HMS Faulknor (H62)
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HMS Faulknor (H62) was the flotilla commander built for the F-class destroyers of the British Royal Navy . During the Second World War , the ship was awarded the Battle Honors "Atlantic 1939-43", "Norway 1940", "Spartivento 1940", " Malta Convoys 1941 ", "Arctic 1942-43", " Sicily 1943 ", " Salerno 1943 ", "Aegean 1943", "Mediterranean 1943–44", " Anzio 1944 " and " Normandy 1944 " were awarded.
After the end of the war he was referred to as "the hardest worked destroyer of the fleet" (Eng .: "the most used destroyer of the fleet"). The ship was decommissioned on July 25, 1945 in Dartmouth . In January 1946, the Faulknor was sold for demolition, which took place in Milford Haven from April .
History of the ship
The ship was appointed in 1933 as a flotilla commander of the F-class approved in the naval budget in 1932. After laying the keel with hull number 1640 at Yarrow in Glasgow on July 31, 1933, the ship was launched on June 12, 1934. It entered service on May 24, 1935 as the seventh F-class ship. The Faulknor was a replica of the Flotilla Leader Exmouth . With these ships, the Royal Navy returned to the original design of the larger guide boats with five main artillery guns. The new ships, however, no longer had the lower maneuverability that the Codrington of the A-class had criticized. The length of both ships was 343 ft and the greatest width 33.75 ft. The standard displacement of the Faulknor was given as 1475 ts and with full equipment she displaced long tons in 2010. The fuel supply was increased to 471 t and gave the ships a greater range. The propulsion system with the slightly increased power of the flotilla leaders of 38,000 hp was intended to give the ships a maximum speed of 36 knots , as with the flotilla boats . The Faulknor reached 36.53 kn in its acceptance tests and was one of the units that exceeded the contract speed.
The Faulknor was the third ship in the Navy to bear the name of the British naval officer family. First in 1914 the destroyer Almirante Simpson of the Almirante Lynch class under construction for the Chilean Navy at White was given this name when it was taken over by the Royal Navy. In 1920 this ship was sold to Chile with its sister ships that were still in existence. As the Almirante Riveros , this ship remained in service with the Chilean fleet until 1933.
From 1925 to 1928, a steamer that was bought in China and used as a river gunboat was again called Faulknor .
Mission history
Together with the associated destroyers, Faulknor initially formed the "6th Destroyer Flotilla" at Home Fleet . The first public appearances of the destroyer leader were the presence at the fleet show on the occasion of the silver jubilee of George V on July 16, 1935 on the Spithead and a subsequent official visit to the Channel Islands by the British heir apparent Edward . The 6th Flotilla moved to Gibraltar from September 1935 to April 1936 because of the Abyssinia crisis between Great Britain and Italy . The Faulknor followed in October due to defects identified during the first tests and their removal at the naval shipyard in Portsmouth and only ran as far as Alexandria . The Spanish civil war then led to the participation of the flotilla in the so-called neutrality patrols off the southern Spanish coast from January 1936 and from April with part of the flotilla in front of the Spanish ports on the Bay of Biscay . After a routine overhaul, the ship then served again to support the heavy units of the Home Fleet. In the first quarter of 1937 another deployment followed in the Bay of Biscay, where the Faulknor in Bilbao experienced a German air raid for the first time. The collision during the renewed march to Gibraltar with a British freighter on August 4, 1937 near Ushant led to the failure of the ship for the rest of the year. The crew of the Faulknor was then used to manned the flotilla leader Keith until the end of November 1937.
In the first quarter of 1938 the repaired ship was back in the Mediterranean for training with French units, and then used again with the Home Fleet. She was involved in visits to Ostend and Kristiansund . In May 1939, the flotilla was renamed the "8th Destroyer Flotilla" when the flotillas of the tribal destroyers , which had previously been numbered separately , were classified in the numbering system.
War missions
After the start of the war, the ship with the flotilla remained with the Home Fleet , but was repeatedly used for submarine hunts together with the destroyers . During one of these searches he succeeded, together with Firedrake and Foxhound , on September 14, 1939 as the first German submarine to sink U 39 northwest of Ireland after a failed attack on Ark Royal in World War II . The crew of the submarine could be saved. A few days later, together with Fortune , Fearless and Forester, the German submarine U 27 was sunk near the Hebrides , from whose crew the Faulknor rescued 20 men.
After he had led troop convoys across the Atlantic in the meantime , the flotilla leader was then used in 1940 in the attempted defense against the German landing in Norway ( Operation Weser Exercise ) to cover ships of the Home Fleet. The ship was to be used at the beginning of April for the planned landing of the Allies in Norway, which the Germans anticipated with their attack on Norway. After the two attacks by the Royal Navy on the German destroyers in Narvik, the flotilla chief of the 8th Flotilla led the destroyers in the vicinity to prevent German support for the units landed there at sea. She also attacked German positions along with other destroyers with her artillery. In addition to the ships of the 8th Flotilla, other units were also used, including Polish destroyers. They also transported Allied troops into positions to push the German units cut off in Narvik from the sea and possible landing sites. Some of the destroyers were attacked by the air force during their missions. On May 4, a recessed He-111 bomber of KG 100 in Rombakken Fjord Polish Grom . The coming to the aid Faulknor could save 52 survivors, but also harbored 60 deaths. The following day the ship ran aground and damaged its ASDIC system . Hardly usable as a defense against submarines, the ship went back to Great Britain with Amazon , Imogen and Whirlwind as escort for empty troop carriers, where it was repaired from mid-May to mid-June. Her rear torpedo tube set was replaced by a 76 mm anti-aircraft gun.
Assignments with the Force H
After the end of operations in Norway, the Admiralty assigned the 8th Flotilla with Faulknor and the destroyers Fearless , Foxhound , Foresight and Forester, as well as Escapade and Escort to the newly formed Force H , which was stationed in Gibraltar . The first task of the new unit was the neutralization of the French navy in Mers-el-Kébir ( Operation Catapult on July 3). A few days later, the sea battle at Punta Stilo followed , in which the Faulknor was involved with Forester , Foresight , Foxhound , Fearless and Escort . In September 1940 the Faulknor took part with the destroyers Foresight , Forester , Fortune , Fury and Greyhound in the failed attempt to occupy Dakar ( Operation Menace ). Then at the beginning of October, French Cameroon was occupied by Free French and British troops. A British brigade was transported on the Westernland from Freetown to Duala , which was secured by the heavy cruiser Devonshire and the destroyers Faulknor , Foresight , Fury and Escapade . The free French Avisos Savorgnan de Brazza (1969 t), Commandant Dominé and Commandant Duboc (minesweeper, 630 t) also belonged to the fleet association . On October 9, 1940, General de Gaulle went ashore from the minesweeper Commandant Duboc in Duala and hoisted the free French flag on French territory for the first time.
In the following months, the flotilla leader was repeatedly in action with the Force H in the Mediterranean and took part in the sea battle at Cape Spartivento on November 27, 1940 . She secured the heavy British units Ramillies and Renown with eight other destroyers - including Firedrake , Forester and Fury . The British destroyers had no active part in the short, mostly long-range battle. Faulknor then served as an escort for aircraft carriers , from which fighter planes were flown to Malta , and for convoys , which mostly transported war material for the British troops in North Africa and supplies for Malta. The ship was also used as a fast mine sweeper. From mid-January to mid-March 1941, the ship was seconded to escort security in the mid-Atlantic with a base in Freetown, where other F-class units were also used at times. The strengthening of the security of convoys in this sea area was a result of the recent activities of the German surface ships and a relocation of the hunting areas of the submarines.
With the Force H, the Faulknor was also in the Atlantic with Forester , Foresight , Foxhound and Fury at the end of May 1941, when the Bismarck made the breakthrough through the Denmark Strait with the Prinz Eugen . When Renown , Ark Royal and Sheffield pushed north to join the search for the Bismark , the destroyers stayed behind because they did not have adequate fuel. In a subsequent advance into the Atlantic Ocean in the course of the search for German suppliers , Faulknor succeeded together with Foxhound , Forester , Foresight and Fearless on June 18, 1941, the German submarine U 138 west of Cape Trafalgar . A week later, the German blockade breaker Alstertor sank himself with the Fury (for Foresight ) when the destroyer group approached . In the following months, deployments of the type described in the Mediterranean and escorts to Great Britain followed.
From August 20th, the Faulknor was completely overhauled in Southampton. Damage to the ship's turbines was attributed to sabotage. The cause was seen in the lack of operational readiness of the overworked crew. During the repair, two more FlaMG quadruplets were installed on the destroyer leader and the anti-submarine armament was reinforced.
Renewed assignments with the Home Fleet
At the end of the year, the ship, now subordinate to the Home Fleet, was used for a special task. After the loss of the British heavy units in Southeast Asia by the Japanese, the British Prime Minister Churchill wanted to discuss the continuation of the war with the American government with his senior military. On December 13, 1941, Churchill went on a trip to the USA before Greenock on board the new battleship Duke of York . He was accompanied by the First Sea Lord , Admiral of the Fleet Sir Dudley Pound , Chief of the British General Staff, Field Marshal Sir John Dill , Chief of Air Force Staff , Air Chief Marshal Sir Charles Portal , and the American Special Envoy to Europe, Averell Harriman . Because of extremely bad weather in the North Atlantic, a southern route near the Azores was chosen for the crossing, which crossed the route of the German submarines into the Atlantic. Faulknor , Foresight and the Tribal destroyer Matabele were assigned to secure the battleship . The destroyers could not follow the speed of the battleship in the difficult weather, which therefore had to reduce it several times in order not to lose its safety. At times the foresight had to turn completely and suffered damage to the rudder. On the evening of the 17th the destroyers were finally released near the Azores. As a replacement, Highlander , Harvester and Lightning came freshly refueled from Ponta Delgada to the battleship, but they could not follow him even in persistent bad weather and were also released from their duties on the 20th. The Duke of York finally reached the US Navy base in Norfolk with her important passengers on December 22, 1941 , accompanied by American destroyers. Churchill and his entourage traveled to Washington from there to attend the Arcadia Conference . The Faulknor secured the rudder repair of the Foresight , stayed 24 hours in Ponta Delgada and then ran back to Scapa Flow until December 23rd .
During 1942, the Faulknor was used to secure northern sea convoys , through which the Soviet Union was supplied with war material. They were used among other things with the combined convoy PQ 9 u. 10 with only ten cargo ships that ran from Iceland to Murmansk from February 1st to 10th and where the cruiser Nigeria as well as Faulknor and Intrepid formed the close cover group from 5th to 8th. During the return of eight ships to QP 7 , the two destroyers ran from 13 to 15 February as security in the escort together with the mine sweepers Britomart and Sharpshooter of the Halcyon class . On the 15th the convoy was disbanded and all ships reached Iceland on February 22nd. On March 1, 1942, the convoys PQ 12 and QP 7 went to sea in Iceland and Murmansk, respectively. The Faulknor belonged to the cover group standing in the North Sea with two battleships, a cruiser and six destroyers (including Fury ). The German aerial reconnaissance discovered PQ 12 on March 5 and on the 6th the Tirpitz went to sea with four destroyers from Trondheim to intercept the convoy. Since the British had deciphered parts of the German radio traffic, they sent further parts of the Home Fleet - including the aircraft carrier Victorious - into the North Sea, for whose security the Faulknor was parked. Mutual air strikes were unsuccessful. The German surface units did not find the convoys and broke off their advance after the sinking of a straggler from QP 7. The British expected the Tirpitz to march back to Trondheim immediately and, with Faulknor , Fury , Intrepid , Icarus , Bedouin , Eskimo , Tartar and Punjabi, sent eight of their twelve destroyers to a position near Bodø , where they launched the German battleship on the night of March 12th should attack. The plan failed because the Tirpitz remained in Narvik for another day before starting the march back. The British destroyers were able to withdraw undetected.
The Faulknor was deployed in the North Sea when, on the night of April 1, 1942, she was supposed to pick up ten Norwegian freighters together with Escapade , Eskimo , Wallace , Vanity and Valorous , which tried to break out from Gothenburg through Kattegat and Skagerrak to Great Britain. Only the tankers BP Newton (10,324 BRT) and Lind (461 BRT) escaped the Germans, who had been warned by the decryption of the radio communication ; six ships were sunk by the Germans, ran into a mine or sank themselves to avoid being captured, including this one Whaling ship Skytteren (12,358 GRT). Two ships broke off the attempt to escape and returned to the Swedish port.
In the case of the convoy PQ 14 and the return flight QP 10 as well as convoy PQ 15 and QP 11 / QP 12 in April, PQ 16 in May and PQ 17 in June 1942, the Faulknor was part of the securing of the long-range cover group against submarines and not in the fighting for the Escorts involved. In July 1942, the ship was overhauled in Hull and gave up its rear torpedo tube set and the raised stern gun, on whose position a 76 mm anti-aircraft gun was installed. For this purpose, the ship was equipped with radar devices and a Huff-Duff system.
In September 1942 the next escort mission took place at PQ 18 , which was protected by an escort carrier ( Avenger ) by a continuous security group and two escort groups accompanying the convoy. 18 fleet destroyers - including Faulknor and Fury - were in action directly on and around the convoy . During this mission the Faulknor was able to sink the U 88 near the Bear Island on September 12, 1942 . In November this was followed by missions on QP 15 , in December on JW 51A and in early 1943 further missions on convoy trains RA 51 , JW 52 , JW 53 and RA 53 . After his return to his home waters in the spring of 1943, the destroyer leader was briefly used to secure Atlantic convoys with the "4th Escort Group".
Again use in the Mediterranean
In mid-June 1942 the Faulknor moved with other units of the Home Fleet to the Mediterranean to take part in the Allied landing in Sicily ( Operation Husky ). It belonged initially to the naval association, which should prevent the intervention of units of the Italian Navy in the Ionian Sea . From the second week after the landing, the ship was used to provide artillery support to the troops that had landed. The missions took place individually and together with the battleships Warspite and Valiant , the cruisers Orion and Mauritius or the monitors Abercrombie , Erebus and Roberts . Similar missions followed until the landing near Salerno ( Operation Avalanche ) on September 9, 1943.
Italy had already signed an armistice with the Allies on September 3rd and withdrew from the war on September 8th. From September 10th, the Faulknor accompanied the destroyers Fury , Echo , Intrepid , Raider , the Greek Vasilissa Olga and the French Le Terrible as well as the battleships Warspite and Valiant a part of the Italian internment that was in Allied internment according to the armistice conditions from La Spezia and Genoa Fleet with the battleships Italia and Vittorio Veneto , the five light cruisers Eugenio di Savoia , Duca d'Aosta , Montecuccoli , Duca degli Abruzzi , Garibaldi and the five destroyers Velite, Legionario, Artigliere , Grecale and Oriani to Malta. The Italian association had lost the battleship Roma in a German air raid and left behind a reconnaissance cruiser and three destroyers to rescue the castaways, who then went to the Balearic Islands to be interned in Spain.
On September 16, 1943 six destroyers of the 8th British destroyer flotilla ( Faulknor, Echo, Intrepid, Eclipse, Raider and the Greek Vasilissa Olga ) moved to Alexandria as escorts for the interned Italian ships and were assigned to support the British campaign in the Dodecanese , through which the British wanted to take over the islands of the Italian Dodecanese since 1912 . At times the islands of Kos , Kalymnos , Samos , Leros , Symi and Astypalea could be occupied. At the same time, the Germans tried to win over the areas previously Italian or occupied by the Italians. On 17./18. September Faulknor , Eclipse and Vasilissa Olga attacked a German convoy for the first time and sank two freighters. On October 7, the British submarine Unruly spotted a German convoy. It scored artillery hits on two ships and reported the position of the escort. A little later the escort was made by the cruisers Penelope and Sirius and the destroyers Faulknor and Fury at the northeast tip of Stampalia and shot down. The expiring British unit was attacked in Scarpanto-Strasse by Ju 87 of II./ StG.3 and Ju 88 of LG.1 and II./ KG.51 and Penelope was damaged by bomb hits. On 15./16. October the attempt of the cruiser Phoebe with Faulknor and Fury to provide another convoy failed due to German air raids. On the night of 10./11. November Faulknor shelled German positions from Kos. In the nights of 12./13. and 13./14.11. Faulknor, together with the destroyer escorts Beaufort and the Greek Pindos, were unsuccessful in looking for German transport ships. The group fired at targets on Leros twice and then had to expire due to lack of fuel. From the 15th, the Faulknor was then used to evacuate the last allied troops in the Dodecanese.
Until April 1944, the ship was still in service in the Mediterranean and supported the advance of the Allied troops on the Adriatic Sea and in the Anzio area .
Last uses
During the landing in Normandy ( Operation Neptune ), the flotilla leader initially provided artillery support for the Canadian troops who landed on Juno Beach . The support association (Force E) for "Juno" consisted of the cruisers Belfast and Diadem , the destroyers of the "27. Flotilla "with Kempenfelt , Venus , Vigilant as well as the Canadian Algonquin and Sioux and the" 8. Flotilla ”with the Faulknor and Fury and the Hunt destroyers Stevenstone , Bleasdale as well as the Norwegian Glaisdale and the French La Combattante . After the first few days, the Faulknor was also used in other sections.
At the end of the war she took part in the liberation of the Channel Islands . On May 17, the destroyer accompanied six German minesweepers and two outpost boats , which had surrendered there, to Great Britain with the frigate Narborough . In early 1946 the Faulknor was removed from the list of active ships and then scrapped a few months later .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Service History HMS Faulknor
- ^ Royal Navy Organization 1919-1939.
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. 17.– 28.6.1940 North Atlantic / Gibraltar
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. July 6-11, 1940 Mediterranean Sea
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. September 1 - 13, 1940 North and Central Atlantic, September 23 - 25, 1940 Central Atlantic
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. October 2–9, 1940 Mid-Atlantic / Cameroon
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. 3–25 June 1941 Atlantic
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. February 1–10, 1942 Northern Sea
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. February 12-22, 1942 Northern Sea
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. 1.– 13.3.1942 Northern Sea, operations against the Allied convoys PQ.12 and QP.8 .
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. March 31 - April 1, 1942 Norway / North Sea .
literature
- MJ Whitley: Destroyers of World War Two. Arms and Armor Press, London 1988, ISBN 0-85368-910-5 .
- Peter Smith: Destroyer Leader HMS Faulknor. Pen & Sword Books, London 2005, ISBN 1-84415-121-2 .
Web links
- Service History HMS Faulknor (H62) F-class Flotilla Leader on naval-history.net
- HMS Faulknor (H62) on uboat.net
- Chronicle of naval warfare 1939–1945
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 †