HMS Garland (H37)

HMS Garland

ORP Garland , 1945

Ship data flag  United Kingdom Poland Netherlands     other ship names 1950: Marnix Ship type destroyer class G class Shipyard Fairfield Shipbuilding , Govan Build number 651 Order March 5, 1934 Keel laying August 22, 1934 Launch October 24, 1935 Commissioning March 3, 1936 May 3, 1940 Polish Navy 1950 Koninklijke Navy Whereabouts Painted and scrapped January 31, 1964

Ship dimensions and crew length 98.5 m ( Lüa ) 95.1 m ( Lpp ) width 10.1 m Draft Max. 3.78 m displacement 1,350 ts standard 1,854 ts maximum   crew 145

Machine system machine 3 Admiralty 3-drum boilers 2 Parsons - geared turbines Machine performance 34,000 PS (25,007 kW) Top speed 36 kn (67 km / h) propeller 2

Armament 4 120 mm L / 45 Mk.IX guns 2 × 4 Vickers machine guns 0.5 in. (12.7 mm) 2 × 4 torpedo tubes 533 mm 20–35 depth charges 2 launchers, 1 drop rail Mine detection equipment Sensors Type 121 sonar

HMS Garland (H37) was a destroyer of the G-Class of the British Royal Navy in World War II . Previously, 14 other ships had already carried the name HMS Garland , which is the oldest ship name in the Royal Navy.

History of the ship

When the orders for the nine G-Class units were placed on March 5, 1934, two destroyers were also ordered from Fairfield , where two D-Class destroyers had already been built. The keel of the first ship with hull number 651 took place at the shipyard in Govan ( Glasgow ) on August 22, 1934. The Garland was launched on October 24, 1935 and was then put into service on March 3, 1936. The destroyer was the fourteenth Royal Navy ship to bear that name, which is believed to be the oldest recorded name of a Royal Navy ship.
Most recently, it was operated by an Acasta-class destroyer that was in service with the Navy from 1913 to 1921. This Garland was a special production, the hull of which was built by Cammel Laird and for which the turbine supplier Parsons was the contractor.

Mission history

The new destroyer was initially retracted briefly at the Home Fleet before, like its sister ships, it entered the “1. Destroyer Flotilla ”in the British Mediterranean Fleet . The G-Class ships replaced V- and W-Class destroyers in the Alexandria stationed flotilla in 1936 , which had previously been used at the China Station. Like most ships in the flotilla, the Garland was also used in the so-called neutrality patrols off the southern Spanish coast to monitor the Spanish civil war. Overhauls of the ship took place in the years up to 1939 mostly at the naval shipyard in Sheerness .

First deployments in the world war

At the beginning of the war, the Garland arrived in a division of the flotilla from a control voyage through the Red Sea to Aden and back in Alexandria. From September 6, the destroyer was used like the other units of the flotilla to monitor trade and looked for German merchant ships and cargo destined for the German Reich ( contraband ). British merchant ships were grouped into convoys and escorted in the eastern Mediterranean. When securing a convoy to Malta, some depth charges exploded on the stern of the ship, which was badly damaged and destroyed parts of the machinery. The destroyer was towed to the nearer Alexandria, where a first emergency repair took place. On October 10, the actual repair of the ship began at the naval shipyard in Malta. The Garland under repair remained the only ship of the class in the Mediterranean, while the other units were transferred to Great Britain in October 1939 in two groups of four.
The first test drives of the destroyer did not begin until April 1940. The transfer of the destroyer to the Polish Navy had been negotiated for some time and it was then handed over to this Navy on May 3, 1940, the anniversary of the Polish Constitution of 1791. In view of the special tradition of the name, it was decided by a Refrain from renaming and only change the name prefix .

Assignments as an ORP Garland

From June 1940 the destroyer was assigned to the 14th destroyer flotilla in Alexandria . He repeatedly escorted convoys that supply goods to Malta brought. During one of the escorts, the Italian destroyer RN Espero was sunk on June 28, 1940 . In September ORP Garland was damaged by a bomb during an Italian air raid .

The destroyer was then transferred to the Home Fleet later this month . There he was used together with other Polish destroyers in the North Sea and the English Channel as well as a convoy escort in the Atlantic Ocean , especially for troop transports. In September 1941 the ship was back in the Mediterranean as an escort for a large Malta escort.

In the following years ORP Garland was used to secure North Atlantic and North Sea convoys . Of particular importance was the operation in connection with the convoy PQ 16 , during which the destroyer suffered considerable losses among the crew due to German air raids. The ongoing repairs then resulted in a further reduction in the main artillery, for which a Hedgehog and additional anti-aircraft weapons were installed.

In the spring of 1944, the main focus of operations was on the west coast of Africa before the destroyer took part in the landing in southern France ( Operation Dragoon ). This was followed by anti-submarine operations in the Mediterranean. On September 19, 1944, ORP Garland succeeded in sinking the German submarine U 407 south of Milos together with the destroyers HMS Troubridge and HMS Terpsichore . In October 1944 the ship supported the Allied landing in Greece.

ORP Garland was deployed in the Bay of Biscay from the end of the year until the end of the war . The ship was then decommissioned on September 24, 1946 and returned to the Royal Navy.

Under the Dutch flag

In early 1947, HMS Garland was sold to the Dutch Navy , who owned the destroyer in Mr. Ms. Marnix renamed and used as an artillery training ship after a conversion. After being reclassified as a frigate , the ship was decommissioned in 1964 and scrapped four years later.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ BETWEEN THE WARS: ROYAL NAVY ORGANIZATION AND SHIP DEPLOYMENTS 1919–1939

Remarks

1. ↑ one leader, eight destroyers
2. ↑ This first delivery of a destroyer to an Allied partner was followed by further -z. In part, on completion, to the Netherlands , Greece and Norway during the further course of the war. Poland also received two new buildings: Piorun and Orkan

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 Garland (H 373) - G-class Destroyer