HMS Icarus (D03)
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The HMS Icarus (D03) was an eight-ship destroyer and a Leader I-class of the British Royal Navy in World War II . The ship was awarded ten battle honors during the course of the war and at the end of the war in Europe, along with the HMS Impulsive, was one of the two ships of the class remaining in service. In 1946 the HMS Icarus was decommissioned and sold for demolition.
The history of the ship
The Icarus was one of two ships that were ordered on October 30, 1935 from John Brown & Company in Clydebank . After the keel was laid in March 1936, the Icarus was launched on November 26, 1936 as the first of the two newbuildings in Clydebank. The Icarus was one of half of the I-class ships that could be equipped as mine layers; two guns and the torpedo tubes then had to be given off board to compensate for the load on the mine. The destroyer was initially used together with the majority of its sister ships in the Mediterranean.
War missions
After the start of the war, the Icarus was immediately ordered back to the waters around the British Isles with the ships of the 3rd Destroyer Flotilla . During an escort mission, the Icarus succeeded on November 29, 1939, together with the new destroyers Kingston and Kashmir, east of the Shetland Islands, to sink the German submarine U 35 .
In the autumn of 1939 the Admiralty decided to convert four I-class destroyers into mine- layers at least temporarily . In addition to the Icarus , the sister ships Ivanhoe , Intrepid and Impulsive were converted accordingly in order to then form the 20th British destroyer flotilla in Immingham with the destroyers Esk and Express . The destroyers gave their anti-submarine weapons at the stern, the two stern guns and both torpedo tube sets from board and were then able to load 60 mines on the stern. The conversion of the Icarus took place in January and February as the third I-class ship.
On April 5, 1940, as part of Operation Wilfred , the Icarus laid a mine barrier with Esk , Ivanhoe and Impulsive near Bodø in the coastal waters of Norway , which was still neutral at the time , secured by four H-class destroyers . When the German landing came in ( Operation Weser Exercise ), the destroyer initially succeeded in capturing the German supply steamer Alster . On April 13, Icarus then took part in the Second Sea Battle near Narvik , in which the remaining eight of the original ten destroyers that the German troops had brought there were sunk. The Icarus was assigned to protect the battleship Warspite especially from mines.
After taking over new mines in Immingham , the destroyer laid another mine barrier in the Norwegian coastal waters with the sister ships Ivanhoe and Impulsive at the end of April 1940 .
After further mine operations in the North Sea, the destroyer and many other ships evacuated the allied troops encircled around Dunkirk at the end of May ( Operation Dynamo ). On the third day of his mission, May 31, 1940, he was damaged by German Stukas bombs near Dunkirk . Nevertheless, the Icarus remained in service until June 2 and evacuated 4,396 soldiers on its six voyages. In addition to the Icarus , the sister ships Impulsive , Ivanhoe and Intrepid were also in use between Dover and Dunkirk.
After the repairs were finished, the Icarus continued to operate as a mine-layer and completed the British protective barriers in the North Sea and in the canal .
From February 1941 onwards - mostly together with the sister ships Intrepid and Impulsive and secured by escort destroyers of the Hunt class - offensive mine-laying operations against Brest , the new base of the heavy German ships. At the end of April 1941, the Icarus was converted into a destroyer for submarine hunting and assigned to the 3rd Destroyer Flotilla in the Home Fleet.
On May 22nd, she ran out of Scapa Flow with the destroyers Achates , Antelope , Anthony , Echo , Electra as a safety shield for the battle cruiser Hood and the new battleship Prince of Wales , around the Denmark Strait against a breakthrough of the Bismarck and the accompanying heavy cruiser Prinz To secure Eugene who had left the Norwegian coast. According to reports from the cruiser Suffolk on the evening of the 23rd about the presence of German ships in the Denmark Strait, the heavy British ships ran at maximum speed to the south exit of the road. The commander released the destroyer escorts about two hours before the battle, as they could no longer follow the Hood in the prevailing weather conditions . The Electra was then only able to find three survivors of the Hood of the 1,418 men on board.
At the end of July, the Home Fleet carried out its first major support campaign for its new ally in the east, the Soviet Union, when it attacked Kirkenes and Petsamo with a carrier raid . Together with the flotilla leader Inglefield , the Icarus secured the tanker Black Ranger , which was standing in the North Sea and supplied the cruisers and destroyers of this long mission with fuel at an agreed meeting point. Subsequently, the destroyer was involved in the evacuation of Svalbard , to which on August 19, 1941, the "Force K" under Rear Admiral Philip Vian with the cruisers Nigeria and Aurora , the destroyers Icarus , Antelope , Tartar , Eclipse , Anthony , the troop transport Empress of Canada and the fleet tanker Oligarch (6897 BRT, 1918) sailed from Scapa Flow to Spitsbergen to evacuate the Norwegian and Soviet colonies and destroy the industrial facilities. Nigeria and Empress of Canada transported over 2,000 Russians to Arkhangelsk , where they took on board 200 French who had fled to Russia and wanted to join the Free French and then reunited with the Aurora on September 1 outside Barentsburg , the meanwhile three Loaded Norwegian coal steamer Ingerto (3089 BRT), Nandi (1999 BRT), Munin (1289 BRT), the icebreaker tug Isbjorn (437 BRT, 1898), the whaler Agnes and two seal fishing boats ( Polaric , Strømsnes ) marching to Iceland Had set. On September 3, 1941, the Allies left the archipelago.
After that, the destroyer served as an escort for northern sea convoys until spring 1942 , including convoy trains PQ 2 , PQ 7 , PQ 12 , PQ 13 , through which the Soviet Union was supplied with war material and the escorts.
Since the defense of Malta was a top priority for the British, the ship was transferred to the 6th Destroyer Flotilla in April 1942 and used in the Mediterranean. The first use took place as part of Operation Harpoon from June 12, 1942, during which six transporters with 39,000 tons of supplies and oil were to be brought to Malta. The Icarus was part of the cover group in the western Mediterranean with the battleship Malaya , the carriers Eagle and Argus , the cruisers Kenya , Liverpool , Charybdis and, alongside the Icarus, the destroyers Onslow , Escapade , Antelope , Wishart , Westcott , Wrestler and Vidette . The convoy was almost completely wiped out and the security forces on the convoy suffered considerable losses. The following convoy, Operation Pedestal , which passed Gibraltar on August 10, had an unfortunate start when the carrier Eagle was sunk by U 73 on the same morning . In its sinking only 160 men died, while 927 were rescued by the Laforey , Lookout and the tug Jaunty and the Icarus . However, the convoy lost a quarter of its air security when the carrier went down. The passage of four transporters - including the Ohio tanker - to their destination secured Malta as a powerful base for the Allies for a longer period of time.
From autumn 1942 to spring 1943 the Icarus were again escorted to the Arctic convoys, such as QP 15 , JW 51B , RA 52 , JW 53 and RA 53 , which were attacked by German submarines, surface forces and aircraft.
With increased anti -submarine and anti-aircraft armament, HMS Icarus was used from March 1943 to secure convoy trains in the North Atlantic . First the Icarus was in the "3rd", later "4th" Supportgroup “, the attacked convoys such as HX 230 , HX 231 rushed to the rescue. In autumn 1943 she was assigned to the Canadian "Escort Group C2" stationed in Londonderry and accompanied convoys over the entire North Atlantic. She was also involved in the sinking of the German U-boat U 744 together with the destroyers HMCS Chaudiere and HMCS Gatineau and other escorts on March 5, 1944.
In May 1944, the Icarus moved to the 14th Escort Group in Plymouth to secure the invasion area. The focus of operations was then in the English Channel and the Biscay , where the destroyer hunted German submarines and outpost boats . During an overhaul in August / September 1944, the Icarus received a hedgehog launcher . On January 21, 1945, the destroyer and the corvette Mignonette succeeded in sinking U 1199 , which had attacked a coastal convoy , off Land's End .
End of service
Most recently, the Icarus was only used in the coastal area. After the end of the fighting, HMS Icarus was initially used as a training ship for the training of submarine crews. In autumn 1945 the ship took part in the destruction of the German submarine fleet ( Operation Deadlight ). In January 1946, she accompanied the in Horten seized submarine U 3515 from the Type XXI to Liepaja where it was handed over to the Soviet Red fleet. HMS Icarus was decommissioned in August 1946 and scrapped in the summer of 1947 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Rohwer: Chronicle of the naval war. P. 24.
- ↑ Rohwer, p. 35.
- ^ Rohwer, p. 38
- ↑ Rohwer, p. 46f.
- ^ Rohwer, pp. 148f.
- ^ Rohwer, p. 157
- ^ Rohwer, p. 255.
- ↑ Rohwer, pp. 270f.
- ^ Rohwer, p. 314
- ^ Rohwer, pp. 341, 346.
- ^ Rohwer, p. 429.
literature
- Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronicle of the naval war 1939-1945. Manfred Pawlak Verlags GmbH, Herrsching 1968, ISBN 3-88199-009-7 .
- MJ Whitley: Destroyers of World War Two. Arms and Armor Press, London 1988, ISBN 0-85368-910-5 .
Web links
HMS Inglefield † (Flotilla Leader)
HMS Icarus |
HMS Ilex |
HMS Imogen † |
HMS Imperial † |
HMS Impulsive |
HMS Intrepid † |
HMS Isis † |
HMS Ivanhoe †
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