HMS Fleetwood
 The Fleetwood 1936
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||
HMS Fleetwood (L47) was a Grimsby-class sloop of the Royal Navy . She was built at the Naval Shipyard in Devonport as the last ship of the class. It differed from its sister ships by the installation of two 102 mm L / 45 Mk.XIX twin guns instead of the 120 mm Mk.IX guns typical of the Grimsby class . The multi-purpose twin gun caliber 102 mm were the standard main armament of the following British sloops and the escort destroyer of the Hunt class .
The Fleetwood was awarded the Battle Honors “Norway 1940”, “Atlantic 1940–44”, “North Africa 1942–43”, “Mediterranean 1944” and “English Channel 1945”. From 1946 to 1959 she served unarmed as a radar training ship.
History of the ship
On March 1, 1935, the Royal Navy last ordered two more sloops of the Grimsby class at Devonport Dockyard . In contrast to the previously ordered six ships of the class, the new ships were to receive a modified main armament that could also be used for air defense. The 120 mm Mk.IX cannons typical of British ships of the class were dispensed with. The first-built Aberdeen of the new order received 102 mm Mk.V single guns .
The keel of the second ship to be reordered took place on August 14, 1935, and was launched on March 24, 1936. It was the Navy’s first new building to be named the northern English port city of Fleetwood . As a trial, the new sloop was to be equipped with a new 102 mm twin gun that could be used for both anti-sea and air target combat. The Admiralty wanted to equip all escort vehicles with this new weapon. On November 19, 1936, the Fleetwood was taken over into service with the Royal Navy with a 102 mm twin gun in the front and stern instead of the 120 mm gun.
Mission history
HMS Fleetwood (L47) was extensively tested their service in the home in the first year and then in the November 1937 Aden stationed Red Sea Division of the East Indies Station allocated. The tests with the new armament of the Fleetwood were so satisfactory that in 1939 four older ships of the Grimsby class were to be converted accordingly. The urgent need for escort ships at the beginning of the war and the great need for this 102 mm weapon only allowed Londonderry and Lowestoft to convert . After the outbreak of the Second World War, the Fleetwood moved to the Mediterranean Fleet to take on escort duties there. Her good air defense skills already led to her being transferred back home in October, where she arrived in Portland on the 11th . Until April 1940, the sloop was used on the British east coast to secure convoy.
On April 21, the sloop of the Home Fleet was assigned to reinforce its air defense capabilities off the Norwegian coast during the planned Allied landings. Together with the more modern sloop Pelikan she moved across the North Sea to serve as an anti-aircraft battery in Åndalsnes , while Pelikan ran to Namsos . On the 22nd, the Pelikan was badly hit in the stern in a German bombing raid before it even reached its destination. The Fleetwod was sent to help and dragged the sloop, which was no longer ready for use, to Lerwick. On the 28th she finally arrived in Åndalsnes and replaced the Black Swan there. After surviving heavy German air raids on the 29th, it was replaced by the Sloop Auckland on the 30th and ran back to Great Britain with 340 Allied personnel when the port was cleared. Arrived there on May 1st, she returned to the Norwegian coast on May 2nd after unloading her passengers and replenishing her ammunition stocks.
On 11/12 May the Fleetwood then ran with the cruiser Enterprise , Cairo , the destroyer Hesperus and a transport to Mo i Rana to land a unit of the Scots Guards , which should stop the German advance northwards. During the hours of unloading, Cairo and Fleetwood defend the landing site against German air raids and use up their ammunition almost entirely. On the 25th, the Fleetwood secured the tug with the severely damaged Eskimo from Norway to Great Britain with the destroyers Amazon and Volunteer . On June 1, 1940, the sloop finally left Norwegian waters during the evacuation of Harstad.
The ship was then reassigned security duties on the British east coast. From February 1941 there were then deployments with the Western Approaches Command. Until the end of the war, the sloop was mostly used to secure convoy trains on the Freetown - UK route in various escort groups and was stationed at home. Exceptions were a two-month deployment off Newfoundland in the summer of 1941 and the deployment during Operation Torch from November 1942 to February 1943 in the western Mediterranean.
From October 1943 the Fleetwood was stationed with the "41st Escort Group" in Gibraltar and from April to December 1944 secured convoys that passed the Mediterranean.
During the dry docking and necessary repairs, the lightweight anti-aircraft armament was by incorporation of Oerlikon - machine guns improved, and the U-submarine capability through a greater depth charge supply and installation of a hedgehog Salve thrower strengthened in July 1943rd There were also improvements to the sensors. Major repairs were caused by two collisions:
on June 2, 1942, the Fleetwood collided with a tanker during convoy OS 30 , the necessary repairs in Liverpool were used for a comprehensive modernization and in September 1942 the sloop was fully operational again.
On November 17, 1943, she collided with a US escort ship and suffered further damage when it was brought to Gibraltar. The severe damage to the hull was repaired at the marine shipyard in Gibraltar and the ship was then ready for use again in April 1944.
During her work in the convoy security, the sloop was involved in the sinking of two submarines. On May 11, 1943, a Halifax of the RAF Squadron 58 discovered, attacked and further damaged the damaged U 528 on its way back to the base . The Fleetwood and the Corvette Mignonette were dispatched by convoy OS 47 , which sank the submarine with depth charges.
On 1st / 2nd November 1943 the second involvement in the sinking of a submarine followed. U 340 , which was to be transferred to the Mediterranean, was discovered and damaged west of Gibraltar by a Wellington of RAF Squadron 179 . The submarine suffered further damage from attacks by the destroyers Active and Witherington . Shortly before Gibraltar, Fleetwood attacked U 340 again. The German commander saw no chance of breaking into the Mediterranean with his damaged boat and sank it under the protection of Spanish fishermen, who took the submarine crew on board. This was observed on the Fleetwood ; their commander had the submarine crew fetched from the neutral fishing boat and 48 men captured.
In December 1944, the Fleetwood returned to Portsmouth and, like some of her sister ships, was used in the English Channel in the last months of the war in Europe . They also secured the deployment of new mine barriers in the canal against German submarines. In June 1945 the sloop was decommissioned.
Post-war use
As early as February 1946, the Sloop was then used as a radar training ship in Portsmouth. The ship was rebuilt several times for this task. It lost its armament and the substructures for the elevated weapon positions were converted into deckhouses with training areas. The sloop was also given a new identifier with F47 . The first tasks of the training ship included demonstrations with the first developments of radar devices for civil use. The Fleetwood was used as a training ship until 1958, then finally decommissioned and canceled in Gateshead from October 1959 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ British 4 "/ 45 (10.2 cm) QF HA Marks XVI, XVII, XVIII and XXI
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Service History HMS Fleetwood (L47) -Grimsby-class Sloop
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. April 21-25, 1940, Norway
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. May 10-15, 1940, Norway
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. May 11, 1943, North Atlantic
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. 1. – 2.11.1943, North Atlantic
- ↑ Fleetwood 1948
- ↑ picture of the Fleetwood (F47)
literature
- Arnold Hague: Sloops: A History of the 71 Sloops Built in Britain and Australia for the British, Australian and Indian Navies 1926-1946. World Ship Society, Kendal 1993, ISBN 0-905617-67-3 .
- HT Lenton: British and Empire Warships of the Second World War , Greenhill Books, ISBN 1-85367-277-7 .
- Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships, 1922-1946. Naval Institute Press, ISBN 0-87021-913-8 .
