HMS Glasgow (C21)
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HMS Glasgow (C21) was a light cruiser the Town class of 1936 and belonging to the first group of five vessels of this class, also known as Southampton were designated class. She was ordered at the same time as the sister ship Sheffield on December 17, 1934 at Scotts Shipbuilding in Greenock , 40 kilometers west of Glasgow . She was the seventh ship in the Royal Navy to be named after the largest Scottish city.
Before the new light cruiser, the cruiser Glasgow of the old Town class had been named from 1909 to 1927, which had fought at Coronel and the Falkland Islands in the First World War .
The new Glasgow survived World War II and was scrapped in 1958.
In 1976 the Royal Navy received a Glasgow again when a destroyer with the registration D88 of the Type 42 (also Sheffield class ) received the name. This Glasgow was decommissioned in 2005 and scrapped in 2009.
history
After her commissioning as the fourth ship of the new class in September 1937, the Glasgow belonged to the 2nd Cruiser Squadron and escorted the royal couple on the Empress of Australia to Canada in May 1939 . They also transferred part of the gold treasure to Fort Knox as an emergency reserve .
First war missions
Together with the Southampton , the Glasgow was used after the start of the war with the Humber Force. Among other things, this attempted to prevent German merchant ships from returning to the German Empire. As early as September 5, 1939, she was involved in the interception of the German freighter Johannes Molkenbuhr (Hugo-Stinnes-Linien, 5294 GRT) 17 miles west of Stadlandet , who escaped capture by scuttling. On November 21, she was part of the British cruiser association around the cruiser Belfast , when this newest British cruiser ran into a German magnetic mine in the Firth of Forth and was badly damaged. In the period that followed, all cruisers were therefore equipped with improved protective devices against this type of mine ( Glasgow during a routine overhaul in February 1940). On November 25, the Glasgow, together with large parts of the Home Fleet , was supposed to prevent the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau from crossing the Shetland-Bergen-Narrows. Subsequently, the Glasgow was to intercept the German express steamer Bremen together with two destroyers off the Norwegian coast in November 1939 , which, however , ran to Murmansk and only successfully completed its breakthrough to Germany in December. The Glasgow was involved in the first months of the war of futile searching for the German warships, which tested the possibilities of an outbreak in the North Atlantic. Occasionally the cruiser also secured British merchant ships on the last part of their voyage through the so-called North Western Approaches to the British Isles. On February 12, 1940, during their surveillance voyages to the Norwegian coast, the German trawler Herrlichkeit (268 GRT ) was able to catch off the coast near Tromsø .
Norway campaign 1940
On April 7, 1940, the Glasgow, together with the heavy cruisers Berwick , York and Devonshire in Rosyth, took over troops and war supplies for a planned Allied landing in Norway (Operation RUPERT), which, however, were dismissed on the 8th as reports of marching movements of the Germans in the North Sea had reached the British command and the cruisers were now to attack the German units. The Glasgow set sail on the 9th with Manchester , the sister ships Sheffield and Southampton and the little Aurora to attack the German ships near Bergen . This attack was canceled again after the approaching British warship groups were violently attacked by the German Air Force with 47 Ju 88s of Kampfgeschwader 30 and 41 He 111s of Kampfgeschwaders 26 . Only the destroyer Gurkha was lost . The Glasgow lost two sailors to flying splinters, but remained undamaged. On April 10, she ran with the Sheffield at Scapa Flow in renewed air strikes, primarily to supplement fuel.
Both cruisers ran back to Norway on the 11th with six Tribal-class destroyers , landed troops near Harstad and began to carefully investigate the situation. The hope of intercepting German troop transports was not fulfilled; however, the association gained a more precise impression of the very selective occupation of Norway by the Weser Exercise company . The association landed small troops of sailors and marines at various locations for reconnaissance, some of which were "collected" again on the 17th before the next supply trip to Scapa Flow.
From there the two cruisers went to Rosyth to load the first part of the 15th Infantry Brigade and their supplies. On the 22nd they went to sea with the little Galatea and six security destroyers to allow the troops to land in Åndalsnes for a planned attack on Bergen ( Operation Sickle ). However, the two light cruisers had to be unloaded at anchor by the destroyers and smaller vehicles.
On April 29, she took the Norwegian King Haakon VII and Crown Prince Olav , parts of the Norwegian government, allied diplomats and 35 tons of the Norwegian gold reserves on board in Molde and brought them, secured by the destroyers Jackal and Javelin , from the advancing German troops to Tromsø in safety. While most of the passengers stayed in Tromsø, the Glasgow continued with the two destroyers on the 30th to Scapa Flow.
From there, the cruiser was moved to Greenock, where he took Royal Marines on board on May 7 and ran out to Iceland on the 8th together with the heavy cruiser Berwick and the destroyers Fearless and Fortune . Until the 10th the association brought the advance command of an occupation force to the independent island, whose head of state, however, was still the Danish king until 1944. The surprising British occupation was intended to prevent a feared German occupation. The Glasgow took after disembarkation of the Marines German nationals for internment in Britain on board and checked before the retreat nor the situation in the eastern fjords of the island for any German activities.
After its return, the cruiser was routinely overhauled in Liverpool and a type 286M radar device, modified for use at sea and on a ship, was installed for air surveillance. When Italy joined the war on June 10, 1940 on the side of Germany, parts of the crew occupied the Italian freighter Gambiano lying in Liverpool . After completing the routine work, the Glasgow rejoined the Home Fleet on July 1, but was soon to be relocated to the Mediterranean. Before she could move there, she accidentally rammed the destroyer Imogen in thick fog off Duncansby Head on July 16 , which was severely damaged, caught fire and sank. The cruiser was able to save the crew of the destroyer, suffered considerable damage to the bow due to the ramming and had to go to the shipyard in Liverpool for three months . The ship was not ready for operation again until October, so that the previously planned transfer to the Mediterranean could only take place in November 1940.
Mediterranean missions 1940
The Glasgow took over troops for Malta on November 7th in Gibraltar and after the surrender of the troops in Malta strengthened the Mediterranean fleet together with the heavy cruiser Berwick and supported the attack on Taranto by the Fleet Air Arm of the Illustrious on November 11th and 12th , in which the Italian Regia Marina lost half of its battleships. On November 14, she and the cruisers Berwick , Sydney and York put 3,400 soldiers from Alexandria ashore in Piraeus . On November 26th, the Glasgow escorted , together with Gloucester and the heavy cruiser York , the supply convoy MW-4 from Alexandria to Malta . On December 3rd, the Glasgow anchored in Souda Bay in Crete . There she was on the evening of two Italian SM.79 - torpedo bombers attacked and received two torpedo hits that caused severe water leaks and bent two propeller shafts. Despite the severe damage suffered, she managed to return to Alexandria at 17 knots, where temporary repairs were made. During this time it was temporarily replaced by Southampton .
Operations in the Far East in 1941
In January 1941, the Glasgow was transferred to the Eastern Fleet and ran out to Singapore , where further repairs were made to her hull damage. Since the bent propeller shafts could not be repaired there either, the maximum speed of the ship was only about 24 knots. In February, the German armored ship Admiral Scheer disrupted trade in the Indian Ocean and sank the Canadian Cruiser (7178 GRT) on the 21st and the Dutch Rantaupandjang (2542 GRT) on the 22nd. Both ships managed to send emergency calls received from the Glasgow were. The search, which was initiated immediately, led to the sighting of the Admiral Scheer by a Supermarine Walrus observation aircraft belonging to the cruiser on February 22 . The alarmed task force of the Eastern Fleet (Force V), made up of security cruisers from various escorts, with the small porter Hermes and the cruisers Australia , Canberra , Emerald (from Mombasa), Shropshire (from Durban) and Enterprise (from Aden), however, came to nothing , since the German ship had evaded its pursuers by changing course to the south.
In March 1941, the Glasgow supported the landing of Commonwealth troops near Berbera in British Somaliland ( Operation Appearance ) with the old cruiser Caledon and the destroyers Kipling and Kandahar and gave artillery support to the troops that had landed. The cruiser then escorted various convoys, mostly WS troop transports , between Mombasa , Mumbai , Aden and Singapore until the end of 1941 . In December 1941, shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor , the ship was involved in a friendly fire incident in the Bay of Bengal : The Indian patrol boat HMIS Prabnavati (500 ts), which was securing two lighters, was struck by the Glasgow at dusk of the December 9, 1941 erroneously identified as a Japanese submarine and sunk by fire from the 152 mm guns to a distance of about 6,000 meters, with 21 dead on the Indian ship. The error was only cleared up when the survivors were rescued.
Events in 1942
At the beginning of 1942, the Glasgow was initially used to secure convoys between South Africa and India. In April the ship was detached to New York , where it arrived in May. At the local naval shipyard , the bent propeller shafts were finally repaired, so that the cruiser was fully operational again in September 1942 after a four-month layover in the shipyard. In addition, several radars, including a Type 271 aerial warning radar, and several additional 20 mm Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns were installed on board during this time . In October 1942 the cruiser finally returned to Great Britain and was assigned to the 10th Cruiser Squadron of the Home Fleet . At the end of the year, the slight sea damage suffered during the Atlantic crossing was repaired, so that no further operations could take place in 1942. The aircraft and the catapult disembarked.
Operations in the North Sea and the Biscay 1943
At the beginning of 1943, the Glasgow was used to secure northern sea convoys . For example, between January and March she escorted the JW-52, RA-52 and RA-53 convoys between Iceland and the Kola Peninsula and temporarily took over surveillance of the Denmark Strait in March and early April . There the cruiser landed the German blockade breaker Regensburg (8086 GRT) coming from Asia on April 2nd . The Glasgow had previously been informed of the arrival of the steamer by the British radio reconnaissance ( Ultra ). Despite freezing temperatures and stormy seas, the German crew sank their ship themselves. The sinking ship was also shot at by the Glasgow with a torpedo, which also hit. The Regensburg then sank very quickly. Of 118 people on board the blockade breaker, the cruiser was only able to save six alive; 112 people drowned, froze to death in the ice-cold water or were killed by the torpedo hit.
The Glasgow was relocated to Portsmouth in May 1943 and operated from June in the Bay of Biscay against German blockade breakers entering western France. The ship also secured escort aircraft carriers during their submarine hunting operations in this area. After a lay in the shipyard in August and September at the Devonport naval base , with the ship receiving additional 20 mm anti-aircraft guns and a new type 283 fire control radar, the Glasgow attended the funeral of the First Sea Lord Admiral Sir, who died on October 21, 1943, at the end of October 1943 Dudley Pound part. The body of the UK's senior naval officer was cremated and the ashes were delivered to sea on October 27th in the Strait of Dover , near the Nab Tower , on board the Glasgow .
Following the ceremony, the Glasgow again took part in surveillance of the Bay of Biscay in November and December, together with the light cruisers Gambia , Enterprise and Penelope , and looked again for German blockade breakers from Asia ( Operation Stonewall ). The ship, together with the Enterprise , came into action on December 27, 1943 with a German combat group consisting of five destroyers and six torpedo boats. This had previously run into the Bay of Biscay to accommodate the Alsterufer blockade breaker , which, however, had already been sunk the day before by Allied aircraft ( company Trave ). The two cruisers succeeded in destroying parts of the German unit because the sea was rough and the cruisers were quieter in the sea than the smaller German units, which enabled relatively precise firing. The Germans could not use their speed advantage in the heavy seas either. The German destroyer Z 27 (2543 ts) and the two fleet torpedo boats T 25 and T 26 (each 1294 ts, referred to by the British as "Elbing destroyers") were sunk. 401 sailors were killed. 293 survivors were later rescued, 64 of them from the Glasgow . During this encounter, the cruiser suffered only minor splinter damage from close hits, but no personnel losses. Then the two cruisers ran to Plymouth , where they survived several attacks by German planes with glide bombs unscathed.
1944: Operations in front of Normandy
Between January and April 1944, the Glasgow was used again to secure convoys in the North Atlantic, but then, from May 1944, prepared for the planned invasion of the Western Allies in Normandy . To this end, the cruiser carried out several practice attacks on land targets near Cape Wrath in May . During the landing on June 6, 1944, the Glasgow shelled targets near Omaha Beach .
_and_USS_Quincy_(CA-71)_underway_off_Cherbourg_on_25_June_1944_(A_24309).jpg)
On June 25, 1944, the cruiser also took part in the final battles around Cherbourg and, together with the American USS Quincy , helped defeat the strong German batteries there, although this was not entirely successful. Here, however , the Glasgow was hit by two 17 cm shells from a coastal battery, which caused considerable damage in the aircraft hangar and amidships. In addition, the fire control radar was disabled and a gun turret was damaged aft (due to a power failure as a result of the hits). The ship was then moved to Newcastle upon Tyne and went to the shipyard there. The repairs lasted until May 1945. After this last major overhaul, the cruiser only had three 152 mm triple turrets, as the rear raised turret (´X´) was removed. The anti-aircraft armament consisted of four 102-mm twin guns and now four 40-mm "pompom" quadruple guns, four individual 40-mm "pompom" cannons, as well as six twin 20 mm Oerlikon automatic cannons and six Oerlikon single guns. The two triple torpedo tube sets remained at Botrd.
Final phase of the war and post-war period
After the shipyard lay at the end of the war in Europe, the Glasgow moved to the Far East, where she arrived in August 1945. However, the cruiser no longer took part in combat operations against Japan. The ship was relocated to Colombo and formed there from October 1945 together with the anti-aircraft cruiser HMS Phoebe the 5th Cruiser Squadron . The cruiser stayed at this station for two years.
In 1947 the Glasgow returned to Portsmouth and was initially transferred to the reserve. After returning to service in September 1948, stays at the West Indian station of the Royal Navy, off Newfoundland (1950) and in the Mediterranean as the flagship of the Mediterranean fleet (1951/52). From 1955 the cruiser served as a station ship for officers in the Home Fleet. Finally, the ship was finally decommissioned in November 1956, placed in reserve status and put on the scrapping list in early 1958. In June 1958 to BISCO Ltd. sold, the cruiser was scrapped in Blyth from July 1958 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Cajus Bekker: Damned Sea . 1971, p. 45.
- ^ German fishing steamer off Norway.
- ^ Navy news
- ↑ http://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?10223 sinking of the Canadian Cruiser on February 21st
- ↑ sinking of Rantaupandjang February 22
- ^ Loss of the Prabhavati.
Remarks
- ↑ Belfast , which was only taken over on August 5, 1939, failed until December 1942
literature
- Robert Gardiner (Ed.): Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships. 1922-1946. Conway Press, London 1980, ISBN 0-85177-146-7 .
- Alan Raven: TOWN Class Cruisers. ENSIGN 5, Bivouac Books, London.
- Mike J. Whitley: Cruiser in World War II. Classes, types, construction dates. Stuttgart 1997
Web links
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- HMS Glasgow at Uboat.net
- HMS Glasgow - WWII cruisers
- HMS GLASGOW - Town-type Light Cruiser on naval-history.net
- Jürgen Rohwer, Gerhard Hümmelchen: Chronicle of the naval war 1939-1945. Library for Contemporary History, Württemberg State Library, Stuttgart 2007.
Southampton Group:
HMS Birmingham |
HMS Glasgow |
HMS Newcastle |
HMS Sheffield |
HMS Southampton
Gloucester Group:
HMS Gloucester |
HMS Liverpool |
HMS Manchester
Edinburgh Group:
HMS Belfast |
HMS Edinburgh