HMS Exmoor (L61)
 The Type I hunt destroyer Quantock
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The HMS Exmoor (L61) was a destroyer Type I of Hunt class of the British Royal Navy , who in World War II was used. She was lost on February 25, 1941 as the first ship of the class after a torpedo hit by a German speedboat.
History of the ship
The later Exmoor was part of the first order for new destroyer escorts of the Hunt class. In March / April 1939, 20 ships of the new type were ordered from British shipyards. The planning provided for three 4-inch twin guns (102 mm) as the main armament for these ships . However, the load-bearing capacity of the hull of the first series was too low to carry it due to an incorrect calculation. So the twenty ships as Type I received only two double guns as bow and stern armament. However, the 2-pounder Flakvierling (40 mm) was placed on the rear deckhouse instead of the non-installed third 102-mm gun, where the weapon intended for close-range air defense had an excellent fire range.
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The order for the new construction, as is more common for destroyers, went to the Parsons Marine Steam Turbines Company , which commissioned the construction of the hull to the neighboring High Walker shipyard at Vickers-Armstrongs , where on June 8, 1939 the keel-laying of two Hunt destroyers took place. On this day, the keel-laying of their orders took place mostly at the other shipyards involved in the construction program. Four weeks after her sister ship Eglinton , the Exmoor was launched on January 25, 1940. Her name had been used by a mine sweeper during the First World War .
War missions
As is usually the case with all destroyers that came into service during the Second World War , the Exmoor also came to the Home Fleet after passing all tests to bring the crew to Scapa Flow , where they did escort duties. At the end of January 1941, the ship then came to the 16th Destroyer Flotilla in Harwich to be used to secure convoys on the British east coast.
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On the night of February 25, 1941 , the destroyer commanded by Lieutenant RT Lampard was escorting coastal convoy FN-417 when it was attacked by German speedboats about 12 nautical miles northeast of Lowestoft , England . The Exmoor received a torpedo hit aft by the Schnellboot S 30 (Oblt.zS Klaus Feldt ) and sank almost immediately after a severe explosion. 104 crew members, including the commander, died. Over 40 castaways were rescued by the escort boat Shearwater and a trawler.
Some British sources also believe that the overflow of a British mine was the cause of the sinking. The Germans claimed the sinking by an S-boat and awarded the commandant Feldt with the knight's cross.
The protected wreck
The wreck lies at the position coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 16 ″ N , 2 ° 5 ′ 0 ″ E at a depth of 33 m. The destroyer is largely intact, with the exception of a small part of the hull that is about 30 m away from the wreck site. He is standing upright on the bottom with a marked lean to port. With the 4 inch guns still in their positions, the prop screws have been removed. Since 2006, the Exmoor wreck has been protected as a "Protected Place" by the " Protection of Military Remains Act " of 1986. It may be viewed from the outside by divers, but entering, collecting souvenirs or performing salvage work is prohibited.
Renewed use of the name
As early as October 18, 1941, there was another Hunt destroyer with this name, the HMS Exmoor (L08) . Launched at Swan Hunter on March 12, 1941, the Hunt II type Burton had been renamed during equipment in Exmoor in June 1941 in honor of the lost ship. The second Exmoor was mainly used in the Mediterranean during the war.
In June 1954 the second Exmoor came into service with the Danish Navy as the frigate Valdemar Sejr (F343) . Decommissioned in October 1962, it was sold for demolition in Denmark in October 1966.
literature
- Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronicle of the naval war 1939-1945. Manfred Pawlak, Herrsching 1968, ISBN 3-88199-0097 .
Web links
Footnotes
- ^ Rohwer: Chronicle of the naval war. P. 105.