HMS Jupiter (F85)

**Jupiter**
	The Jupiter
Ship data
flag	United Kingdom
Ship type	destroyer
class	J class
Shipyard	Yarrow & Co. , ; Scotstoun / Glasgow
Build number	1705
Order	March 25, 1937
Keel laying	September 28, 1937
Launch	October 27, 1938
takeover	June 25, 1939
Whereabouts	Sank February 28, 1942 after being hit by a mine
Ship dimensions and crew
length	108.6 m ( Lüa ) 106 m ( KWL ) 103.4 m ( Lpp )
width	10.8 m
Draft	Max. 4.22 m
displacement	1773 ts standard; ; 2384 ts maximum
crew	183-218 men
Machine system
machine	2 Admiralty three-drum boilers , ; Parsons geared turbines
Machine ; performance	40,000 PS (29,420 kW)
Top ; speed	36 kn (67 km / h)
propeller	2
Armament
	6 × Sk 120 mm L / 45 Mk.XII (3 × 2); 4 × Flak 40 mm L / 39 (2pdr) Mk.VIII (1 × 4); 8 × Fla MG Vickers 12.7 mm L / 62 (2 × 4); 10 × torpedo tube ⌀ 533 mm (2 × 5); 20 depth charges , ; 2 launchers, 1 drop frame; Mine detection equipment; last: 6 × Sk 120 mm L / 45 Mk.XII (3 × 2); 1 × Flak 102 mm L / 45 Mk.V ; 4 × Flak 40 mm L / 39 (2pdr) Mk.VIII (1 × 4); 4 × Flak Oerlikon 20 mm L / 70 Mk.II ; 5 × torpedo tube ⌀ 533 mm (1 × 5); 20 depth charges , ; 2 launchers, 1 drop frame; Mine detection equipment;
Sensors
	ASDIC

HMS Jupiter (F85) was a British J-class destroyer . The destroyer put into service on June 25, 1939 initially served in the 7th Destroyer Flotilla of the Home Fleet . During World War II he was awarded the Battle Honors Mediterranean in 1941 and Malaya in 1942 . On February 28, 1942, the Jupiter ran into a mine near Java and sank.

history

HMS Jupiter and its sister ship Kipling were ordered from Yarrow & Company in Scotstoun , Glasgow , in March 1937 and laid down as a newbuilding 1705 on September 28, 1937. On October 27, 1938, she was launched as the sixth Jupiter in the Royal Navy; the ship of the line Jupiter of the Majestic class had last borne the name.

The new destroyer entered service on June 25, 1939 as the fifth ship of the new class. After commissioning, she was assigned to the newly formed 7th Destroyer Flotilla of the Home Fleet .

Deployments in 1939/1940

A hallmark of the Jupiter's early days of operation were numerous collisions and machine damage, which led to frequent docking times , which did not distinguish it from the other units of the class. So the Jupiter collided with the sister ship Jervis at the end of September 1939 . A good week later she had to be brought in by the Jervis after an engine failure , and then three weeks later the Javelin had to be brought in to Middlesbrough after colliding with a merchant ship . The ship was initially deployed off Norway in April 1940 to secure the heavy units of the Home Fleet at sea, but did not intervene in the fighting to repel the German occupation ( company Weserübungen ) and had been in the shipyard since the end of April for some Eliminate construction defects. At the end of May, the destroyers of the J and K class were combined in the "5th Destroyer Flotilla", as the operational capability of the new destroyers still did not meet the requirements. At the end of the month, the flotilla had only three operational destroyers , the Kelvin , Jackal and Javelin . In addition to the Jupiter , Jaguar , Jersey , Jervis as well as Kelly , Kipling and Kashmir were under repair.

The Express after a mine hit

On August 31, 1940, the Jupiter , together with the Kelvin and the Vortigern, secured a deployment of the 20th (mine-laying) destroyer flotilla to a mining operation near Texel, when Esk , Intrepid , Icarus , Ivanhoe and Express got into a previously unknown German mine lock. The Jupiter then hauled the badly damaged Express a large part of the way back to the base.
see Texel disaster

In October 1940 the British 5th Destroyer Flotilla moved with the Jupiter to Plymouth in order to be available from there for the defense of the destroyers of the Navy that had moved to Brest . On the night of 10-11 , the destroyer secured the bombardment of Cherbourg by the battleship Revenge and the cruisers Newcastle and Emerald with Javelin , Jaguar , Jackal , Kashmir , Kelvin and Kipling . Some of the destroyers also fired at targets in the French port city. On the march back there was a brief skirmish between the German 5th torpedo boat flotilla with griffin , condor , falcon , sea eagle and wolf and the British destroyers Jackal , Jaguar , Kelvin , Kipling and Jupiter . The German torpedo boats had advanced into the Isle of Wight to attack British coastal traffic, were also on the march back and evaded the British units. On 17./18. tried the two British cruisers with some of the aforementioned destroyers for the first time to face the abandoned German destroyers. Jupiter was unable to follow its own ships due to machine problems after the fire opened. The four German destroyers managed to break away from the British and run back to Brest. The Jupiter was on the last mission of the 5th British Flotilla with Jackal , Javelin , Jersey and Kashmir on 28/29. Involved in November 1940 when Karl Galster , Hans Lody and Richard Beitzen under the FdZ , Captain Erich Bey , attacked a British convoy near Land's End . The Germans sank two tugs and a lighter and set fire to a coastal steamer before the British destroyers intervened. Presumably through Lody , the British command destroyer Javelin and the flotilla chief Captain Lord Mountbatten received two torpedo hits and could only be brought in as a torso of 155 feet (47 m) of the originally 353 ft (108 m) long destroyer in the protection of the Kashmir . During this battle, Jupiter held up the longest unsuccessful pursuit of the retreating German destroyers.

Immediately after the battle, the Jupiter secured with Jersey and Kashmir from November 30 to December 2, 1940 the transfer of the light cruiser Manchester to Gibraltar , which had troops for Malta and Alexandria on board. The cruiser and its escort marched back to Great Britain from December 8th to 11th to load more valuable cargo. At the turn of the year, Jupiter again secured the mine cruiser Adventure with Jersey and Kashmir when laying a mine barrier in the South Western Approaches against feared German surface attacks.

Operations in 1941

In January 1941 the destroyer Jupiter moved to Gibraltar to the Force H , which was temporarily reinforced by ships from the Home Fleet. From January 31 to February 4 he made from Gibraltar with the destroyers Duncan , Encounter and Isis Group 3 of the Force H, which should secure the bandage especially against U-boats, with the on-board aircraft of the aircraft carrier Ark Royal objectives Sardinia attack (Operation Picket ). From February 6th to 9th, the next advance with the Force H to bombard Genoa by the battlecruiser Renown , the battleship Malaya and the cruiser Sheffield and on-board aircraft operations of the Ark Royal with air mines against La Spezia and bombers against Livorno (Operation Grog ) . Again, the destroyer with Duncan , Isis and the Firedrake for anti-submarine defense formed Group 3 of the association, to which six other destroyers belonged, including the Jersey . After the two missions, the Jupiter came to the shipyard in Gibraltar, but had to move back to Plymouth on February 23 because of the damage, where the necessary work could be carried out in the Devonport Dockyard . The damage to the ship led to an investigation into possible sabotage. The repair could not be completed until May 1941.

On June 18, 1941 began a British battle group consisting of the light cruisers Nigeria and the destroyers Bedouin , Tartar and the currently playing ready- Jupiter , the German weather ship Lauenburg in dense fog north-east of Jan Mayen off after she means Huff-Duff had pinpointed . The crew of the Lauenburg abandoned the ship when the Tartar opened fire. The British then boarded the ship and captured valuable documents and the cipher machine . Thereafter the weather ship was sunk at position 73 ° 2 ' N , 3 ° 13' W.73.033333333333 -3.2166666666667

In July, the installation of Oerlikon automatic cannons at Scotts in Greenock and another repair in Liverpool . The destroyer intended for the "14th Destroyer Flotilla" of the Mediterranean Fleet left the Clyde on August 3rd with the troop escort WS 10 of 19 transporters, which he carried with the heavy cruiser London , which was replaced by the Edinburgh on the 10th in the North Atlantic . as an "Ocean Escort" to Cape Town . The convoy had reinforcements on board for British troops in the Middle East and Singapore . After a short stay in Freetown , the convoy reached Cape Town on September 2nd. The Jupiter was looking for a shipyard in Durban on to agencies to strengthen the foredeck and eliminate the causes of leaks. From September 12 to 24, the destroyer then moved through the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea to his flotilla.

In November that was Jupiter to Singapore to be formed Force Z delivered and left on November 15, 1941 Alexandria together with the also the Eastern Fleet offset Encounter . On November 28, the destroyers parked by the Mediterranean fleet in Colombo joined the reinforcements sent from Great Britain (battleship Prince of Wales and the destroyers Electra and Express ). On the 30th, the unit was strengthened by the battle cruiser Repulse coming from Trincomalee , which had recently accompanied mainly troop escorts and had reached Ceylon a week earlier . Together they set course for Singapore, where they arrived on December 2nd.

The state of Jupiter required a new docking and she did not take part in the advance of Force Z against the Japanese invasion forces on December 8, which led to the sinking of the two British capital ships on December 10, 1941.

The end of Jupiter

The Jupiter was used after the sinking of the heavy British units in the escort between Singapore and the Sunda Islands. On January 17, 1942, Jupiter succeeded in sinking the Japanese submarine I-60 , which was about to run through the Sunda Strait. The destroyer was now part of the newly formed British "China Force" for escort duties between Singapore, the Sunda Strait and Java with the cruisers Danae , Dragon and Durban , the destroyers Encounter , Express , Electra , Stronghold and the Australian Vampires and the Indian Sloop Jumna and the Australian Yarra .

In order to divert Dutch escorts for troop transfer, the destroyer took part in a British advance with the cruisers Exeter and the Australian Hobart and the destroyers Encounter in early February . From the middle of the month, the destroyer mainly brought refugees from Singapore to Sumatra or Java. On the march back from the battle in the Java Sea, where she formed a destroyer group with Electra and Encounter , the Jupiter ran north of Java on February 28, 1942, to a sea mine that the Dutch miner Gouden Leeuw had laid earlier that day and dropped to 6 ° 45 ' S , 112 ° 6' O . -6.75 112.1

Armament

The armament consisted of six 120 mm cannons in double mounts Mk.XII for use against sea and air targets (two towers in front of the bridge, the rear in an elevated position; one mount on a platform in the rear). As anti-aircraft armament , the destroyer had a 2-pounder quadruple gun Mk.VIII on a platform behind the funnel and two quadruple 0.5-inch (12.7-mm) flak machine guns . Ten torpedo tubes in two sets of five tubes each completed the armament.

The armament of the Jupiter was changed in only two points until its sinking in 1942. Like many of the destroyers of all classes, she dismantled a torpedo set. A 102 mm L / 45 Mk.V flak was then installed in place of the last set . In 1941 the two quadruple anti- aircraft machine guns were also dismounted and the ship, like many other destroyers, was equipped with four 20 mm L / 70 Oerlikon Mk.II cannons to improve anti- aircraft capabilities.

literature

MJ Whitley: Destroyer in World War II. Motorbuch Verlag, 1995, ISBN 3-613-01426-2 (Original: Destroyers of World War Two. Arms & Armours Press, London), pp. 114-118 (N-Class), 219, 215.