HMS Meynell
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The HMS Meynell (L82) was an escort destroyer of the 86-unit Hunt-class . The Royal Navy used the ship around the British Isles during World War II . It was awarded the Battle Honors “North Sea 1941–45”, “English Channel 1942–43”, “Arctic 1943” and “Normandy 1944”.
After several years in the reserve, the destroyer escort was sold to Ecuador in 1954 and used by the Ecuadorian Navy as Presidente Velasco Ibarra from August 1955 together with the sister ship Presidente Alfaro (ex HMS Quantock ) built by Scotts . In 1978 the two ships were canceled and then scrapped.
History of the ship
The Meynell belonged to the first group of Hunt escort destroyers. These 20 ships were still included in the last peace building program in 1939. She was ordered in April 1939 from the Swan Hunter shipyard in Wallsend , which received four construction contracts for destroyers of this class before the war. Overall, this shipyard produced the largest number of this class with 16 ships. The keel of the Meynell was laid as a new building with hull number 1579 on August 10, 1939 together with the sister ship Mendip . The two other new buildings had already been started in June 1940. The ship was launched on June 7, 1940 and was delivered to the Royal Navy on December 30, 1940, which had previously received over ten ships of the class.
Mission history
The destroyer escort Meynell was assigned to the "21st Destroyer Flotilla" in Sheerness , where he was used in convoy security and for surveillance trips in the North Sea and the English Channel . With this flotilla, which initially consisted of the older flotilla leader Campbell , six Hunt destroyers and three old destroyers of the V and W class , the destroyer escort remained during the war. During the missions there were occasional German air raids, but mainly attacks by German speedboats , most of which could be repulsed. In 1942, like many of her sister ships, the Meynell received a so-called bowchaser at the front of the bow to ward off the speedboats . First, individual 40 mm pompom guns were installed.
From February 15, 1943, one of the rarely different missions of the Meynell took place as the destroyer escort, the Northern Sea Convoy JW 53 of 29 cargo ships as a "Western Local escort" together with the Hunt destroyers Middleton and Pytchley in addition to a mine sweeper , two corvettes and a UJ trawler escorted from the Clyde to Iceland . On February 21, the Meynell was replaced by the "Ocean Escort" with the cruiser Scylla and thirteen destroyers.
On March 9th, Meynell , Pytchley and the old destroyer Vivacious took over the counter- escort RA 53 again as “Local Western escort” and secured the ships from Iceland to Loch Ewe .
The Meynell resumed her usual service in the North Sea on March 14, 1943. On February 25, 1944, the Meynell successfully defended a coastal convoy off Great Yarmouth against a group of speedboats of the 8th (German) S-Flotilla from IJmuiden under Corvette Captain Felix Zymalkowski , which withdrew.
To support the Allied landing in Normandy which formed Meynell in June 1944 with the built at John Brown sister ship Garth and the corvettes Camellia and Charlock the Flower-class the Escorts Group 101 , the one of the first gain convoy of 21 ships from the Nore escorted to the landing area. Until July 1944, the Meynell was used to secure the supply convoys to the landing forces.
On July 10, 1944, the ship then resumed its tasks as a convoy protection in the North Sea. On October 31, 1944, the destroyer escorted severe damage to the starboard shaft and propeller when it hit the ground. The necessary repairs were not completed until March 1945. During the repair, the pompom Flakvierling was replaced by a more modern Bofors twin gun . At the end of the war, the destroyer escort Meynell performed the same tasks as when the "21st Destroyer Flotilla" was commissioned in Sheerness in early 1941.
Post-war missions
After the end of the war in Europe, the armament of the destroyer escort was removed and the ship was converted into a target ship for fighter planes in Rosyth in September 1945 . The Meynell then served as an "Air Target Ship" in the Mediterranean until 1947. On her return to Great Britain in 1947, the ship was decommissioned and assigned to the reserve in Sheerness. The ship was later moved to Harwich and eventually to Barrow . It then went on the sales list and was sold to Ecuador on October 18, 1954.
Frigate Presidente Velasco Ibarra
The Meynell was one of the 31 Hunt class ships that were also used for other than the British Navy.
The Meynell and the Scotts-built sister ship Quantock , also bought by Ecuador, were the only Hunt-class ships that were sold to South America. After the sale, both ships were overhauled by J. Samuel White in Cowes . In August 1955, the two ships were handed over to the Ecuadorian Navy as Presidente Velasco Ibarra (ex Meynell ) and Presidente Alfaro (ex Quantock ) in Portsmouth. The two ships, now classified as frigates, remained in service there for another 20 years. No further changes were made to the ships during this time. In 1978 both ships were canceled.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e HMS Meynell (L 82) - Type I, Hunt-class Escort Destroyer, accessed on July 17, 2016
- ↑ Rohwer: naval warfare , 15.2.-14.03.1943 Norwegian Sea convoy JW.53
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War , February 21-29, 1944 North Sea / Canal
- ↑ Rohwer: naval warfare , 06.06.1944 channel; Allied invasion (»Decision Day«) in Normandy.
- ^ Deutsch: The Hunts, p. 16
Remarks
- ↑ The picture in the info box probably shows a 20 mm Oerlikon automatic cannon as a "bowchaser".
literature
- Maurice Cocker: Destroyers of the Royal Navy, 1893-1981 , Ian Allen (1983), ISBN 0-7110-1075-7
- John English: The Hunts: a history of the design, development and careers of 86 destroyers of this class built for the Royal and Allied Navies during World War II , World Ship Society, Cumbria 1987, ISBN 0-905617-44-4
- Norman Friedman: British Destroyers: From Earliest Days to the Second World War , Seaforth Publishing (Barnsley 2009), ISBN 978-1-84832-049-9 .
- Antony Preston: Destroyers , Hamlyn, ISBN 0-600-32955-0
- Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronicle of the naval war 1939-1945 , Manfred Pawlak Verlagsgesellschaft, Herrsching, 1968 ISBN 3-88199-009-7
- MJ Whitley: Destroyers of World War 2 , Naval Institute Press, Annapolis (1988), ISBN 0-87021-326-1
Web links
- Meynell 1940 with picture as Presidente Velasco Ibarra
- HMS Meynell (L 82) - Type I, Hunt-class Escort Destroyer
- HMS Meynell (L 82) on uboat.net with details of the British commanders
- "HUNT" 1st type, escort destroyers (1940–1941)
- PRESIDENTE ALFARO frigates (1940–1941 / 1954)