HMS Hotspur (H01)
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
HMS Hotspur (H01) was an H-class destroyer of the British Royal Navy during World War II . The ship took part in the First Sea Battle at Narvik and was awarded nine Battle Honors by the end of the war . She was the only ship of the class that was also used after the Second World War: As the Trujillo and from 1962 as the Duarte , the destroyer still served in the Dominican Republic's navy and was only canceled after 1970.
history
The ship, like the seven sister ships, was ordered on December 13, 1934. On February 27, 1935, the keel laying of the two H-class destroyers to be built at the Scotts shipyard with hull numbers 562 and 563 took place. The shipyard had previously had two destroyers of the "A" and "E" classes delivered. The Hotspur was launched on March 23, 1936, two months after the sister ship Hostile in Greenock . The new building was put into service on December 29, 1936 and assigned to the "2nd Destroyer Flotilla".
The Hotspur was a standard destroyer of the class, displaced 1350 tl (max. 1883 tl), was 98.5 m long, 10.1 m wide and had a draft of 3.8 m. The ship was armed with four 4.7-inch (120-mm) L / 45-Mk.IX cannons. Two quadruple 0.5-inch Vickers Mk.III machine guns were available to ward off air attacks . Like all destroyers of the class, it had two quadruple 21-inch torpedo tube sets . To repel submarines, the destroyer had a drop rail and two depth charges and had 20 depth charges on board, which were increased to 35 shortly after the start of the war.
Mission history
The destroyer was used with the 2nd Destroyer Flotilla and its sister ships in the " Mediterranean Fleet ". The flotilla took during the Spanish Civil War to the so-called neutrality patrols in part off the Spanish coast in the western Mediterranean.
After serving in the Atlantic, the flotilla was ordered back to the waters around the British Isles in early 1940 .
After German troops had been landed by German destroyers in Narvik as part of the Weser Exercise company , HMS Hotspur ran out together with her sister ships to block the Ofotfjord . On April 10, 1940, the destroyer took part in the First Naval Battle near Narvik . He was damaged by artillery hits and a collision with the sister ship HMS Hunter .
In May 1940, all operational ships of the flotilla were moved to the Mediterranean, where the ship was initially stationed in Gibraltar . During an extensive submarine hunt, which was made possible due to captured Italian secret documents, HMS Hotspur was able to sink the Italian submarine Lafolè east of Gibraltar on October 20, 1940, together with HMS Gallant and HMS Griffin .
In the course of November, the destroyer was then transferred to the Mediterranean fleet with the main base in Alexandria . There he was assigned to the 14th destroyer flotilla. During the sea battle at Cape Teulada , HMS Hotspur covered cruisers and battleships of the Royal Navy. At the beginning of 1941 the destroyer took part as an escort in one of the Malta convoys , then at the end of March 1941 in the battle of Cape Matapan .
During the evacuation of mainland Greece in April 1941 ( Operation Demon ) and in the following weeks, the ship was in continuous use. Another escort to Malta was followed by uninterrupted operations at the end of May / beginning of June as part of the ultimately unsuccessful attempts to defend the island of Crete against German landing operations ( Operation Merkur ), and the subsequent evacuation of the Allied troops.
In the following years the destroyer was also used in the eastern and central Mediterranean. During the occupation of the French mandate areas in the Middle East (Syria and Lebanon), the ship and HMS Janus fought on June 9, 1941 with the large destroyers Guepard and Valmy , in which HMS Janus was damaged. On December 23, 1941, together with HMS Hasty, U 79 was forced to surface north of Sollum , which was sunk by its own crew.
After a brief mission for a Malta escort, the ship was assigned to the British Eastern Fleet in Trincomalee , Ceylon . During the Japanese attack in the Indian Ocean , it was assigned to cover for the rapid formation. In June 1942, HMS Hotspur ran out again as a convoy cover for a large escort to Malta ( Operation Vigorous ). From the Mediterranean it then went back to the Indian Ocean , where the ship took part in operations around Madagascar in September 1942 .
In February 1943 the ship was ordered back to Great Britain. There, the anti -submarine and anti-aircraft armament was reinforced at the expense of the main artillery and a torpedo tube set. After the renovation, the destroyer was assigned to a Canadian escort group that escorted convoys across the North Atlantic . In the summer of 1944, the focus of operations was then in the English Channel and the Biscay , where HMS Hotspur hunted German submarines and outpost boats as part of an escort group .
The ship was assigned to the reserve fleet in April 1945. In February 1948 it was sold to the Dominican Republic . In the local navy it was initially called Trujillo , later it was renamed Duarte . During the civil war in 1965, the ship, together with other units of the Dominican Navy, shelled the capital. It was then assigned to the reserve and sold for scrapping in 1972 .
literature
- MJ Whitley: Destroyers of World War Two. Arms and Armor Press, London 1988, ISBN 0-85368-910-5 .
Web links
- HMS HOTSPUR (H 01) - H-class Destroyer
- Chronicle of naval warfare 1939–1945
- Use in the Dominican Navy (span.)
Hardy † (Flotilla Leader)
Hasty † |
Havock † |
Hereward † |
Hero / Chaudiere .svg){kind=small}
|
Hostile † |
Hotspur / Trujillo, Duarte 
|
Hunter † |
Hyperion †
formerly Brazilian H-Class (1939–1940)
Harvester † |
Havant † |
Havelock |
Hesperus |
Highlander |
Hurricane †
Similar to Greece, 1939
Vasilefs Georgios / ZG 3 Hermes .svg){kind=small}
† |
Vasilissa Olga †