HMS Glowworm (H92)

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HMS Glowworm
HMS Glowworm (H92) .jpg
Ship data
flag United KingdomUnited Kingdom (Naval War Flag) United Kingdom
Ship type destroyer
class G class
Shipyard Thornycroft , Woolston
Build number 1125
Order March 5, 1934
Keel laying August 15, 1934
Launch July 22, 1935
Commissioning January 22, 1936
Whereabouts Sunk April 8, 1940
Ship dimensions and crew
length
98.45 m ( Lüa )
95.1 m ( Lpp )
width 10.05 m
Draft Max. 3.78 m
displacement Standard : 1,350 ts
maximum: 1,854 ts
 
crew 145 men
Machine system
machine 3 Admirality 3-drum steam boiler
2 Parsons turbines with single gear
Machine
performance 		34,000 PS (25,007 kW)
Top
speed 		36 kn (67 km / h)
propeller 2
Armament
Sensors

Type 121 sonar

HMS Glowworm (H92) was a destroyer of the G-Class of the British Royal Navy . During the Second World War , the destroyer was awarded the Battle Honors "Atlantic 1939" and "Norway 1940".

On April 8, 1940, the destroyer sank off Norway after attacking and ramming the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper with torpedoes.

history

HMS Glowworm was the first of two G-class destroyers to be built at Thornycroft in Woolston near Southampton . After the order was placed on March 5, 1934, the keel of the new building 1125 was laid on August 15, 1934. The third Glowworm of the Royal Navy was launched on July 22, 1935 as the first G-class ship and was also called on January 22, 1936 first unit of the class put into service.

Mission history

With her sister ships, the Glowworm came in 1936 to the "1st Destroyer Flotilla" at the Mediterranean Fleet . The first operational area was the Spanish waters for the observation of the Spanish civil war and for the implementation of the neutrality patrols. In 1937 and 1938 the destroyer was in Portsmouth in the late spring for repairs. From September 1938 the destroyer was again in service in the eastern Mediterranean during the Sudeten crisis and ran to Aden with the light cruiser Arethusa . In May 1939, the collided Glowworm during a night exercise with the Grenade and fell out for a month because of the necessary repairs. When the war broke out, the destroyer was ready for action in Alexandria .

From 19 to 22 October 1939, the Glowworm moved with the first group of the flotilla ( Gallant , Grafton , Greyhound ) to Plymouth to the Western Approaches Command to secure the south-western access routes to the British Isles. On November 12, 1939, Glowworm moved to the "22nd Destroyer Flotilla" in Harwich to take over security and monitoring tasks in the North Sea.

On February 22, 1940, a Swedish steamer rammed the anchored destroyer in fog, which failed due to the necessary repairs until March 20, 1940 and then came to the Home Fleet in Scapa Flow .
On April 5, 1940, the Glowworm accompanied the destroyers Greyhound , Hero and Hyperion the battle cruiser Renown to the Norwegian coast. The battle cruiser was supposed to secure Operation Wilfred , during which several destroyer groups were supposed to lay mines in Norwegian waters.

The end of the glowworm

Due to the unsuccessful search for a crew member who had gone overboard, the destroyer had lost contact with its unit. While trying to catch up with the Renown Association again , he encountered parts of the German fleet association, which was part of the Weser Exercise to occupy Trondheim and Narvik . This was torn apart by the bad weather and was spread over a wide area. First two destroyers were sighted by the Glowworm , on which the English destroyer opened fire. The German destroyer Bernd von Arnim from the Narvik group accepted the battle and asked the association for support. The heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper ran up to support and intervened after about 30 minutes.

Lieutenant Commander Gerard Roope

Although hopelessly inferior, the Glowworm took up the unequal fight, put up a smoke screen and, exposed to heavy artillery fire, shot torpedoes at the Admiral Hipper , which however did not hit. Badly hit several times by the superior artillery of the Admiral Hipper , the destroyer finally tried in a last desperate attempt to sink the Admiral Hipper by ramming or at least severely damage it. In the collision, the cruiser was severely damaged at the bow, while the Glowworm got under the bow of the cruiser and lost her entire foredeck up to the bridge. Burning, the destroyer drifted next to the Admiral Hipper for a few minutes , then capsized and sank after several boiler explosions. Only 40 survivors could be rescued from the water, two of whom later died on board. Some of the injured were severely poisoned from fuel oil leakage.

The commander of the Glowworm , Lieutenant Commander ( Corvette Captain ) Gerard Roope , who had sunk with his ship, was posthumously the first British soldier in World War II to receive the Victoria Cross , the highest British award for bravery. It should be emphasized that this happened, among other things, on the "recommendation" of Captain Hellmuth Heye , the commander of the Admiral Hipper , who sent a very commendable report of Roope's bravery to the British Admiralty via the Red Cross .

technical description

The Glowworm was the only ship of its class to receive two torpedo tube sets of the PR Mk I type instead of those with four Mk VIII tubes for the practical use of the five-fold torpedo tube set to increase the torpedo broadside Reduction in heating oil capacity to 455 t (instead of 470 t) offset. The Mk IX was used as a torpedo.

Footnotes

  1. ^ Rohwer: Sea War. 5th-8th April 1940
  2. ↑ War Diary Heavy Cruiser Admiral Hipper - NARA-Rolle T1022_4269, PG-48092
  3. ↑ a b M.J. Whitley: Destroyer in World War II. Motorbuch Verlag, 1995, ISBN 3-613-01426-2 (Original: Destroyers of World War Two. Arms & Armours Press, London), p. 105.
  4. ^ According to MJ Whitley: Destroyers in World War II. (Motorbuch Verlag, 1995, ISBN 3-613-01426-2 ) 10 ts instead of 10 t .
  5. ↑ Harald Fock: Z-before! International development and war missions of destroyers and torpedo boats. Vol. 1. 1914 to 1939. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-7822-0762-9 , p. 120.

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