HMS Encounter (H10)
 The Encounter in July 1938
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HMS Encounter (H10) was a destroyer of the E-Class of the British Royal Navy . During the Second World War , the ship was awarded the Battle Honors “Atlantic 1939”, “Norway 1940”, “Spartivento 1940”, “Lybia 1941”, “ Malta Convoys 1941 ” and “Mediterranean 1941”.
On March 1, 1942, the destroyer was sunk in the Sunda Strait by the Japanese heavy cruisers Ashigara and Myōkō .
History of the ship
On November 1, 1932, the eight destroyers and the flotilla leader of the E-class were ordered. The order for the Encounter and its sister ship Electra went to the Hawthorn Leslie & Co. shipyard in Hebburn near Newcastle upon Tyne , which had already completed four A-class and B-class destroyers . The keel laying of the two newbuildings with hull numbers 587 ( Electra ) / 588 took place on March 15, 1933. The Encounter was launched on March 29, 1934 six weeks after the Electra as the fifth ship of its class. She was the fifth ship in the Royal Navy, bearing the name Encounter since 1805. The last bearer of the name was a Challenger-class cruiser, which bore this name from 1902 to 1923 and had been in Australian service since 1912. On November 2, 1934, the new Encounter entered service with the Royal Navy, which took over all nine units of the class between August 30 and November 29, 1934.
Mission history
Together with her sister ships, the Encounter formed the 5th Destroyer Flotilla assigned to the Home Fleet . In this flotilla, previously run by the Wallace , the new class replaced destroyers of the V and W classes from autumn 1934 . Encounter was one of the units of the flotilla that took part in the Home Fleet voyage and exercises in the Caribbean from January to March 1935. On June 18, 1935, the destroyer collided with its sister ship Escapade , which suffered only minor damage, off Portland and was then immediately repaired in Devonport Dockyard until July 8. In September 1935 the “5th Destroyer Flotilla” moved to the eastern Mediterranean due to the Abyssinia crisis and returned home in April 1936. During this mission, the Encounter collided again on November 19, 1935 during a night exercise off Alexandria with a sister ship, the Echo , and had to be repaired again from November 29, 1935 to February 8, 1936 in Malta. In March 1936 the destroyer returned home with the ships of the flotilla. From January to March 1937, the Encounter was then used in the Bay of Biscay to enforce the decisions of the Committee for Non-Interference in the Affairs of Spain during the ongoing Spanish Civil War . On September 26, 1938, the bow of the destroyer was severely damaged in another collision in the North Sea. The necessary repairs were carried out this time at the Tyne shipyard by the end of October. In the first quarter of 1939 the destroyer was then used again for neutrality patrols based in Gibraltar by the Mediterranean Fleet .
The ship began an overhaul on July 15, 1939, which was canceled due to rising political tensions in Europe. With a crew consisting largely of reservists, the destroyer was reactivated in order to join the newly established "12th Destroyer Flotilla" when the war broke out in September, as new K-class destroyers in the 5th flotilla replaced the older E-class units .
First war missions
HMS Encounter was first used with other units of the class in the area of the south-west access routes to the British Isles to secure the merchant ships and to hunt down German submarines. The ship was temporarily stationed in Milford Haven and remained with the Western Approaches Command until the end of the year, before moving to the Home Fleet in Scapa Flow. There the destroyer was used to secure trade with Norway and from April 1940 to secure heavy units of the Home Fleet when attempting to repel the German invasion of Norway ( Operation Weser Exercise ).
Use with the Force H
Following this operation, the ship was then to Gibraltar to Force H laid. For more than a year it was mainly deployed in the Mediterranean , apart from occasional escort duties on the Gibraltar- Great Britain route. At the beginning of August 1940 it secured the old aircraft carrier Argus with the destroyers Gallant , Greyhound and Hotspur , from which twelve hurricane fighters took off to reinforce Malta in the southwest of Sardinia . On November 6, the Encounter was again involved in a collision when, while securing the Force H, it accidentally rammed the British submarine Utmost west of Gibraltar. The destroyer Forester secured the two damaged ships on the march to Gibraltar for repairs.
Reconditioned, the Encounter was part of the safety shield of Force H in the sea battle at Cape Teulada (also Cape Spartivento) south of Sardinia on November 27, 1940 with Faulknor , Firedrake , Forester , Fury , Duncan , Wishart , Kelvin and Jaguar .
At the beginning of February 1941, the destroyer in Force H took part in the bombardment of Genoa by their heavy units and an attack with carrier aircraft of the Ark Royal on La Spezia and Livorno (Operation Grog).
Then the destroyer moved with the Isis around South Africa to Aden and temporarily secured troop transports on the way. After a brief assignment there, the Encounter moved on to the Mediterranean Fleet in Alexandria. At times in the association of this fleet, the destroyer secured a voyage of the fast supplier Breconshire to Malta in mid-April 1941 . A short overhaul of the destroyer was supposed to take place there, which was considerably delayed by bomb hits in the shipyard there on April 30 and May 16, 1941. It was not until the end of July that the ship was ready for use to move to Gibraltar for completion. She left Malta with a convoy of six empty merchant ships, five of which reached Gibraltar with the destroyer after heavy air strikes. The destroyer remained in service with the Force H. Until August, other missions with the Force H took place mostly in support of Malta.
In September 1941 the Encounter secured convoys going to Great Britain and defended them against attacking Italian submarines. The destroyer then moved to the eastern Mediterranean and was used to secure transports to Tobruk.
On the night of October 26th, she accompanied Hero and Hotspur to the minelayer Latona , which was used as a fast transporter and which was badly hit by Ju 87 Stukas of I. / StG.1 off Bardia and sank . Hero and Encounter were able to walk alongside the mine layer and take over a large part of the crew and the embarked troops. The Hero , Encounter and Hotspur , damaged by a close hit , managed to escape despite the air raids.
Use in the Far East
In view of the threat of war in the Far East , the Encounter was moved to Singapore in October, along with other ships, including the battle cruiser Repulse , where the ships arrived in early December. The Encounter finally came to the shipyard in order to remove any remaining work that had long been necessary and the damage that had occurred in the meantime and was not available for the advance of the heavy British units against the Japanese landing on Malaya.
After the sinking of the battleship Prince of Wales and the battle cruiser Repulse ( Force Z ) by Japanese aircraft on December 10, 1941 off Malaya , the destroyer was initially used in convoy escort service around Singapore and the islands of Indonesia, but was then assigned to ABDACOM .
In the battle of the Java Sea on 27./28. In February 1942, the ship was part of the Allied force that was supposed to prevent a landing on Java . It remained undamaged in the battles that day. When Encounter was supposed to cover the withdrawal of the damaged heavy cruiser HMS Exeter the following day together with an American destroyer , she was hit so badly in the Sunda Strait by the guns of the Japanese heavy cruisers Ashigara and Myōkō that the ship had to be scuttled by its crew.
wreck
The Encounter wreck lay in the Java Sea for decades, but the wreck has now disappeared. It may have been illegally demolished by looters.
Individual evidence
- ↑ 5th Destroyer Flotilla
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War , August 1-9, 1940 Mediterranean
- ↑ a b c d e f HMS ENCOUNTER (H 10) - E-class Destroyer, service history
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War, February 6-11, 1941 Mediterranean
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War , September 2 - 12, 1941 North Atlantic
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War , October 12-26, 1941 Mediterranean
- ↑ Who saw this ship? In: sueddeutsche.de. November 21, 2016, accessed June 16, 2018 .
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 .
- MJ Whitley: Destroyers of World War Two. Arms and Armor Press, London 1988 ISBN 0-85368-910-5
Web links
- Chronicle of naval warfare 1939–1945
- Service history HMS Encounter (H10)
- HMS Encounter (H 10)
- Encounter 1934
- HMS Encounter (H10)
- British second world was shipwrecks in Java Sea destroyed by illegal scavenging
- Diving »Indonesia - Java Sea (October 2009)» HMS Encounter
HMS Exmouth (Flotilla Leader ) †
Echo / Navarion 
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Eclipse † |
Electra † |
Encounter † |
Escapade |
Escort † |
Esk |
Express / Gatineau .svg){kind=small}
HMS Faulknor (Flotilla Leader)
Fame / Generalissimo 
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Fearless † |
Firedrake † |
Foresight † |
Forester |
Fortune / Saskatchewan |
Foxhound / Qu'Appelle |
Fury †