HMS Hermes (95)
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The HMS Hermes (95) was an aircraft carrier in the Royal Navy . She was the first ship in the world designed and built as an aircraft carrier. Its construction began in 1918 during the First World War and was completed in May 1923. It was sunk in the Indian Ocean during the Japanese attack in 1942.
history
The ship was laid down in January 1918 at Armstrong-Whitworth in High Walker, Newcastle upon Tyne and was launched on September 11, 1919, before the keel-laying of the first Japanese pure aircraft carrier Hōshō . Her hull, like that of the Hōshō , was derived from a cruiser design. Experience with the two previous British aircraft carriers, the Furious (start deck in front of and landing deck behind the superstructure and funnel) and Argus (a continuous flight deck), flowed into the design . This particularly concerned the relocation of the superstructure to the starboard side of the ship ("island"), creating a flight deck the full length of the ship. The completion of the Hermes was entrusted to a state shipyard, the Devonport Dockyard in Plymouth . Initial tests with such a configuration took place on the unfinished Eagle from May to October 1920. The Eagle , which began as a battleship for Chile , had also been built as an aircraft carrier at Armstrong-Whitworth since 1918; its final completion took place by 1924 at the naval shipyard in Portsmouth .
The uncertainty about the best form of an aircraft carrier had led to a construction ban for work above the hangar deck after the launch and to the extensive shutdown of the further construction. The Admiralty wanted to wait for the tests with aircraft on the Eagle and Argus . In stages, the decision was made to go to an island to starboard with a sturdy tripod mast, aircraft lifts further apart that could transport machines with their wings folded out, a flight deck that went into the bow and a rare main armament with six 5.5-inch ( 140 mm) cannons.
Ultimately, the ship was 600 feet (ft) (182.9 m) long, 70.25 ft (21.4 m) wide, and 7.1 m draft when fully equipped. The Hermes had a standard displacement of 10,850 ts. The two Parsons geared turbine sets acting on two shafts enabled the ship to reach a top speed of 25 knots . The steam for the turbines was generated in six Yarrow boilers . During the acceptance tests, the machine system produced 41,318 PSw instead of the planned 40,000 PSw and enabled 26,178 knots. The fuel supply of 2000 tons of oil enabled a range of 4480 nautical miles at 16 knots cruising speed.
The flight deck had a length of 570 ft (173.7 m), the elevators were 11 m × 11.2 m. The hangar was 400 ft (121.9 m) long, 50 ft (15.2 m) wide and 16 ft (4.9 m) high. The Hermes received a large crane behind the island in order to be able to supply seaplanes . Given the size of the facilities, the ship could only carry around 20 aircraft. The fuel supply for this was 32,000 liters.
For self-defense, the Hermes carried six individual BL 5.5-inch Mk.I cannons on the sides of the ship. This weapon was developed for export cruisers before the war (first in the Royal Navy the Chester and Birkenhead cruisers started for Greece , then the Furious and Hood were equipped with this weapon). There were four 102 mm Mk.V anti-aircraft guns on the flight deck . The ship was armored in the waterline with 76 mm, the flight deck with its thickness of 25 mm also contributed to the strength and protection of the ship.
Mission history
The Hermes entered service with the Royal Navy in July 1923. This made it the second aircraft carrier in service with the Navy alongside the Argus . In February 1924, the new ship was considered operational and carried out further tests with Fairey IIID scouts at the Atlantic Fleet . In July, was Hermes King George V . demonstrated in Spithead. In the autumn, the aircraft carrier moved to the Mediterranean Fleet in Malta , where the ship arrived on November 22, 1924 with several storm damage. On board the carrier had the “No. 403 Flight "with Flycatcher fighter planes and the" No. 441 Flight “with IIID reconnaissance. Hermes carried out exercises there with the Eagle , which had come into service at the beginning of the year and moved to the Mediterranean before her, and the other units of the Mediterranean Fleet, before moving back to Great Britain in May 1925.
From there, the aircraft carrier moved to the China Station on June 17, 1925 . After a long stay in the Mediterranean, he arrived in Hong Kong on August 10th . Until March 1937, the Hermes was mostly in use in the Far East and returned home three times in these eleven years.
The first home stay took place from the end of October 1927 to January 21, 1928, during which the ship was overhauled in the Chatham Dockyard and one of the 102 mm anti-aircraft guns was removed. Flights 403 , 440 and 442 with flycatchers , the new Fairey IIIF and Fairey IIID were then available to the carrier . For the transfers to the Far East and back, the carrier usually used around two months.
The next home stay lasted only from September 23 to November 12, 1930 and was again used for an overhaul in Chatham. When we marched out again, only flights 403 and 440 were on board. The porter transported six Blackburn Ripons for the Eagle to Malta . During the ship's usual summer stay in Weihaiwei , the Poseidon submarine had an accident , which collided with a Chinese freighter 32 km north of the British base. In addition to the Hunt-class submarine tender Marazion , which had practiced with the submarine, the Hermes , the heavy cruiser Berwick and the sister boat Perseus rushed to the aid of the submarine, which sank immediately after the collision. Only eight men were able to free themselves from the sunken submarine, six of whom reached the surface of the water alive and were picked up by the Hermes , but two then died in the carrier's hospital. In September the ship was moored in Hankow to support the Chinese government after the massive floods . Charles Lindbergh was with his wife Anne Morrow Lindbergh also in town for similar support with its Sirius - floatplane to give. At the invitation of the British, the Lindberghs used the carrier as a base. At the beginning of October, when the Lockheed Sirius was launched with the Hermes crane , an accident occurred that seriously damaged the machine. The commander then brought the Lindberghs back to Shanghai with their machine on the Hermes in the hope that the Sirius could be repaired there. However, the Lindberghs broke off their flight and the machine was repaired by the manufacturer and served the couple on a flight to and through Europe, to Africa and over the South Atlantic and Brazil back to the USA in 1933. Anne Morrow Lindbergh processed the experience of the flight in 1931 in her book North to the Orient .
After further stays in various Chinese ports, but also in Japan and the Philippines , the aircraft carrier returned home again in June 1933. When the ship arrived in Sheerness on July 22, 1933 , the ship was about to undergo a major overhaul, which took place in Devonport Dockyard. In addition to a comprehensive overhaul of the drive, transverse safety cables were installed for the new aircraft equipment. When the Hermes on November 18, 1934 Portsmouth back towards Furthermore, left the east, she had the "824 Naval Air Squadron" with nine Fairey Seal - torpedo bombers on board. When the ship arrived in Hong Kong in early January 1935, the 803 squadron with their Hawker Osprey took over from the Eagle, which was leaving the China station . In addition to the usual tasks such as supporting wrecked ships or deployments against Chinese pirates, tensions in Europe now also influenced the deployment of the carrier. In September 1935 he was relocated to Singapore in order to be available more quickly in East Africa if the Abyssinia crisis escalated further . The carrier remained in South Asia for another five months and during this time took part in the search for the Lady Southern Cross , a Lockheed Altair with which the Australian aviation pioneer Sir Charles Kingsford Smith was lost on a record attempt to fly from Europe to Australia over the Andaman Sea . In April 1936 the Hermes then visited Japan with the destroyers Duncan and Delight . In January 1937, the carrier made a tour of the Dutch East Indies with the heavy cruiser Dorsetshire and the destroyers Duncan and Diana . This was followed by exercises with the ship's torpedo bombers with the cruisers Cumberland and Dorsetshire and the land-armored torpedo bombers of the Royal Air Force stationed on RAF Seletar (Singapore).
On March 17, 1937, Hermes left Singapore, leaving behind the 803 squadron , which was disbanded. The 824 squadron with the Seal s stayed on board to be disbanded at home. A new season 824 with Fairey Swordfish was already on board the Eagle , which was marching to East Asia as a replacement . On May 3, 1937, Hermes arrived in Plymouth and then took part in the fleet parade on the Spithead on May 20 to mark the coronation of King George VI . part in order to then come to the reserve fleet. From July 16, 1938, the Hermes then became a training ship in Devonport. Planned improvements to the anti-aircraft armament and an increase in the fuel supply for the aircraft were not carried out until the beginning of the war in 1939.
At the beginning of the Second World War , the now outdated fleet carrier Hermes formed the carrier fleet of the Royal Navy alongside the converted light battle cruisers Furious , Courageous and Glorious , the converted passenger ship Argus and the Eagle , which began as a battleship, and the Ark Royal, which was built in the 1930s . The fleet carriers of the Illustrious class did not enter service until 1940, the first accompanying carrier Audacity in 1941.
War missions
At the beginning of the war the Hermes was reactivated and served with the Home Fleet like other porters in the search for German submarines. The operational squadron was the Swordfish squadron 814 , which was taken over by the Ark Royal . On September 18, 1939, a submarine was discovered. The use of the destroyer companions Isis and Imogen was unsuccessful. The sinking of the Courageous the day before led to the termination of such operations by the aircraft carriers.
At the beginning of October 1939, the carrier then moved to the West Indies with the French battleship Strasbourg and the British cruiser Neptune in order to search for German trade disruptors in the Central and South Atlantic as "Force N". In November, the Hermes moves on to West Africa to support the French cruisers Dupleix and Foch from Dakar in their search for the Admiral Graf Spee . In December Hermes escorted a convoy to Great Britain and used the stay for an overhaul. From mid-February the ship was back in service off West Africa. At the beginning of June, the carrier from Freetown accompanies the third large troop transport from Australia and New Zealand to Europe, which for the first time was no longer routed through the Mediterranean.
When France surrendered in the summer of 1940, the ship was at sea, watching the French naval movements. On July 8, 1940, the carrier took part in the attack on the Vichy France fleet in Dakar, with two of their Swordfish torpedo planes torpedoing the battleship Richelieu . On the march back to Freetown, the Hermes collided with the auxiliary cruiser Corfu off Freetown in the dark and a tropical rainstorm , and both ships were badly damaged. The Hermes was still ready to sail and went with a convoy to South Africa , where it was repaired from late August to early November 1940. Together with the cruiser Dragon , the carrier monitored the South Atlantic and unsuccessfully searched for German ships.
In early 1941, the carrier moved to the Indian Ocean to support the British attacks against Italian East Africa. The Hermes supported the cruiser Shropshire and Hawkins at the blockade of Kismayo and in the hunt for the port leaving ships of the Axis powers. On February 22nd, a Glasgow aircraft spotted the German armored ship Admiral Scheer . However, neither the Glasgow , which was conditionally operational due to a bent propeller shaft, nor the machines of the Hermes and the cruisers Australia , Canberra , Emerald , Shropshire and Enterprise , which were searching from different directions , succeeded in rediscovering the German ship, which was heading south by changing course Had escaped persecutors.
Hermes called at Colombo , Ceylon , on March 4, 1941 , and was dispatched to the Persian Gulf in April to support operations there. From mid-June to mid-November, the aircraft carrier monitored the Indian Ocean between Ceylon and the Seychelles , before being overtaken in Simonstown . From February 14, 1942, the ship was ready for action again in Colombo and resumed its surveillance activities with the Australian destroyer Vampire . The carrier's operational squadron continued to be the Swordfish of 814 Squadron. A transfer of the two ships to Fremantle in Australia , which was considered in March, was discarded and Hermes stayed with the Vampire with the "Force B" of the Eastern Fleet .
The end of Hermes
In early April, the British Eastern Fleet went to Addu Atoll to get supplies. The Hermes ran with the Vampire to Trincomalee , where the porter was supposed to equip for the planned invasion of Madagascar . After the first attack on Colombo ( Easter Sunday Raid ) on April 5, 1942 with the loss of the heavy cruisers Dorsetshire and Cornwall , Hermes and Vampire left the port of Trincomalee on April 8 at night on news of a renewed approach of the Japanese carrier fleet south, avoiding the first attack on the port on the morning of April 9th. After the attack, the two ships reversed course in order to get under the protection of British fighters. However, they were spotted by Japanese reconnaissance aircraft and the second wave of 70 dive bombers of the type Aichi D3A turned and sank the two ships off Batticaloa . The Hermes received numerous hits and sank within twenty minutes in position 7 ° 35 ' N , 82 ° 6' O . 307 men of the crew were killed, including their commander. The 590 survivors were taken in by the hospital ship Vita . In addition to the destroyer Vampire, the Japanese attackers also sank the corvette Hollyhock and two tankers.
literature
- Peter Brook: Warships for Export, Armstrong warships 1867-1927. World ship Society, Gravesend 1999, ISBN 0-905617-89-4 .
- David Brown: HMS Eagle. Warship Profile 35, Profile Publications, Windsor 1973.
- Maurice Cocker: Aircraft-Carrying Ships of the Royal Navy. The History Press, Stroud (2008), ISBN 978-0-7524-4633-2 .
- David Hobbs: British Aircraft Carriers: Design, Development & Service Histories. Seaforth Publishing, 2014.
- Ray Sturtivant: The Squadrons of the Fleet Air Arm. Air-Britain (Historians), Tonbridge 1984, ISBN 0-85130-120-7 .
Web links
- Service History HMS HERMES - early Aircraft Carrier
- Hermes at fleetairarchive.net (English)
- Hermes at ww2db.com (English)
- Picture gallery at maritimequest.com (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Peter Brook: Warships for Export. P. 157.
- ^ Peter Brook: Warships for Export. P. 150.
- ↑ a b Ray Sturtivant: The Squadrons of the FAA. P. 258.
- ↑ a b Ray Sturtivant: The Squadrons of the FAA. P. 172.
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. August 31 - September 7, 1939, North Sea
- ↑ Ray Sturtivant: The Squadrons of the FAA. P. 215.
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. September 3–17, 1939, North Atlantic, Home Fleet aircraft carrier
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. October 5, 1939, Atlantic, formation of 8 British and French combat groups
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. November 17-26, 1939, South Atlantic
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. 1.5. – 16.6.1940, Indian Ocean / Atlantic; Third troop transport ( US.3 ) from New Zealand and Australia.
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. June 18-27, 1940, Atlantic
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. 4-5 July 1940, France / Central Atlantic; 7. – 8.7.1940, France / Central Atlantic
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. December 18, 1940, South Atlantic
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. February 10-25, 1941, Indian Ocean / East Africa
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. February 14–4, 1941, Indian Ocean.
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. April 12-29, 1941, Indian Ocean / Persian Gulf
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. March 26 - April 4, 1942, Indian Ocean
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. 1. – 9.4.1942, Indian Ocean, Japanese attack on Ceylon.