HMS Kelvin (F37)
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HMS Kelvin (F37) was a destroyer of the K-class of the Royal Navy . The ship, built by the Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Company in Govan near Glasgow , was started in 1937 and entered service with the Royal Navy in November 1939 after the start of the war. The destroyer was awarded the Battle Honors Atlantic 1940 , Spartivento 1940 , Crete 1941 , Mediterranean 1941–43 , Sirte 1942 , Malta Convoys 1942 , Normandy 1944 and Aegean 1944 during World War II .
The Kelvin was one of the two K-series ships that survived the World War. From April 1949 the ship was canceled in Troon .
history
HMS Kelvin was laid on October 5, 1937 at Fairfield in Govan together with the simultaneously ordered sister ship Juno , launched on January 19, 1939 six weeks after the Juno and on November 27, 1939 as the second ship of the Navy with the name Kelvin and sixth K-class ship put into service. After commissioning, the destroyer was assigned to the 5th Destroyer Flotilla with the Home Fleet in Scapa Flow .
Calls
The destroyers of the "5th Destroyer Flotilla" were used to secure convoys 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.
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 and the Kelvin with its sister ships Kimberley , Kashmir , 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 Kelvin was badly damaged when it rammed the Kashmir during a security task. The Kelvin , severely damaged at the bow , marched backwards to Lerwick to prevent further damage. Because of the total failure of the steering gear, the Kashmir had to be towed back from the Cossack to Scapa Flow. The two damaged ships and the towing destroyer were secured by the Zulu as far as Lerwick . Both of them were finally towed to the Tyne for repairs . The extensive repairs prevented further missions of the two destroyers off Norway and during the evacuation of Allied troops from mainland Europe. At the beginning of June 1940, the Kelvin was able to be used again and in July came back to the "5th Flotilla" now used on the Humber , which now comprises all J- and K-class destroyers still at home.
At the end of August 1940 she accompanied the ships of the 20th Destroyer Flotilla with Jupiter and Vortigern on a mine-laying mission off the West Frisian Islands . The Express ran on August 31, 1940 northwest of Texel into an unknown German minefield and lost its bow. When trying to save the survivors, first the Esk and then the Ivanhoe also ran into mines . While the Express could be towed to safety by Kelvin , then Jupiter, despite its severe damage , the Esk sank immediately. The Ivanhoe was so badly damaged that it had to be abandoned and was sunk by the Kelvin on September 1st .
In September 1940 the "5th Flotilla" moved to Plymouth to be available for the defense against possible activities of German destroyers. The Navy had meanwhile moved five destroyers to the captured Brest . On October 11, the Kelvin accompanied the battleship Revenge with another six units of the 5th Destroyer Flotilla in the bombardment of Cherbourg .
On the night of October 18, 1940, the British had established the departure of five German destroyers at an early stage, stopped the ongoing convoys and formed an association with the cruisers Newcastle and Emerald and the destroyers Jackal under Captain Lord Louis Mountbatten , Jupiter , Kipling , Kashmir and Kelvin set against the German advance. The British found the four German destroyers Z 10 Hans Lody , Z 20 Karl Galster , Z 14 Friedrich Ihn and Z 15 Erich Steinbrinck ( Z 6 Theodor Riedel turned back early because of a boiler damage) and opened fire at maximum distance, but were able to attack the Germans do not follow, which turned off after firing a torpedo volley without a hit.
The Kelvin was dispatched to the Mediterranean with Jaguar on November 15th and both ships arrived in Gibraltar on November 21st together with the cruisers Manchester and Southampton they secured . In the following week, the Kelvin provided escort services for larger combat ships in the area between Gibraltar and Sicily. On November 27th, she and Jaguar were escorting the aircraft carrier Ark Royal ; the battle group could no longer intervene in the sea battle at Cape Teulada (Spartivento) and the ships returned to Gibraltar on November 29th.
In December 1940, the Kelvin returned to Plymouth and took over patrol duties in the English Channel until the spring of 1941 .
End of April 1941, she with her sister ships Kashmir , Kelly , Kipling , Jersey and Jackal ordered to the Mediterranean, where they destroyer of the 14th Destroyer Flotilla in Malta in the Force K peeled off. On May 21, the destroyer group ran out to Crete without the Jersey , which had since sunk after being hit by mines , to intercept German invasion forces during the Battle of Crete . The group came under sustained air raids and on May 23, the Kashmir and Kelly were sunk by German bombers. After these losses, the 5th Destroyer Flotilla was disbanded and the Kelvin was placed under the newly formed 7th Destroyer Flotilla. From May 28th to 30th, she took part in the evacuation of Allied troops from the Cretan Sfakia , together with Kandahar and the Australian destroyers Napier and Nizam, as part of Force C. She suffered damage on the way back to Alexandria , which made it necessary to stay in the shipyard. In June she was therefore sent to Bombay , where the repair work continued until the turn of the year.
From January 1942, the Kelvin was used to secure supply convoys to Malta again and on March 22nd was involved in the 14th destroyer flotilla together with Jervis , Kipling and Kingston in the second naval battle in the Gulf of Syrte . In April, the destroyer supported a commando operation in Crete with the sister ship Kipling . This was followed by more escort missions and, in August, a bombardment of Rhodes with the cruisers Arethusa and Cleopatra and the destroyers Javelin , Sikh and Zulu as a diversionary maneuver. From November 1942, the Kelvin was used together with Jervis , Javelin and Janus again as Force K from Malta against the supplies of the Axis powers to North Africa.
In June 1943, the destroyer was withdrawn from the Mediterranean Sea and underwent a major overhaul in Chatham Dockyard . The Kelvin was then used in June 1944 during the Allied landing in Normandy in the area of the Sword section for artillery support for the landing forces. After an overhaul in Sheerness , the Kelvin moved again to the eastern Mediterranean in October 1944 and was involved in the occupation of vacated islands.
Whereabouts
She did not return to Great Britain until the end of 1945 and was decommissioned in January 1946. Segregated in February 1948, she came to Troon in April 1949, where the demolition of the destroyer was carried out.
Armament
The armament consisted of six 120 mm cannons in double mounts Mk.XII for use against sea and air targets (two turrets in front of the bridge, the rear in an elevated position; another double 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 20 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 .
In 1942/43 the Kelvin's armament was further improved. Since there were now many units with improved anti-aircraft armament, the 102 mm anti-aircraft gun was removed and the second torpedo tube set reinstalled. Two of the individual Oerlikons have been replaced by two 20mm twin cannons. In addition, there were now 45 depth charges with twice the number of drop devices.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d Service History HMS Kelvin (G37) - K-class Destroyer
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. 7–8 April 1940, Norway
- ↑ Service History HMS Kashmir (F12) - K-class Destroyer.
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. 31.8./1.9.1940 North Sea
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. 11. – 12.10.1940, Kanal, Operation Medium
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. October 17-18, 1940, Kanal
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 Kelvin (G37) - K-class Destroyer
- HMS Kelvin on uboat.net
- Jürgen Rohwer, Gerhard Hümmelchen: Chronicle of the naval war 1939-1945. Published by the Library for Contemporary History Stuttgart
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
