HMS Hunter (H35)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hunter
HMS Hunter FL10190.jpg
Ship data
flag United KingdomUnited Kingdom (Naval War Flag) United Kingdom
Ship type destroyer
class H class
Shipyard Swan Hunter , Wallsend
Build number 1503
Order December 13, 1934
Keel laying March 27, 1935
Launch February 25, 1936
Commissioning September 20, 1936
Whereabouts Sunk on April 10, 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 : 1,340 ts
maximum: 1,859 ts
 
crew 145 men
Machine system
machine 3 Yarrow boilers (Admiralty three-drum boilers)
2 Parsons turbines with single gear
Machine
performance
34,000
Top
speed
36 kn (67 km / h)
propeller 2
Armament
Sensors

Type 124 sonar

HMS Hunter (H35) was a destroyer of the H-Class of the British Royal Navy . The destroyer was badly damaged by an underwater explosion during a patrol off the Spanish south coast in March 1937 and was out of action for 18 months. On April 10, 1940, the Hunter sank off Narvik during the first British attack on the ten German destroyers that had occupied the Norwegian ore port.

History of the ship

The Hunter was launched on February 25, 1936 as part of one of the two H-class destroyers ordered from Swan Hunter in Wallsend in December 1934. The destroyer was put into service on September 20, 1936. Like its sister ships in the H-class, the Hunter displaced 1,350 tl (max. 1883 tl), was 98.5 m long, 10.1 m wide and had a draft of 3, 8 m. Three Admiralty boilers generated the steam for the Parsons geared turbines with an output of 34,000 hp, which enabled a speed of up to 36 knots . The fuel supply of 470 tl of fuel gave the Hunter a range of up to 5530 nautical miles at a cruising speed of 15 knots. The destroyer had a crew of 137 men in peacetime and increased to 146 men in the event of war.
The ship was armed with four individual 4.7-inch (120-mm) L / 45-Mk.IX cannons, which were arranged overlapping on the foredeck and at the stern. To ward off air attacks, two quadruple 0.5-inch Vickers Mk.III machine guns were also available. Like all standard-type destroyers, 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 replaced with its sister ships and the flotilla leader Hardy belonging to the class little by little the destroyers of the C-class in the British "2nd Destroyer Flotilla", which had been relocated to the Red Sea and then to the Mediterranean during the Abyssinian crisis . Since December 1936, the flotilla was finally under the " Mediterranean Fleet ". Since the outbreak of the Spanish civil war, she has participated in the so-called neutrality patrols off the Spanish coast in the western Mediterranean.

The Damaged Hunter

During one of these patrols, the Hunter was badly damaged by an underwater explosion on May 13, 1937 off the Spanish Mediterranean coast near Almería . Whether it was a mine or a torpedo hit by an Italian submarine could not be conclusively clarified. Eight men died on board the destroyer and nine others were seriously injured. The bow of the ship was badly damaged and the forward boiler room destroyed.

The Hunter in the dock in Gibraltar, behind the Greyhound

The light cruiser Arethusa towed the destroyer over the stern to Gibraltar , where the first repairs were carried out in the dock to make another relocation of the ship possible. After the emergency repairs, the destroyer could be relocated to Malta and the damage was thoroughly repaired at the local naval shipyard. In the "2nd Flotilla" the Hunter was replaced by the Worcester of the V and W classes by October 1938 . The first test drives of the repaired Hunter did not begin until the beginning of November 1938 .

In August 1939 the destroyer was at a scheduled shipyard layover in Devonport , which was completed on August 27. In the event of war, he was assigned to secure British trade in the mid-Atlantic and was on the way to Freetown at the outbreak of World War II , where he arrived on September 4th.

War missions

With the Hunter , the destroyers Havock and Hyperion also moved to Freetown, where the Neptune , the station cruiser of the "South Africa Station" , was now based . A few days later, the destroyer Hotspur also arrived there after an overhaul in Great Britain. In mid-October 1939 Freetown became the base of " Force K " of the Royal Navy, to which the Flotilla Commander Hardy and the four remaining H-class destroyers came from the home of the battle cruiser Renown and the aircraft carrier Ark Royal and from the Mediterranean . In October part of the group was distributed to other bases and the Hunter came to Bermuda on November 4th to perform security and surveillance tasks in the eastern Atlantic. On December 4, 1939, she moved to Halifax in order to temporarily take part alongside the Hyperion and the Hereward in the training program of the totally rebuilt battleship Valiant around Bermuda.

On January 23, 1940, Hunter and Hereward accompanied the Valiant and the cruiser Enterprise after completing the training program from Bermuda to Halifax. While the Hereward had to go to the shipyard due to severe sea damage on the transfer march in Halifax, the Hunter continued to accompany the Valiant as part of securing the Canadian escort TC 3 with over 7000 soldiers on the troop transports Aquitania (45,647 GRT), Empress of Britain (42,348 GRT ), Monarch of Bermuda (22,424 GRT), Empress of Australia (19,665 GRT, ex Tirpitz ) and the Polish Chrobry (11,442 GRT). The escort also included the battleship Malaya and on the first day the four now Canadian C-class destroyers, and one day longer the Enterprise , which returned to the Canadian coast. The convoy was then picked up by ten British destroyers off the British Isles. The Hunter was released for routine overhaul after the destroyer security arrived, which began on February 8, 1940 in Falmouth . In early March 1940, the ship was operational again and was assigned to the units that were planning British operations against the German ore supply via Narvik.

The end of the hunter

After German troops had been landed in Narvik by German destroyers as part of the Weser Exercise operation , the Hunter ran out with her sister ships to block the Ofotfjord . On April 10, 1940, the destroyer took part in the First Naval Battle near Narvik . The 2nd Destroyer under Captain Warburton-Lee managed with Hardy , Hunter , Hotspur , Havock and Hostile to surprise the Germans in Narvik in very invisible weather and to sink the destroyers Wilhelm Heidkamp and Anton Schmitt as well as the destroyers Diether von Roeder and Hans Lüdemann to damage. The German merchant ships Neuenfels (8096 BRT), Aachen (6388 BRT), Altona (5892 BRT), Hein Hoyer (5836 BRT) and Martha H. Fisser (4879 BRT) were also lost to torpedo or artillery hits from the attacking destroyers, and other ships were damaged.

On the march back after the bombardment of the port, the Hunter was set on fire by the artillery of German destroyers ( Georg Thiele and Bernd von Arnim ). The hotspur running behind her received a hit in the steering gear and rammed the already heavily damaged Hunter , which was no longer controllable , and then sank at 5:30 a.m. 110 men of the 145 man crew were killed.

The wreck of the Hunter was rediscovered on March 5, 2008 during an annual maneuver by British and Norwegian naval units by the Norwegian special ship Tyr on the bottom of the Ofotfjord at a depth of 305 m at 68 ° 25 ′  N , 17 ° 12 ′  E, coordinates: 68 ° 24 '53'  N , 17 ° 12 '0'  O .

literature

  • Michael J. Whitley: Destroyers of World War Two. An international encyclopedia. Arms and Armor Press, London et al. 1988, ISBN 0-85368-910-5 .

Web links

Commons : HMS Hunter  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Footnotes

  1. DESTROYER FLOTILLAS 1921–1939
  2. ^ Rohwer: Sea War. April 10–11, 1940 Norway
  3. Archeology in the Arctic Ocean: Echolot tracks down destroyer sunk in 1940. Spiegel, April 4, 2008