HMS Mohawk (F31)

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Mohawk
HMS Mohawk (F31) .jpg
Ship data
flag United KingdomUnited Kingdom (Naval War Flag) United Kingdom
Ship type destroyer
class Tribal class
Shipyard John I. Thornycroft
Woolston
Order March 10, 1936
Keel laying July 16, 1936
Launch October 5, 1937
Commissioning September 7, 1938
Whereabouts sunk on April 16, 1941 after being hit by a torpedo
Ship dimensions and crew
length
114.9 m ( Lüa )
108.4 m ( Lpp )
width 11.12 m
Draft Max. 2.75 m
displacement Standard : 1,854 ts
maximum: 2,519 ts
 
crew 190-217 men
Machine system
machine 3 Admiralty three drum boilers
2 Parsons - geared turbines
Machine
performance 		44,000 PS (32,362 kW)
Top
speed 		36 kn (67 km / h)
propeller 2
Armament

last

for 1 × 2 120 mm L / 45 Mk.XII ( X position)

additionally

The eleventh HMS Mohawk (F31) of the Royal Navy (RN) was a second Tribal class destroyer . The Mohawk was sunk on April 16, 1941 off the Kerkenna Islands on the east coast of Tunisia by the Italian destroyer Luca Tarigo with two torpedoes in a skirmish over a convoy.

History of the ship

The ship was laid on July 16, 1936 at the John I. Thornycroft & Co. (Woolston, Hampshire ), launched on October 5, 1937 and put into service on September 7, 1938. The name of the North American Indian tribe of the Mohawk, many of whom also live in Canada, was given in 1907 to one of the boats of the first tribal class , which was in service with the Royal Navy from 1908 to 1919.
On October 13, 1938, the new Mohawk arrived in Malta and strengthened the tribal flotilla under construction with Afridi and Cossack in the Mediterranean fleet . In November she made a trip with the British ambassador to Turkey from Cape Helles to Istanbul . After visiting the Aegean Sea, the destroyer returned to Malta for Christmas. There the identification of the ship was changed from L31 to F31 .

After brief participation in the major maneuvers of Home Fleet and Mediterranean Fleet off Gibraltar , the Mohawk was used in March for neutrality monitoring on the Spanish Mediterranean coast. On the 23rd she was able to save five Germans of the Condor Legion after the crash of a seaplane off Barcelona . In April the tribal flotilla in the Mediterranean was launched in “4. Destroyer Flotilla ”, to which the Afridi , Cossack , Gurkha , Nubian , Sikh and Zulu also belonged.

War missions

When the war began in September 1939, the Mohawk, with Afridi , Gurkha and Sikh, was one of the units that were supposed to observe Italian reactions in the Red Sea and possibly arrest German merchant ships. In October, like all ships of the 4th Destroyer Flotilla, she moved to Great Britain and arrived in Harwich via Malta and Gibraltar on the 13th .
Having run north with a coast convoy, the Mohawk was attacked on October 16 in the Firth of Forth next to the cruisers Southampton and Edinburgh by Junkers Ju 88 of I. Group of Kampfgeschwader 30 . Two bombs exploding close to the ship and their splinters led to considerable losses in the bridge area. 15 men died, including the commander, and another 30 were injured. After a makeshift repair in the navy shipyard in Rosyth , the Mohawk went to the Tyne , where the repairs were carried out at Hawthorn Leslie in Hebburn by mid-December. On her first inspection voyage in the North Sea with Kelly on December 15th , she suffered damage from a mine explosion and was brought in from Mohawk to the Tyne.

On April 7, 1940, the Mohawk was one of the first units of the Royal Navy to go to sea to clear up the German fleet movements off Norway . The first association also includes the sister ships Afridi , Gurkha , Sikh , Zulu and Cossack , the destroyers Kashmir and Kelvin , the cruisers Aurora and Galatea and the Polish ships ORP Grom , Blyskawica and Burza . After all, the Mohawk belonged to the attack group against Bergen with six sister ships and five light cruisers , which withdrew when it was attacked on the 9th southwest of Bergen by 47 Ju 88s of KG 30 and 41 Heinkel He 111s of KG 26 , which sank the destroyer Gurkha and damaged the cruisers Southampton and Glasgow by impacts.
Again off Norway, the Mohawk survived another air raid in Ålesund undamaged on the 13th . On the 14th she was involved in the first Allied landings in Namsos . On the 28th she escorted four vans from Molde and Andalsnes back to Great Britain with Afridi , Sikh , Witherington and Amazon . The last mission before Norway was to secure the former ferry Royal Ulsterman, which was used as a troop transport, to Mo on May 4th.

HMS Vansittart

On May 10th, the Mohawk was assigned to the Nore Command in southern England to evacuate British diplomats and other officials and refugees to Great Britain on the 11th with the old destroyer Vansittart in Hoek van Holland after the German attack on Belgium and the Netherlands. The ship that returned on the 12th was finally withdrawn from the Home Fleet on the 14th and reassigned to the Mediterranean Fleet, as was the sister ship Nubian and the destroyers Hero , Hasty , Ilex , Imperial , Juno , Khartoum and Kingston . After repairs to the steering gear, the Mohawk reached Alexandria on May 29.

Again in the Mediterranean

On June 10, 1940, Italy entered the war. With the cruisers Capetown , Caledon and the destroyers Nubian , the Australian Vampire and the now Polish Garland , the Mohawk secured the voyage of British and French merchant ships from the Dardanelles and Greek ports to Port Said until the end of the month .

The Mohawk took part in the naval battle at Punta Stilo on July 9, 1940 , where she secured the flagship HMS Warspite with the sister ship Nubian and three other destroyers . The two tribals were supposed to prevent any torpedo attacks by the Italian fleet. In August they then moved with the Janus to Gibraltar in the western Mediterranean in order to escort expected reinforcements to the Mediterranean fleet. From August 30, the three destroyers with Hero , Hotspur , Gallant , Greyhound and Griffin (14th destroyer flotilla) secured the aircraft carrier Illustrious , the battleship Valiant and the anti-aircraft cruisers Coventry and Calcutta on the way from Gibraltar to Alexandria. Until September 1, the association also secured Force H , which was stationed in Gibraltar, as far as the Strait of Sicily , which the transport association passed alone. On September 2, the Mediterranean Fleet picked up the ships. All units arrived in Alexandria on September 5th.

The HMS Terror monitor

On the 16th, the Mohawk was part of the backup of the Illustrious , which carried out air strikes on Benghazi in support of the Army. With the Nubian she secured the cruiser Kent the next day , which shot at Bardia . When the heavy cruiser received an air torpedo hit by an Italian Savoia-Marchetti SM.79 of the “279. Squadriglia Autonoma Aerosiluranti ”under Carlo Emanuele Buscaglia , the Nubian took the cruiser in tow. Mohawk stayed with the tug, which reached Alexandria on the 19th.
On the 22nd, the Mohawk with the destroyers Janus , Jervis and Juno shelled an airfield and troop concentrations at Sidi Barrani and repeated these bombardments on September 25th with Hereward , Hyperion and Juno . Further support missions for the army followed by the end of the year, including with the Terrorist Monitor and securing the operations of the fleet and the convoys to Malta.

During "Operation Excess" to reinforce the island of Malta in early January 1941, the destroyer Gallant ran into an Italian mine barrier and had to be brought into Malta by the Mohawk .

In March 1941, the Mohawk took part in the battle of Cape Matapan as the 14th destroyer flotilla under Captain Mack with Jervis , Janus and Nubian . They controlled the sinking Italian ships and finally sank the heavy cruiser Pola after taking over the remaining crew.

The end of the mohawk

The sister ship Nicolo Zeno of Luca Tarigo

On April 10, 1941, the four destroyers of the 14th DF moved to Malta to attack the escort to North Africa from there. After two unsuccessful night searches, on the evening of the 16th they looked for an Italian convoy reported by the air reconnaissance. Near the Tunisian east coast they discovered the convoy for the German Africa Corps, consisting of the German freighters Adana (4205 BRT), Aegina (2447 BRT), Arta (2452 BRT), Iserlohn (3704 BRT) and the Italian Sabaudia (1590 BRT) which was secured by the Italian destroyers Luca Tarigo ( Navigatori-class , 1929, 1900 ts) and Baleno and Lampo ( Folgore-class , 1932, 1220 ts). Jervis , Janus , Nubian and Mohawk completely destroyed the convoy. However, the Mohawk was hit by two torpedoes from Luca Tarigo and sank on April 16, 1941 off the Kerkenna Islands at position 34 ° 56 ′ 0 ″  N , 11 ° 42 ′ 0 ″  E, coordinates: 34 ° 56 ′ 0 ″  N , 11 ° 42 '0 "  O . 43 crew members lost their lives. The forecastle stuck out of the water when it went down. After Janus and Nubian had recovered the survivors from the water, Jervis sank the forecastle with artillery. Later, Italian divers were able to recover valuable documents from the wreck. The Mohawk survivors were brought to Alexandria by the Nubian in the days that followed.

Renewed use of the name

From the end of 1963 the Royal Navy again had a Mohawk (F125) in service with the sixth frigate of the third tribal class (Type 81) . The ship, built by Vickers in Barrow , was offered for sale in 1981 and then scrapped.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Rohwer: Chronicle of the Naval War 1939–1945. P. 20.
  2. ^ Rohwer (2007), April 7–8, 1940 Norway
  3. ^ Rohwer (2007), April 9, 1940 Norway
  4. ^ Rohwer (2007), June 27-30, 1940 Mediterranean
  5. ^ Rohwer, p. 60
  6. ^ Rohwer (2007), September 22-25, 1940 Mediterranean
  7. ^ Rohwer, p. 95
  8. ^ Rohwer, p. 113
  9. ^ Rohwer, p. 117f.

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