HMS Malaya
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The HMS Malaya was a battleship of the Royal Navy , the fourth ship of the five units comprehensive Queen Elizabeth class . It was named after the Federated Malay States . This federation of five colonized sultanates also paid for the ship to be built. The Malaya was born on October 20, 1913 at Armstrong Whitworth in Newcastle upon Tyne placed on Kiel, ran on 18 March 1915 by stack and was put into service on February 19 1916th
First World War
Immediately after its commissioning, the Malaya was detached to the 5th battleship squadron of Rear Admiral Hugh Evan-Thomas and took part in the Skagerrak Battle on May 31 and June 1, 1916 . Here she first got into action with the battlecruisers of the German vanguard and in the afternoon, around 5:15 p.m., also met the top ships of the German battle fleet, from which the Malaya was shot at for almost 30 minutes. Together with the sister ship Warspite , which suffered 13 heavy hits in this phase, the Malaya carried the brunt of the fight of the 5th battleship squadron. They fired a total of 215 381 mm caliber shells during the battle. She scored at least three hits on the German battle cruiser Lützow and probably another one on the Derfflinger battle cruiser .
In the course of the battle, the Malaya itself received at least eight 30.5 cm hits, which caused a strong water ingress - due to two hits below the waterline - and the failure of almost all 152 mm guns of the middle artillery on the starboard side. A direct hit hit the casemate of gun No. 3 on the starboard side, killed almost the entire crew there and caused a severe fire that spread to the two adjacent casemate guns. A spread of the fire to the ammunition magazines of the 381 mm guns could be prevented at the last minute. Another German shell also penetrated the Malaya's hull at the stern and emerged from the bottom of the ship; by the ingress of water the ship suffered a list of about four degrees to starboard.
On the march back from the battle, in the early morning hours of June 1, around 4 a.m., the ship collided with an underwater obstacle, possibly a previously sunk ship floating just below the surface of the water, and sustained further damage to the hull. Despite the failure of a boiler and loss of oil, the Malaya was able to continue the home march at a speed of almost 20 knots .
The personnel losses on board the Malaya were the highest of all British battleships in the Battle of the Skagerrak: a total of 63 sailors died, and another 33 were injured, some seriously. Another crew member died on June 10, 1916 from his injuries. The Malaya went to the shipyard in Invergordon for almost two months after the battle and was operational again on July 27, 1916.
For the remainder of the war, the Malaya remained with the 5th battleship squadron and operated with this on August 19, 1916 against a German naval advance in the North Sea, which however did not lead to a clash. In 1918, she collided with the destroyer HMS Penn during a maneuver .
Interwar period
Between 1919 and 1924 the Malaya was stationed with the Atlantic Fleet , visited Cherbourg and in 1920 transferred an Allied control commission to Germany, which had to check the terms of the armistice in German ports. In November 1922 , after the monarchy in Turkey had been abolished , the Malaya transported the last Ottoman ruler, Sultan Mehmed VI. , into exile in Malta . From 1924 to 1927 the battleship was then stationed with the Mediterranean Fleet .
From 1927 to 1929 the Malaya underwent an initial renovation and a major overhaul. The four 152 mm guns set up in shields on the upper deck were replaced by four 102 mm anti-aircraft guns. In addition, the torpedo bulges were reinforced, the ship's two funnels were combined into a single one and eight new 40 mm anti-aircraft guns were installed on board. The reconstruction measures allowed the water displacement to increase to almost 33,000 t , and the top speed also fell to around 23 kn.
Between 1930 and 1934, the battleship was used on different scenes and served alternately with the Atlantic Fleet and the Mediterranean Fleet. Used by the Home Fleet from 1934 , the Malaya was rebuilt in Devonport , which lasted until 1936. During this time - although the Malaya was the ship with the least extensive modifications of all five units in its class - extensive armor protection reinforcements were carried out and a hangar and a catapult for two seaplanes of the Supermarine Walrus type were installed on board. The anti-aircraft defenses were reinforced again and at the end of 1936 consisted of eight 102 mm anti-aircraft guns in four twin mounts, 16 40 mm cannons and four 12.7 mm machine guns .
The ship then moved to the Mediterranean, where it remained until the outbreak of World War II.
Second World War
At the beginning of the Second World War , the Malaya was initially used to hunt down German trade troublemakers and temporarily operated in the Gulf of Aden . In January 1940 she moved to the Atlantic and secured various convoys that operated between the United Kingdom and Freetown . In March 1940 the Malaya returned to the Mediterranean Fleet and took part in a supply operation for Malta in the summer, after Italy entered the war (June 10, 1940) .
As part of Vice Admiral Henry Pridham-Wippell's Force C , the Malaya was involved in the naval battle of Punta Stilo on July 9, 1940 - the first meeting of battleships on the open sea since the Battle of the Skagerrak. During the battle, which ended in a draw, several ships were damaged on both sides, including the Malaya , which was splintered in an Italian air raid. The fire control of the heavy 102 mm anti-aircraft gun was temporarily put out of action.
As part of the fighting in North Africa, the Malaya was used against Italian installations along the Kyrenaika coast and on August 18, 1940, together with the battleships Warspite and HMS Ramillies as well as several cruisers and destroyers, fired at Italian positions near Bardia and the Fort Capuzzo (near Sollum ). The Malaya then took part in the transfer of Force F from Gibraltar to Alexandria (Operation Hats), which was completed on September 6, 1940.
Relocated to Force H (Vice Admiral James Fownes Somerville ) in late 1940 , the Malaya secured another supply convoy to Malta in January 1941 (Operation Excess) and took part in the Force H attack on Genoa (Operation Grog) from February 6 to 11, 1941 part. The Malaya , together with the battle cruiser HMS Renown , fired a total of 273 shells with a caliber of 38.1 cm. Four cargo ships sank in the port and 18 others were damaged. 144 civilians and military personnel died in the city itself. The British squadron suffered no losses. On the way back to Gibraltar, the Malaya had engine problems that reduced its top speed to 17 knots.
In mid-February 1941, the ship was ordered to the Atlantic to escort convoys between Gibraltar and Great Britain and between Sierra Leone and Great Britain. First, the Malaya secured the convoys WS 6A and SL-67; here she was briefly sighted by the two German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau while securing the SL-67 on March 7th . But there was no contact to the battle, as the German ships turned off beforehand.
From March 15, the Malaya provided protection for the convoy SL-68, which drove from Freetown to Great Britain. During this operation she was torpedoed by the German submarine U 106 (Kapitänleutnant Jürgen Oesten) on the night of March 20, 1941, about 250 nautical miles north-northwest of Cape Verde . The attack took place about half an hour before midnight, but was not aimed at the battleship itself. Another torpedo from U 106 hit the Dutch freighter Meerkerk (7,995 GRT). At first, the Germans did not know that a capital ship had been hit in the attack. There were no personnel losses on board the battleship, but the torpedo hit on the starboard side caused considerable damage and caused a list of seven degrees. The Malaya had to break off the safety operation and, secured by a corvette, move to Trinidad , where the first emergency repairs were carried out. Then the ship moved to New York ; the damage was finally repaired there by July 1941. The Malaya was the first Royal Navy ship to be repaired in an American port during World War II. In August 1941 it was relocated back to Great Britain and received new radar equipment - including a Type 286 aerial warning radar - and 15 light 20 mm anti-aircraft guns for close-range defense before it was reassigned to Force H in the Mediterranean. On October 27, 1941, the superstructure was slightly damaged in the port of Gibraltar in a collision with two cargo ships.
Named the flagship of Force H in November 1941, the Malaya took part in several operations to reinforce Malta and to secure troop transports in the following months. In February 1942 she was transferred temporarily to the UK because you have a breakout in Brest feared lying German capital ships in the Atlantic. However, these later moved back to Germany and Norway through the canal. The Malaya returned to the Mediterranean in March and again took on security tasks for several convoys, including in June 1942 with the double convoy company WS-19 / MW-11 ( operations Vigorous and Harpoon ) to Malta. She then served again in the Atlantic and was docked in Rosyth in October 1942 for a stay in the shipyard . During the two-month renovation, the aircraft equipment was dismantled. Instead, the Malaya received two additional 102-mm flak twins and 16 more 40-mm flak and two, later twenty 20-mm flak.
Between January and July 1943 she took part in further escort operations in the Atlantic. The constant convoy drives took their toll on the drive system, which suffered more and more from wear and tear and age. Since the top speed had been reduced to just under 15 knots and the machine was on the verge of collapse, it was decided in the summer of 1943 to take the ship out of active fleet service. In August, the Malaya in Faslane was initially transferred to reserve status and completely decommissioned in December 1943.
However, in June 1944, shortly after the invasion of Normandy began , the old ship was reactivated again to combat German fortifications along the French and Dutch coasts . The Malaya saw its last war mission on September 1, 1944, when it shelled German positions on the island of Cézembre near Saint-Malo . The island crew capitulated a day later. In October 1944, the Malaya was reassigned to reserve status.
Post-war and scrapping
On May 15, 1945, after the end of the war in Europe and after decommissioning, the ship was christened in Portsmouth with the new name HMS Vernon II . Under this name it served as a training ship for a torpedo school until August 1945. In 1947 the ship was retired. In February 1948 it was sold to BISCO Ltd. for demolition. sold and scrapped in Faslane on April 12, 1948.
literature
- Siegfried Breyer: Battleships and battle cruisers 1905–1970. JF Lehmanns Verlagsgesellschaft, Munich 1970.
- Robert Gardiner (Ed.): Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906-1921 . Conway Maritime Press, London 1985, ISBN 0-85177-245-5 , pp. 33-34 .
Web links
- HMS Malaya at historyofwar.org (engl.)
- HMS Malaya at acepilots.com (engl.)
- HMS MALAYA - Queen Elizabeth-class 15in gun Battleship (engl.)
- Queen Elizabeth Class Battleship - HMS Malaya (engl.)
Footnotes
- ↑ Officers and Men Killed in Action or Died of Wounds, HMS Malaya, Battle of Jutland, 31st May -1st June 1916 , as of February 17, 2009
- ^ Sea War 1941, February , as of February 17, 2009.