavy air strikes by Ju-87 Stukas of the StG.2 , Ju 88 of the I./LG .l and II./LG.l and as well as from Me-109 fighter bombers . The battleship Warspite received several close hits, the destroyer Greyhound and the cruiser Glouchester were sunk, the badly damaged Fiji had to be abandoned, but Kingston and Kandahar were still able to save 523 survivors. Naiad and Carlisle were hit again and the Valiant was more easily damaged. Faced with the damage and lack of anti-aircraft ammunition, the association went back to Alexandria.

The Coventry

As the situation on Crete developed in favor of the German attackers, all British attempts to bring reinforcements to the island were canceled on May 27 and the evacuation initiated. On the night of June 1, 1941 Rear Admiral King made the last attempt with Phoebe , Abdiel , Jackal , Kimberley and Hotspur to evacuate troops from Sphakia . 4000 of the 6500 men there could be evacuated. To secure the unit, the anti-aircraft cruisers Calcutta and Coventry came towards them from Alexandria , which were discovered around 100 nm north of Alexandria by two Ju 88s of the LG.1, which had two bomb hits on the Calcutta . They resulted in the sinking of the ship approximately 32 ° 0 '0 "  N , 28 ° 0' 0"  O . The Coventry was able to save 255 survivors of the 372-strong crew.

Footnotes

  1. ^ A b Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships: 1906-1921 , p. 61
  2. ^ Friedman: British Cruisers , p. 387
  3. ^ Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships: 1906–1921. P. 60f.
  4. ^ Rohwer: Chronicle of the Naval War 1939–1945. 22-23 April 1940, Norway
  5. ^ Rohwer: Sea War. 1st – 2nd May 1940, Norway
  6. ^ Rohwer: Sea War. 10-15 May 1940, Norway
  7. ^ Rohwer: Sea War. May 28, 1940, Canal
  8. ^ Rohwer: Sea War. June 25, 1940, Biscay
  9. ^ Rohwer: Sea War. 20.-29. August 1940, North Atlantic
  10. ^ Rohwer: Sea War. 13-19 September 1940, Mediterranean
  11. ^ Rohwer: Sea War. August 29 - September 6, 1940, North Africa
  12. ^ Rohwer: Sea War. 8-14 October 1940, Mediterranean
  13. ^ Rohwer: Sea War. October 29, 1940, Mediterranean
  14. ^ Rohwer: Sea War. 4th-14th November 1940, Mediterranean
  15. ^ Mason: Service History HMS Calcutta
  16. ^ Rohwer: Sea War. 6-18 January 1941, Mediterranean
  17. ^ Rohwer: Sea War. March 5 - April 2, 1941, Mediterranean Sea
  18. ^ M / T Pericles
  19. ^ Rohwer: Sea War. March 26, 1941, Mediterranean.
  20. ^ Rohwer: Sea War. 24.-30. April 1941, Mediterranean
  21. ^ Rohwer: Sea War. 5th - 12th May 1941, Mediterranean
  22. ^ Rohwer: Sea War. May 20 - June 1, 1941, Mediterranean Sea, Operation Merkur

literature

  • Norman Friedman: British Cruisers. Two World Wars and After. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis MD 2010, ISBN 978-1-59114-078-8 .
  • Robert Gardiner, Randal Gray (Ed.): Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships. 1906-1921. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis MD 1985, ISBN 0-87021-907-3 .
  • Geirr H. Haarr: The Battle for Norway. April – June 1940. Seaforth Publishing, Barnsley 2010, ISBN 978-1-84832-057-4 .
  • Alan Raven, John Roberts: British Cruisers of World War Two. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis MD 1980, ISBN 0-87021-922-7 .
  • Mike J. Whitley: Cruiser in World War II. Classes, types, construction dates. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-613-01842-X , pp. 76-79.

Web links

Commons : C Class Cruiser  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files