HMS Kashmir (F12)
 The Kashmir 1941
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HMS Kashmir (F12) was a J- and K-class destroyer of the Royal Navy. The ship, built at Thornycroft in Woolston near Southampton , began in 1937 and entered service with the Royal Navy in October 1939 shortly after the war began. In the Second World War , the ship was awarded the Battle Honors North Sea 1939 , Mediterranean 1941 and Crete 1941 .
The destroyer was sunk on May 23, 1941 south of Crete by German dive bombers , who also sank the sister ship Kelly during the same attack . The Kipling , which had lost contact with the sister ships due to a damaged rudder, was able to recover 159 Kashmir survivors .
history
The Kashmir was laid down at Thornycroft in October 1937 and was to be named Javelin . Since a timely completion of the destroyer was not expected, she exchanged the name with the second (K) order from John Brown & Co. , so that Brown manufactured two units of the J class and Thornycroft two of the K class, which were largely were identical. As the first ship of the Royal Navy named after the British Protectorate of Kashmir in the Himalayas , the destroyer was launched on April 4, 1939 and put into service on October 26, 1939.
Calls
After commissioning, the Kashmir was assigned to the 5th Destroyer Flotilla at Home Fleet in Scapa Flow . The destroyers were used to secure convoy trains in the North Sea and in the area of the North Western Approaches or to search for German submarines and German merchant ships that were trying to reach their homeland.
Together with the destroyers Kingston and Icarus , the Kashmir attacked the German submarine U 35 on November 29, 1939 in the North Sea east of the Shetland Islands with depth charges and forced it to surface. Without the possibility of escape of the German commander ordered the self-absorption in position 60 ° 53 ' N , 2 ° 47' O . The entire crew was taken up by the British destroyers and taken prisoner of war.
On the evening of April 7, 1940, the British Home Fleet ran with two battleships , a battle cruiser , two light cruisers and ten destroyers from Scapa into the Shetland-Norway Strait, followed by a French cruiser with two large destroyers to target a German occupation of Norway prevent. The British destroyer association formed five units of the Tribal class as well as the Kashmir with its sister ships Kimberley , Kelvin , Jaguar and Jupiter . The association set sail too late to be able to prevent the primary goals of the German Weser Exercise company . The British search associations were considerably strengthened and reorganized several times. On the 9th, the Kashmir was badly damaged when it was rammed by the Kelvin during a security task. Because of the total failure of the steering gear, she had to be towed back from the Cossack to Scapa Flow. The Kelvin , which was severely damaged at the bow, had to reverse as far as Lerwick to prevent further damage. The two damaged ships and the towing destroyer were secured by the Zulu up to there . Both of them were finally towed to the Tyne for repairs . The repair of the Kashmir at Swan Hunter began in mid-April .
During the repair of the destroyer, the identifier of the J and K class changed from F to G and all units remaining in their home country were assigned to the “5th Destroyer Flotilla”. Some units relocated to the Mediterranean in May came to the newly formed "14th Destroyer Flotilla" at the Mediterranean Fleet , even if some were placed under the East Indies Station because of the operation against Italian East Africa (see Khartoum ). It was not until June 17, 1940 that the Kashmir was operational again and was again available to the flotilla , which had meanwhile been stationed in Immingham , and which then moved to Plymouth in September to be available for the defense against any activities by German destroyers. The Navy had meanwhile moved five destroyers to the captured Brest .
On October 11, 1940, the Kashmir ran out of Plymouth together with her sister ships, the destroyers Javelin , Jupiter , Kelvin , Kipling , Jackal and Jaguar to support the battleship Revenge in the bombardment of the French port of Cherbourg, which was occupied by German troops in July . On 20 October, the patrolling Kashmir along with the Jaguar , the Broke and the Polish destroyer Błyskawica in the English Channel . Four German destroyers were sighted. As the Allies approached, the German boats turned and returned to their base. The persecution was unsuccessful.
The Kashmir was involved in three further meetings with the German destroyers . On the night of October 18, the British had established the departure of five German destroyers early on, stopped the convoys in progress and formed an association with the cruisers Newcastle and Emerald and the destroyers Jackal under Captain Louis Mountbatten , Jupiter , Kipling , Kelvin and Kashmir against the German advance scheduled. The British found the four German destroyers Hans Lody , Karl Galster , Friedrich Ihn and Erich Steinbrinck ( Theodor Riedel turned back early because of a boiler damage) and opened fire at maximum distance, but could not follow the Germans, who after firing a torpedo volley without Turned off hits. On November 2, a British association with Newcastle and Nigeria as well as the destroyers Jersey , Jackal , Jaguar , Jupiter and Kashmir searched in vain for the German destroyers at sea, which ran back to Brest before the location.
On the night of November 29, Karl Galster , Hans Lody and Richard Beitzen under the FdZ Erich Bey were able to sink or damage four light Allied units off Plymouth before the "5th Flotilla" intervened under Mountbatten with Javelin , Jupiter , Jackal , Jersey and Kashmir could. The British command destroyer Javelin received torpedo hits fore and aft and lost the bow and stern. The British broke off the pursuit, but were able to bring in the seriously damaged Javelin .
Operations in the Mediterranean
End of April 1941, the Kashmir with her sister ships Kelly , Kelvin , Kipling , Jersey and Jackal in the Mediterranean to Malta told where they destroyer of the 14th Destroyer Flotilla in the Force K peeled off.
The end of Kashmir
The Kashmir moved there with the Force K after the German air landing on Crete ( company Merkur ) in order to prevent German reinforcements at sea. On the night of May 23, she and Kipling and Kelly shot at the Maleme airfield, which was occupied by the Germans . On 23 May 1941, was Kashmir on the way back to Egypt south of Crete in position 34 ° 40 ' N , 24 ° 10' O by German Ju-87 Stukas of I./StG.2 attacked and sunk. The Kelly was sunk in the same air raid.
The Kipling , which had lost contact with the sister ships due to a rudder damage, was able to recover 159 survivors of the Kashmir and reached Alexandria on the 25th damaged with 279 rescued from the two sunken sister ships.
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) Fla-MGs . Ten torpedo tubes in two sets of five tubes each and depth charges completed the armament.
The poor defense ability of the class against air attacks led from 1940 to the exchange of the rear torpedo tube set for a 102 mm Mk.V flak . Later, the Vickers FlaMGs were also replaced by four individual Oerlikon automatic cannons .
literature
- Maurice Cocker: Destroyers of the Royal Navy, 1893-1981. Ian Allen, 1983, ISBN 0-7110-1075-7 .
- Norman Friedman: British Destroyers: From Earliest Days to the Second World War. Seaforth Publishing, Barnsley 2009, ISBN 978-1-84832-049-9 .
- HT Lenton: Warships of the British and Commonwealth Navies. Ian Allan 1969.
- Antony Preston: Destroyers. Hamlyn, ISBN 0-600-32955-0 .
- MJ Whitley: Destroyer in World War II. Motorbuch Verlag, 1995, ISBN 3-613-01426-2 (Original: Destroyers of World War Two. Arms & Armors Press, London)
Web links
- Service History HMS Kashmir (F12) - K-class Destroyer.
- HMS Kashmir on uboat.net
- Jürgen Rohwer with Gerhard Hümmelchen: Chronicle of the Naval War 1939–1945. Published by the Library for Contemporary History Stuttgart
Footnotes
- ↑ a b c d e f Service History HMS Kashmir (F12) - K-class Destroyer.
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. November 21-30, 1939, North Atlantic
- ↑ Hans Mair's memorial page for U 35.
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. 7–8 April 1940, Norway
- ↑ Picture of the damaged Kashmir at Swan Hunter
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. 11. – 12.10.1940, Kanal, Operation Medium
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. October 17-18, 1940, Kanal
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. November 2nd, 1940, canal
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. November 27-29, 1940, Kanal
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. May 20 – June 1, 1941, Mediterranean Sea, Merkur company, German air landing on Crete
J-class Jackal | Jaguar | Janus | Javelin | Jersey | Jervis | Juno | Jupiter
K-class Kandahar | Kashmir | Kelly | Kelvin | Khartoum | Kimberley | Kingston | Kipling
N class Napier | Nepal | Nerissa | Nestor | Nizam | Noble (G84) | Noble (G65) | Nonpareil | Norman
Australia :
Napier |
Nepal |
Nestor |
Nizam |
Norman
