HMS Decoy (H75)

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HMS Decoy
The decoy in China colors
The decoy in China colors
Ship data
flag United KingdomUnited Kingdom (Naval War Flag) United Kingdom of Canada
CanadaCanada (naval war flag) 
other ship names

1943: HMCS Kootenay

Ship type destroyer
class D class
Shipyard Thornycroft , Woolston near Southampton
Build number 1108
Order February 2, 1931
Keel laying June 25, 1931
Launch June 7, 1932
Commissioning April 4, 1933
April 12, 1943 RCN
Whereabouts Sold for demolition in 1946
Ship dimensions and crew
length
100.3 m ( Lüa )
96.9 m ( Lpp )
width 10.1 m
Draft Max. 3.76 m
displacement 1,375 ts standard
1,890 ts maximum
 
crew 145
Machine system
machine 3 Admiralty three drum boilers
2 Parsons - geared turbines
Machine
performance 		36,000
Top
speed 		36 kn (67 km / h)
propeller 2
Armament

last;

Sensors

Sonar Type 121
1943: Radar

HMS Decoy (H75) was a destroyer of the D-class of the British Royal Navy . During the Second World War , the destroyer was awarded the Battle Honors "Mediterranean 1940", "Calabria 1940", "Greece 1941", "Crete 1941", "Libya 1941-42", " Malta Convoys 1941-42 " and "Atlantic 1942" .

The destroyer, mostly used in the Mediterranean, was handed over to the Royal Canadian Navy in April 1943 , which renamed it HMCS Kootenay (H75) . The ship received the Canadian Battle Honors "Atlantic 1943-45", "Normandy 1944", "English Channel 1944" and "Biscay 1944". In October 1945 the ship was decommissioned and then scrapped.

History of construction and use

The Decoy was the second D-class destroyer to be built by John I. Thornycroft & Company in Woolston near Southampton . The keel laying of the new building with building no. 1108 took place on June 25, 1931 one week after the sister ship Daring, which was also to be built at Thornycroft . Two months after this, the Decoy was launched on June 7, 1932 and was put into service on April 4, 1933 as the eighth destroyer of the class, one day before the "leader" Duncan . With the two newbuilds, the shipyard completed series destroyers for the Royal Navy for the first time. In 1927 she had manufactured one of the prototypes of the new build program with Amazon and in 1931 completed an A-class destroyer with a high-pressure boiler system on a trial basis with the Acheron, as well as two custom-made designs for the Royal Canadian Navy, Saguenay and Skeena . The new Decoy was the third ship of the Royal Navy with the name Decoy (English for bait, decoy). The Daring-class torpedo boat destroyer Decoy had last borne this name. This boat, which was also built by Thornycroft at the previous location in Chiswick in London , had been in service with the Royal Navy from 1895 to August 13, 1904, when it sank after a collision with another destroyer.

Mission history

Together with her sister boats , Decoy formed the 1st destroyer flotilla in the Mediterranean fleet . At the end of 1934, the D-Class units were overhauled and then relocated to East Asia. From January 1935, Decoy and her sister ships formed the 8th destroyer flotilla stationed there in Hong Kong . In both flotillas, the ships replaced V- and W-class units . The Abyssinia crisis between Italy and Great Britain led in autumn 1935 to the relocation of most of the D-class ships to the Red Sea , where the Decoy remained from September 1935 to May 1936 and was subordinate to the Mediterranean Fleet. After being released from this role, she visited Mombasa and other East African ports before returning to Hong Kong. In the first quarter of 1937 the Decoy made a tour of Southeast Asia with many port visits. The destroyer stayed at the China station until August 1939. The impending danger of war in Europe caused the British Admiralty to withdraw the D-class destroyers from the station in August, even though the old S-class destroyers intended as replacements were not yet operational. The destroyers of the "Destroyer Division 41" ( Decoy , Defender , Delight and Duchess ) left Hong Kong on August 28th to move via Singapore (on September 1st, from 2nd September) and Aden to the Mediterranean Fleet in Alexandria. The other destroyers of the 21st Flotilla, renumbered in the spring, followed from September 10th or after the end of their docking times.

First deployments in the world war

When Great Britain entered the war on September 3, the Decoy was with three sister ships in the Indian Ocean on the march to the Mediterranean fleet. Like her sister ships, she secured British escorts in the eastern Mediterranean and as far as the Algerian coast and looked for German merchant ships and cargo destined for Germany on neutral ships. The poor condition of the destroyer forced a thorough overhaul of the ship at the naval shipyard in Malta in November. Ready for action again in December, the destroyer moved to Freetown around the turn of the year .

In the first half of 1940 the Decoy was used as an escort for troop transports in the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea . Returning, the destroyer was ordered to a large-scale anti - submarine operation in the eastern Mediterranean, in which almost all operational destroyers of the British Mediterranean fleet were involved.

In the following month the destroyer took part in the naval battle at Punta Stilo ; then he was used in the Aegean . During the attack on Taranto on the night of November 12, 1940, the Decoy belonged to the security of the main unit of the Mediterranean Fleet around the aircraft carrier Illustrious of the Royal Navy and received a bomb hit on the march back.

In early 1941, took the destroyer, now as part of the 10th Destroyer Flotilla, as an escort at one of Malta - convoys part. During the evacuation of mainland Greece in April 1941 ( Operation Demon ) and, a month later, the airborne battle over Crete , the ship was in constant use. The Decoy was damaged by a bomb hit off Crete on May 29, 1941 , but the ship was already back in action during the occupation of Syria the following month .

Towards the end of the year, the destroyer was involved in the First Sea Battle in the Gulf of Syrte . During a bombing raid on the port of Valletta on February 12, 1942, he was again damaged when the nearby destroyer Maori exploded after a direct hit.
In March 1942, the ship was assigned to the British Eastern Fleet in Trincomalee , Ceylon . During the Japanese attack in the Indian Ocean , it was used as cover for Group 2, which consisted of the slower units in the fleet. In September 1942 the Decoy returned to Great Britain via South Africa and Freetown for the first time since 1934, where it was converted into an escort ship at Palmers am Tyne from November .

As Kootenay under the Canadian flag

In mid-April 1943, the destroyer was handed over to the Royal Canadian Navy , which renamed it HMCS Kootenay (H75) . It was now used to secure North Atlantic convoys.

In the summer of 1944, the focus of operations was then in the English Channel and the Biscay , where the destroyer hunted German submarines and outpost boats . On July 7, 1944, the destroyer HMCS Ottawa and the corvette HMS Statice succeeded in sinking the German submarine U 678 southwest of Brighton . Two more sinks followed on August 18 and 20, when, in cooperation with the destroyers HMCS Ottawa and HMCS Chaudiere, the submarines U 621 and U 984 were sunk northwest of La Rochelle and west of Brest, respectively.

From the end of the year to the end of the war, HMCS Kootenay was deployed in Canadian waters. The ship was then decommissioned in October 1945 and scrapped three months later.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Service History HMS Decoy-D class destroyer
  2. ↑ ROYAL NAVY SHIPS, September 1939

literature

  • John English: Amazon to Ivanhoe: British Standard Destroyers of the 1930s. World Ship Society, Kendal (1993), ISBN 0-905617-64-9 .
  • 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