HMS Coventry (D43)

**Coventry**
	The Coventry (the photo shows the ship after being converted into an anti-aircraft cruiser, recognizable by the three 10.2 cm guns standing aft in the midships line; the picture was probably taken in 1939).
Ship data
flag	United Kingdom
Ship type	Light cruiser (from 1918) ; Anti-aircraft cruiser (from 1937)
class	Ceres class
Shipyard	Swan Hunter , Wallsend , United Kingdom
Order	April 1916
Keel laying	4th August 1916
Launch	July 6, 1917
Commissioning	February 21, 1918
Whereabouts	sunk on September 14, 1942 after severe damage by air raid (63 dead)
Ship dimensions and crew
length	137.62 m ( Lüa ) 129.54 m ( Lpp )
width	13.25 m
Draft	Max. 4.34 m
displacement	Construction: 4,290 ts; maximum: 5,276 ts
crew	437 men (1942)
Machine system
machine	6 Yarrow boilers; 2 Brown-Curtis - geared turbines; 2 shafts
Machine ; performance	40,000 PS (29,420 kW)
Top ; speed	29.52 kn (55 km / h)
propeller	2
Armament
	from 1918:; 5 x 152 mm Mk.XII - rapid fire guns ; 2 x 76 mm L / 45-Mk.I - anti-aircraft guns ; 4 × 47 mm Hotchkiss salute guns ; 4 × 2 torpedo tubes ∅ 533 mm; Mid-1918: 1 × Sopwith Pup until November 1918 ; from 1920s: 2 × Flak 40 mm ; from 1941/42 (as anti-aircraft cruiser):; 10 × Sk 102 mm L / 45 Mark V (10 × 1); 8 × Flak 40 mm (1 × 8); 10 × Flak 20 mm (10 × 1);
Armor
	Side armor: 57-76 mm; Deck: 25 mm; Gun shields (152 mm cannons): 25 mm; Transverse bulkheads: 25 mm; Navigating bridge: 76 mm;
Others
Others

The HMS Coventry was a light cruiser of the Royal Navy , the end of the First World War put into service and in the 1930s in an anti-aircraft cruiser was converted. The ship, named after the city of Coventry , belonged to the so-called Ceres class , the fifth subgroup of the C- class, which was built on a large scale at the time and consisting of a total of 28 units . The grant awarded April 1916 Coventry (originally for the cruiser temporarily the name Corsair been provided), the fourth ship in the history of the British Navy that this name was, was on August 4, 1916 the yard of Swan Hunter in English Wallsend laid down and launched on July 6, 1917. It was finally put into service on February 21, 1918.

Technical details and modifications

The Coventry was a maximum of 137.62 m long and 13.25 m wide, the mean draft was 4.34 m. Six oil-fired Yarrow boiler from 3-drum-type and two Brown-Curtis - geared turbines allowed the cruiser, with an engine power of 40,000 WPS , a top speed of 29.52 knots (almost 55 km / h). The fuel supply was originally 950 tons of oil, but fell slightly to 920 tons after the ship was converted into an anti-aircraft cruiser in the 1930s ; the sea endurance of the Coventry was up to 5,900 nautical miles (at 10 kn cruising speed).

At the beginning of the 1930s, the Royal Navy began to work out plans to convert some of the C- class light cruisers, which are now considered obsolete, to anti-aircraft ships, which should also take into account the generally growing clout of the air forces. For this reason, the Coventry was subjected to a large-scale conversion between the end of 1935 and January 1937, in the course of which all previous weapons (including the torpedo tubes ) were dismantled. Instead, the cruiser received ten individually mounted 102 mm multi-purpose guns L / 45 Mark V - one cannon was directly in front of the navigation bridge on the forecastle , three more aft of the main superstructure in the midship line and three guns each were installed on either side of the funnels - as well as eight 40 mm anti-aircraft guns in an eight-way carriage of the Mark VIII type (originally a second eight-way carriage should have been installed, but this could not be realized due to delivery bottlenecks). By early 1942, this armament was supplemented by ten light 20 mm flak from Oerlikon . The crew of the cruiser grew to a total of 437 men by May 1942, as additional operating crews were gradually required for the anti-aircraft armament.

period of service

Interwar period

Although it was still in service in the final phase of the First World War , Coventry , which was temporarily stationed in Harwich , no longer took part in combat missions and subsequently served between 1919 and 1922 as part of the 2nd Light Cruiser Squadron (2nd LCS) in the British Atlantic Fleet . At the beginning of 1923, the ship was assigned to the Mediterranean Sea , where it was temporarily used as the flagship of the Commander of the Destroyer Forces in the Mediterranean Fleet . In this case occurred in March 1923 in Malta a torpedo exploded on board, which killed two people. The Coventry remained on station in the Mediterranean until 1934 , interrupted only by a stay in the shipyard for a major overhaul in England in the winter of 1929/30.

In early 1935 the cruiser was finally ordered back to the United Kingdom and docked there from late 1935 at HMNB Portsmouth for the purpose of an extensive conversion to an anti-aircraft cruiser. The Coventry was temporarily placed in reserve status. The conversion (see above) lasted until January 1937, the first test drives in a fully equipped condition took place in March 1937. The ship then moved back to the Mediterranean Fleet and stayed there until the outbreak of World War II in September 1939.

Second World War

After Great Britain entered the war on September 3, 1939, the Coventry moved from Alexandria back to the United Kingdom and then secured the flying boat base off Sullom Voe ( Shetland Islands ) as a stationary anti-aircraft ship until the end of January 1940 .

1940: fighting for Norway

From May 10, 1940, the cruiser took part in the fighting for Norway , with the ship used in front of Narvik and Bodø survived a total of 75 attacks by German aircraft within nine days without damage (and was able to shoot down at least one attacking aircraft). On May 17, she was the flagship of an association of reinforcements from Harstad to Bodø . The association included the anti-aircraft cruiser Cairo , the two destroyers Echo and Matabele, and the cruiser Effingham , which had over a thousand soldiers, ten universal carriers and around 130 tons of supplies on board. On the chosen course, the association came to a shoal on which the Matabele lost a screw, the Coventry had a slight grounding and the Effingham suffered a total loss. However, the other ships were able to rescue the crew and soldiers from the sinking Effingham , so that no loss of life was to be mourned.

At the end of May temporarily deployed as an anti- aircraft ship in the Ofotfjord , the Coventry supported the Allied attack on Narvik , which was captured on May 28, with the Cairo , the destroyers Whirlwind , Fame , Havelock , Walker and Firedrake as well as the Sloop Stork . The ships also ensured the transfer of units of the French Foreign Legion across the Rombaksfjord .

The Coventry left after a retreat of the Allies had become necessary from Norway, on June 7, 1940, the second evacuation convoy consisting of seven troop carriers, the Norwegian theater of war. The convoy also included the flagship Southampton of the British Commander-in-Chief Lord Cork and Orrery and the destroyers Havelock , Fame , Firedrake , Beagle and Delight . The located in Lake German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau destroyed on May 8, the aircraft carrier located on the way back to the UK Glorious and its escort destroyer Acasta and Ardent , but not discovered the other escort, especially as the Scharnhorst by a torpedo hit the sinking Acasta badly damaged and the German battleships then broke off their advance.

1940 to 1942: Operations in the Mediterranean

After a two-week layover at HMNB Devonport , the Coventry was detached to the British Mediterranean Fleet in August 1940, since Italy had entered the war on June 10, 1940 on the side of the German Empire . She ran in association with the battleship Valiant , the new carrier Illustrious , the flak cruiser Calcutta as well as the cruiser Sheffield detached to Force H and the 8th destroyer flotilla to Gibraltar . From August 28th the units destined for the Mediterranean Fleet continued from Gibraltar to Alexandria (Operation Hats). Valiant , Calcutta and Coventry reached Malta on September 2 without having had contact with Italian units and then continued the relocation march in units of the Mediterranean fleet, which briefly advanced into the Dodecanese . The next mission with the Mediterranean fleet followed on September 15, when the flak cruisers Calcutta and Coventry accompanied the carrier Illustrious on a night raid on the port of Benghazi.

Between September and December 1940 the cruiser escorted British convoys between Malta , Alexandria , Port Sudan and Suez , including convoy WS 2A coming from Australia in the Red Sea in mid-September . This consisted of a total of six passenger and five transport ships (with around 17,000 soldiers on board) and was also secured by the heavy cruiser Shropshire , the Australian cruiser Hobart , three destroyers and two sloops. At the end of October a convoy was also escorted to Crete, where the British had started to set up army and air bases. As part of an escort mission, the cruiser was also involved in the sea battle at Cape Teulada on November 27, 1940.

In mid-December 1940, Coventry took part in bombardment missions along the coast of Cyrenaica to support the advance of the British Western Desert Force in Italian-controlled Libya . However, the cruiser was in the evening hours of December 13, 1940, about 45 nautical miles north of Marsa Matruh , by the Italian submarine R. Smg. Neghelli ( Tenente di Vascello Carlo Ferracuti) torpedoed. The torpedo hit did not cause any personnel losses, but caused considerable damage in the bow area . The Coventry , which was secured by the destroyers Jervis , Janus and Hereward , was then able to return to Alexandria on its own - albeit steering via the stern - and had to be repaired there by the end of January 1941.

In the spring of 1941 the cruiser (in connection with the Italian attack on Greece at the end of October 1940 and the accompanying support for Greece by the United Kingdom) took part as a security ship in several supply and troop transport convoys from Alexandria to Piraeus ( Operation Luster ). The Greco-British garrison on Crete was also reinforced. During this transfer missions cruiser on May 18, 1941 fell east of Crete in an attack by German Junkers Ju-87 - dive-bombers . In an attempt to rush to the aid of the British hospital ship HMHS Aba , which was bombed by the aircraft , the Coventry was fired at several times by Ju 87 (who had previously dropped their bombs on other ships) with on-board weapons. One of the fire control officers of the cruiser's light anti-aircraft guns, Petty Officer Alfred Edward Sephton , was seriously wounded by a machine gun bullet; Although he was almost blind from the wound, he remained at his command post until the end of the attacks. Sephton succumbed to his injuries the following day and was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross . This was later exhibited temporarily in Coventry Cathedral .

From the end of May 1941 Coventry was temporarily involved in the Battle of Crete and evacuated Commonwealth troops from Sfakia at the end of May after the situation on the island had developed to the disadvantage of the Allies . On June 1, 1941, the ship rescued 255 survivors of the British anti-aircraft cruiser Calcutta, which was sunk by German aircraft about 100 nautical miles north of Alexandria .

In early June 1941, the cruiser was involved in the British-Free French attack on Syria . The elimination of the Vichy-loyal French armed forces in Lebanon and Syria seemed necessary to the British after the German successes in Greece and the coup in Iraq . The Coventry secured the Glengyle transporter while conducting commando operations on the Lebanese and Syrian coasts to speed up the advance. Subsequently and until October 1941, the Coventry operated off Alexandria and in the Red Sea and gave Allied convoys between the Gulf of Aden and Sue's air security. Relocated to Bombay at the end of October 1941 , the cruiser underwent an extensive overhaul there by April 1942, including re-tubing the boiler. Detached back to the Mediterranean in May 1942, the Coventry took part in Operation Vigorous in June 1942 , an attempt by the British Navy to bring a supply convoy (MW-11) from Alexandria to Malta, which was besieged by the Axis powers .

Downfall

At the beginning of September 1942, Coventry was involved in the preparations for a large-scale British command raid against the port of Tobruk held by the Axis Powers ( Operation Agreement ). In addition to the Coventry , which with the Hunt destroyers Belvoir , Croome , Dulverton and Hursley should have taken over the remote and air security of the company, came the British destroyers Zulu and Sikh loaded with command units and Royal Marines , the four destroyers escort Aldenham , Beaufort , Exmoor and Hurworth as well as 21 motor torpedo boats (MTB) are used. The starting point of the operation was Alexandria . The on 13./14. However, the undertaking carried out in September 1942 ended in a debacle as a result of the unexpectedly fierce German-Italian resistance and heavy air attacks by the Axis troops . The two destroyers Sikh and Zulu were sunk by coastal artillery or air strikes, and six MTBs were also lost. Most of the commandos that landed were wiped out or taken prisoner.

The Coventry was, while the remains of the association there were already on the way back to Alexandria, at noon of September 14, 1942, from 11.40 hours, north north-east of Marsa Matruh of 16 German bombers of the type Junkers Ju 88 of Group I of the Lehrgeschwaders 1 and attacked by Junkers Ju 87 of the 8th squadron of Sturzkampfgeschwader 3 . Two planes were shot down by the cruiser's flak , but in return four 250-kilogram bombs hit the Coventry . Three of the bombs hit amidships and destroyed the boiler and turbine rooms, the fourth tore off part of the forecastle. Since towing the burning and incapable of maneuvering ship seemed impossible due to the eminent air threat, the surviving crew was picked up by the Hunt destroyers Beaufort and Dulverton and the cruiser was sunk by an escort ship by a torpedo shot at around 3:15 p.m. The place of destruction is about 110 nautical miles north-northeast of Marsa Matruh. A total of 63 crew members of the Coventry were killed as a result of the bomb hits.

The anti-aircraft cruiser of the C-class

Surname	Shipyard	finished	modification	to	Final fate
precursor
Coventry (D43)	Swan Hunter , Wallsend	2./1918	Portsmouth	1936	sunk by Luftwaffe in the Mediterranean Sea on September 14, 1942
Curlew (D42)	Vickers , Barrow	12./1917	Catham	1936	sunk by the Luftwaffe off Norway on May 26, 1940
Unit conversion
Cairo (D87)	Cammell Laird , Birkenhead	10./1919	Portsmouth	5./1939	August 12, 1942 Italian submarine Axum sunk
Calcutta (D82)	Vickers	8/1919	Chatham	7/1939	sunk by Luftwaffe in the Mediterranean on June 1, 1941
Carlisle (D67)	Fairfield , Govan	11./1918	Chatham	1./1940	Seriously damaged by the Luftwaffe on October 9, 1943, not repaired, depot ship in Alexandria
Curacao (D41)	Pembroke	2./1918	Chatham	4./1940	rammed and sunk by the Queen Mary on October 2, 1942
modified
Colombo (D69)	Fairfield	7./1919	Devonport	6./1943	sold for demolition in January 1948.
Caledon (D53)	Cammell Laird	3./1917	Chatham	12./1943	sold for demolition in January 1948.