HMS Dainty (H53)

HMS Dainty

The dainty

Ship data flag  United Kingdom Ship type destroyer class D class Shipyard Fairfield Shipbuilding , Govan Build number 645 Order February 2, 1931 Keel laying April 20, 1931 Launch May 3, 1932 Commissioning December 22, 1932 Whereabouts Sunk by the Luftwaffe on February 24, 1941

Ship dimensions and crew length 100.3 m ( Lüa ) 96.9 m ( Lpp ) width 10.1 m Draft Max. 3.78 m displacement 1,375 ts standard 1,890 ts maximum   crew 145

Machine system machine 3 Admiralty 3-drum boilers 2 Parsons - geared turbines Machine performance 36,000 PS (26,478 kW) Top speed 36 kn (67 km / h) propeller 2

Armament 4 120 mm L / 45 Mk.IX guns 1 76 mm gun L / 45 Mk.II until 1938 2 × 4 Vickers machine guns 0.5 in. (12.7 mm) 2 × 4 torpedo tubes 533 mm 20–35 depth charges 2 launchers, 1 drop rail Sensors Type 121 sonar

HMS Dainty (H53) [ ˈdɛɪnti ] was a D-class destroyer of the British Royal Navy . During the Second World War , the destroyer was awarded the Battle Honors “Atlantic 1940”, “Mediterranean 1940-41”, “Calabria 1940”, “Libya 1940-41” and “ Malta Convoys 1941 ”.

On February 24, 1941, the Dainty received a bomb hit off Tobruk , which set the ship on fire and caused the rear magazine to explode. The severely damaged destroyer sank, 16 men of the crew died.

History of the ship

The Dainty was the first ship of the two D-class destroyers ordered on February 2, 1931 from Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Co. in Govan . These were the first orders for destroyers for the shipyard in the post-war construction program. Fairfield was one of the oldest destroyer builders with the "27-knotter" Handy, completed in 1895 . By the end of World War I, the shipyard had built nearly 50 destroyers of various types for the Royal Navy. The new building with construction no. 645 was launched on May 3, 1932 as the fourth destroyer of the class and entered service on January 3, 1933 as the sixth ship of the class. The new destroyer was the Royal Navy’s second ship to be named Dainty since 1594.

Mission history

With her sister ships in the 1st destroyer flotilla, HMS Dainty replaced the V and W class destroyers previously used in the Mediterranean fleet . In October and November 1933, the converted flotilla made a trip to the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea . In autumn 1934 the nine units of the flotilla were overhauled at naval yards in Great Britain for future use in the Far East. Dainty was in Portsmouth Dockyard from September 3 to October 23, 1934 . She reached Hong Kong with the first sister ships on January 3, 1935 , which again replaced V- and W-class destroyers in the 8th Destroyer Flotilla there ( 21st Destroyer Flotilla from 1939 ). The Abyssinia crisis between the United Kingdom and Italy led in the autumn of 1935 to an extensive relocation of the flotilla to the Red Sea and to a renewed subordination to the Mediterranean Fleet. Dainty remained in the Red Sea from September 30, 1935 to June 1936. From October 1936 the destroyer was again available for service on the China Station . The destroyer fought pirates , supported merchant ships with problems and visited ports in the station area, such as Sarawak , Singapore and the Philippines in the first quarter of 1938 . At the end of August 1939, a division of the flotilla had already left the station area with four destroyers due to the impending war, while the Dainty was in normal station use in front of Amoy .

First war missions

HMS Dainty left Hong Kong on September 10th together with the flotilla leader Duncan to also move to the Mediterranean. From September 14, the Daring from Singapore joined the destroyers, who reached Alexandria via Colombo and Aden by October 1. In the Mediterranean fleet, the Dainty was used to control neutral ships after contraband and was overtaken in Malta in December 1939.
In January 1940, the destroyer moved to Freetown to search for German auxiliary cruisers in the South Atlantic and secure convoys. The sister ships Decoy , Defender and Diamond were also temporarily in use there at the same time, while the other ships in the class had been moved to the Home Fleet . In April 1940, the Dainty returned to the Mediterranean Fleet and was ready for action on June 3, 1940 after another layover in Malta. She formed the 20th Division in the 10th Destroyer Flotilla with the sister ships Decoy , Defender and Diamond . The first (19th) division of this flotilla were the older Australian destroyers Stuart , Vampire , Vendetta , Voyager and Waterhen .

Use in the Mediterranean fleet

On June 10, 1940, Italy entered World War II on the side of the German Reich. When an Italian submarine torpedoed the cruiser Calypso south of Crete on June 12th, the Dainty was able to take over 400 men from the sinking cruiser and bring them to Alexandria.

On the night of June 21, the destroyer was involved in the last joint British-French operation in the Mediterranean, when the French battleship Lorraine and the British cruisers Orion , Neptune and the Australian Sydney Bardia shot at, but caused little damage. In addition to Dainty , Stuart , Decoy and Hasty secured the bombardment group.

As part of a large-scale anti-submarine operation in the eastern Mediterranean, where almost all the ready-destroyer of the British Mediterranean Fleet were involved in the home side's Dainty together with Defender and Ilex on 27 June 1940, the Italian submarine Console Generale Liuzzi to sink. Together with the latter destroyer , the Uebi Scebeli and Argonauta submarines were sunk two days later south-west of Crete, again supported by radio reconnaissance . Important key documents, such as the new code book with the tables for July 1940, could be captured on the Uebi Scebeli .

In July, Dainty took part in the naval battle at Punta Stilo in the protective umbrella of the Mediterranean fleet. The ship was then used in the second half of 1940 in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Aegean Sea. In September 1940 it led transporters with reinforcements for the British desert army through the Red Sea to Egypt. One of the main tasks of the destroyer was the escort of merchant ships in both Greek ports and Malta.

At the beginning of 1941, the destroyer served as an escort for one of the Malta convoys ( Operation Excess ), which was attacked for the first time by aircraft of the German Air Force stationed in Sicily . This managed to damage the aircraft carrier Illustrious very badly.

The end of the dainty

Like other destroyers, the Dainty was also used to bring supplies closer to the front lines. The deep-water port of Tobruk, captured in January 1941, cut the remaining land route from the Egyptian bases of the army to the front line by half, but could only be used by smaller units, as Italian ships sunk by the British still blocked parts of the port. After initially deploying destroyers individually, the British had switched to deploying in pairs in February. On February 24, 1941, Dainty and Hasty left Tobruk to march back. Shortly after leaving port, they were attacked by German Ju 88 bombers of Group II of Lehrgeschwader 1 . One of the machines hit a bomb on the Dainty , which penetrated the bridge, exploded in one of the fuel tanks and started a fire. Eventually the rear magazine of the destroyer exploded. Due to the force of the explosion, launched boats (including the Hasty ) were lost. The Hasty then went alongside the sinking Dainty and took over about 140 men of the crew. 16 men died on the Dainty and another 18 were injured, some seriously. The destroyer finally fell to 32 ° 4 '  N , 24 ° 4'  O coordinates: 32 ° 4 '0 "  N , 24 ° 4' 0 '  O .

The Hasty arrived in Alexandria on February 25, 1941 with the 140 survivors of the Dainty .

HMS Dainty (D108) 1964

Renewed use of the name

In 1945 the Royal Navy ordered a destroyer from J. Samuel White which entered service on February 26, 1953 as HMS Dainty (D108) . The Daring-class destroyer was sold for demolition in early 1971.

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 2009, ISBN 978-1-59114-081-8 .
• Michael J. Whitley: Destroyers of World War Two. An international encyclopedia. Arms and Armor Press, London et al. 1988, ISBN 0-85368-910-5 .

Web links

• Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronicle of the naval war 1939-1945. In: wlb-stuttgart.de. Württemberg State Library , accessed on February 5, 2017 . 
• Service History HMS Dainty (H 53) - D-class Destroyer. In: naval-history.net. Retrieved February 5, 2017 . 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ German : Amazon to Ivanhoe , p. 53f.
2. ↑ German : Amazon to Ivanhoe , p. 52ff.
3. ↑ ROYAL, DOMINION and INDIAN NAVY SHIPS, JUNE 1940
4. ↑ ^{a b c} English: Amazon to Ivanhoe , p. 54.
5. ^ Rohwer: Sea War, June 20-21, 1940 Mediterranean
6. ↑ Rohwer: naval warfare , 27.- 06.30.1940 Mediterranean
7. ^ Rohwer: Sea War , July 6-11, 1940 Mediterranean
8. ↑ Rohwer: naval warfare , 22.8.- 25.9.1940 Atlantic / Indian Ocean
9. ^ Rohwer: Sea War , January 6-13, 1941 Mediterranean
10. ↑ Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronik des Maritime War 1939–1945, February 1941. Retrieved on January 13, 2017 .