HMS Pathfinder (G10)
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HMS Pathfinder (G10) was a British destroyer in World War II and belonged to the first group of standardized British war destroyers. The Pathfinder was awarded the Battle Honors Atlantic 1942-43 , Malta Convoys 1942 , North Africa 1942-43 , Sicily 1943 , Salerno 1943 , Aegean 1943 and Burma 1944-45 during World War II . The destroyer was involved in the destruction of the Italian submarine Cobalto and the German submarines U 162 and U 203 .
The Pathfinder was badly damaged by a Japanese air raid on February 11, 1945 off Ramree Island in the Burmese coastal region of Arakan . In 1945 a repair of the destroyer, which had marched back to Great Britain with only one operational machine, was rejected as no longer useful.
History of the destroyer
The later Pathfinder was commissioned with the sister ship Pakenham on September 3, 1939 at the shipyard of Hawthorn, Leslie & Co. in Hebburn on the Tyne as part of the "1st Emergency Destroyer Flotilla" ( "O" class ). The ships with hull numbers 625 and 626 were originally supposed to be named Onslow and Onslaught . For the details of the formation of three basic types of the O and P classes,
see HMS Pakenham (G06) => History of the destroyer .
The newbuildings launched at Hawthorn, Leslie & Co. were renamed shortly before their completion, and Onslaught , launched on April 10, 1941, entered service with the Royal Navy on April 13, 1942 as the second Pathfinder . The first Pathfinder from 1904 was the first ship to be sunk while at sea by a submarine with a torpedo shot.
The Pathfinder , delivered as the sixth destroyer of the P subgroup, was structurally identical to its sister ship the Pakenham . The armament consisted of five 102 mm L / 45 Mk.V naval guns with a maximum elevation of 80 ° (usable up to 60 ° in combat). Two each were set up one above the other at the bow and stern. After a plan change in 1940, all P-class destroyers received the fifth gun in place of the originally planned rear torpedo tube set in front of the rear deckhouse. A new fairing had been developed for the guns, which was primarily intended to offer the operator protection from the weather. The two bow guns and the raised stern gun were so disguised. The two guns set up on the main deck at the rear did not receive this protective covering. For short-range defense, a 40-mm-L / 39-pompom-Fla-Vierling were raised behind the chimney and four 20-mm-L / 70-Oerlikon automatic cannons on the searchlight bridge between the torpedo tube sets and at the bridge ends. For this purpose, the ship, like the sister ships, had a quadruple 21-inch torpedo tube set and carried up to 70 depth charges , which were used with four launchers and two drainage channels.
During his service, the Oerlikons at the bridge ends were replaced by twin versions. For this purpose, the 102 mm gun mounted on the position of a possible second torpedo tube set was replaced by a torpedo tube set before it was used in East Asia.
Mission history
The first in command of the new destroyer was from January 1942 to November 1943, Commander Edward Albert Gibbs (1903-1982), who had commanded three destroyers since 1936 and had been awarded the Distinguished Service Order twice as the commander of Fortune . The destroyer immediately went to Scapa Flow for training after its completion . The collision with an auxiliary ship required a stay in the shipyard, which was used for retrofitting with Huff-Duff . From June 1942 the destroyer was in service with the Home Fleet. In July 1942, the destroyer was one of the Home Fleet units involved in Operation Pedestal .
On August 2, the destroyer left the Clyde securing the convoy. On the way through the Mediterranean Sea, the destroyer came to Force X , which was supposed to form the close-range security of the supply convoy to Malta. Since Gibraltar the group consisted of Pathfinder and her sister ship Penn , the light cruisers Manchester , Kenya , Nigeria , the anti-aircraft cruiser Cairo and the other destroyers with Ashanti , Intrepid , Icarus , Fury , Foresight and the Hunt destroyers Derwent , Bramham , Bicester and Ledbury as well as the tug Jaunty . Of the units in this group, Manchester , Cairo and Foresight were lost, Kenya and Nigeria were badly damaged and had to stop the operation, secured by other units. The last remaining four transporters and the Ohio tanker secured Penn , Bramham and Ledbury .
The Pathfinder had sunk the Italian submarine Cobalto on the 12th together with the destroyer Ithuriel , then sank the heavily damaged and cleared Cairo and rescued a British and an Italian pilot from the sea. On the 13th, the Pathfinder took over 150 men from the heavily damaged (later sunk) Manchester . After passing the strait of Sicily, it withdrew again to the height of Bougie to other British units. On the 21st, the destroyer arrived back in Gibraltar together with other Force Z and Force X units .
On the 29th, the Pathfinder was back at sea to accompany the destroyers Quentin and Vimy across the Atlantic to the battleship Queen Elizabeth, which had been badly damaged in Alexandria at the end of December 1941, for repairs in the USA. The destroyers released after crossing the Atlantic to Port of Spain in Trinidad were able to force U 162 to surface on September 3rd off Trinidad, at position 12 ° 21 ′ 0 ″ N , 59 ° 29 ′ 0 ″ W after several hours of depth charge tracking. U 162 sank after the Vimy was rammed into it . There were two dead and 49 survivors. The Pathfinder picked up 13 survivors . The three destroyers brought the prisoners, including Commander Jürgen Wattenberg , to the port of Port of Spain. The commander of the Pathfinder received another clasp for his Distinguished Service Order for his renewed involvement in the sinking of a submarine. Then the destroyer returned to Scapa Flow and the Home Fleet.
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In November the destroyer moved to Gibraltar with the sister ship Penn with the units of the Home Fleet, which were supposed to support the landing of the Allies in North Africa. On the 8th, the destroyer was part of the Eastern Task Force of Operation Torch off Algiers . In December the destroyer was stationed in Oran . When the mine- layer Manxman was torpedoed and badly damaged by U 375 on the journey from Algiers to Gibraltar on December 1 , the Pathfinder came to his aid and towed the mine-layer to Oran.
On the 20th, Pathfinder and Panther ran to the convoy KMF5A and helped to secure the convoy ( Laforey , Lightning , Penn and Wishart ) in which the Strathallan was torpedoed by U 562 on the 21st . More than 5,000 shipwrecked people were able to take the escort ships on board before the second largest merchant ship sunk by submarines in the World War sank. Of the 5122 people on board, only 16 were killed.
In January 1943, the Pathfinder was stationed in Gibraltar with her sister ships Panther and Penn . From April the destroyer formed the 5th escort group with escort carrier Biter and destroyers Obdurate and Opportune for use in the Western Approaches to protect convoys on the Atlantic. While securing the ONS 4 convoy , an attack by U 753 was repulsed. Another attack by U 203 was detected by a Swordfish bomber from the aircraft carrier. The alarmed destroyer attacked the submarine with depth charges and forced it to surface. The commander Hermann Kottmann, two other officers, three ensigns and 33 men were able to leave the sinking submarine and were taken on board by the Pathfinder . Ten men were killed and the boat sank in position 55 ° 5 ' N , 42 ° 25' W . For this sinking, the commander was awarded another clasp for his Distinguished Service Order and was now the first naval officer to receive the award four times. In May further operations followed on the convoys HX 237 , which lost three merchant ships (21,339 GRT, 58 dead), but also sank three submarines (144 dead), as well as in support of SC 129 , which previously had two ships (7627 GRT , 3 men), but also a submarine (53 dead) was lost and two more were badly damaged.
In June 1943, the destroyer relocated to the Home Fleet at Scapa Flow. With the sister ships Penn and Panther , the destroyer secured the transfer of the battleship King George V to the Mediterranean to support the Allied landing on Sicily ( Operation Husky ). On July 8th, these destroyers secured King George V and her sister ship Howe , which were in reserve to stop a feared attack by Italian battleships. On July 9, the destroyer fired at the two battleships Trapani and Marsala . Pathfinder ran aground briefly. The destroyer had to run to Alexandria to replace a screw and then moved to the Biserta base . From there he was with cruisers and other destroyers, including the sister ships Penn and Paladin to bombardments from coast points at Salerno and Naples used by various backup tasks the destroyer was one of the ships, took up the coming of Taranto on September 9, surrendering Italian fleet units. After artillery deployments on the landing near Salerno , the destroyer supported the occupation of Corsica by Free French units.
In October, the destroyer was transferred to the Levant Force , which was supposed to prevent the German occupation of previous Italian or Italian-occupied islands in the Aegean Sea. In the unsuccessful British Dodecanese campaign in September / October 1943, the destroyer was mostly used as a transport. On November 7th, she was able to sink the German GA 45 submarine trap off Crete. The last mission in the Mediterranean was to secure the cruiser Birmingham, torpedoed off Cyrenaica by U 407 on November 28th . On December 10, 1943, the destroyer retired from the Aegean Force in order to be used in the future with the existing sister ships in the British Eastern Fleet .
In January 1944, the Pathfinder began service in Trincomalee with the 16th Destroyer Division of the 11th Flotilla . The destroyer was used with its sister ships in the Indian Ocean to secure the fleet, secure convoy and monitor tasks. In December 1944, the destroyer was assigned to the offensive forces for the reconquest of Burma.
Last missions and the end of the Pathfinder
On January 2, 1945, Operation Lightning began against the Akyab, today Sittwe . Pathfinder was part of Task Force 61 to which the cruisers Newcastle , Nigeria and the Phoebe as a fighter command ship and the other destroyers Raider and Rapid . Since the Japanese had already vacated the island, the association withdrew to Trincomalee on the 5th . On the 18th, the destroyer moved back to Akyab with the battleship Queen Elizabeth and the destroyer Norman , to land on the island from the 21st Ramree ( Operation Matador ) to provide artillery support. The destroyer remained in support of the land fighting during this mission with short interruptions to replenish supplies. She alternated with Nepal and Paladin or they also worked together. On February 4, it was also used as a troop transport for a landing on the southeast side of the island. On the 5th, Pathfinder was able to drag Nepal free, which had run into a sandbank .
Freshly refueled from the Nepal , the destroyer was attacked by a Nakajima Ki-43 fighter-bomber on a normal inspection trip . The Pathfinder suffered severe damage, although it was only a near hit ; the hull was damaged, fuel leaked in various areas and the starboard engine could no longer be used. After the first emergency repairs in the area of operation, the destroyer moved from the 25th with a machine via Trincomalee until March 1 to Colombo. The ship was examined in the dock and it was considered impossible to restore its operational readiness on site. The repairs should make it possible to return the ship to Europe with a machine.
On April 13, the destroyer left Colombo and ran over Bombay and through the Red Sea , where weather damage delayed the destroyer's onward journey home. On June 11th the ship arrived in Dartmouth, where on the 16th the destroyer was decommissioned. The ship was only demolished in November 1948 in Milford Haven .
Individual evidence
- ^ Edward Albert Gibbs DSO, RN Gibbs was in 1936 in command of the destroyer Wren , 1936-39 of the HMS Hasty , then 1939/40 of the Fortune . He had received the awards for his participation in the sinking of U 27 in September 1939 and the sinking of the French submarine Ajax in September 1940 off Dakar .
- ^ HMS Jaunty (W 30) Rescue Tug of the Assurance class
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War , August 10–15, 1942 Mediterranean, Operation Pedestal
- ^ Second Bar to the Distinguished-Service Order: Commander Edward Albert Gibbs
- ^ HMS Manxman (M 70) -Minelayer of the Abdiel class
- ↑ HMS MANXMAN - Abdiel-class Fast Cruiser Minelayer
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War , December 1–28, 1942 Mediterranean
- ^ Third Bar to the Distinguished Service Order: Commander Edward Albert Gibbs, DSO. Royal Navy.
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War , September 10-30, 1943 Thyrrhenian Sea
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War , November 5-11, 1943 Aegean Sea
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War , 2nd - 4th April 1945 Indian Ocean, Operation Lightning
- ^ Mike Critchley: "British Warships Since 1945: Part 3: Destroyers", p. 22
Remarks
- ↑ Between 1939 and 1947, eight destroyers of the so-called “War Emergency Destroyers” were created in fourteen “Emergency Flotilla's”, which, as has been customary since the First World War, have names with the same initial (from O to W, Z, as well as Ca, Ch , Co and Cr) and which were slightly improved over the construction period. Because of the largely identical hull shapes, O and P , Q and R and the rest formed separate classes. Of the 112 completed destroyers, not all came into service with the Royal Navy. Some came into the service of friendly navies as soon as they were completed, for example Stord and Svenner .
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 .
- Henry T. Lenton: Warships of the British and Commonwealth Navies. Ian Allan 1969.
- Antony Preston: Destroyers. Hamlyn, ISBN 0-600-32955-0 .
- Alan Raven, John Roberts: War Built Destroyers O to Z Classes. Bivouac Books, London 1978, ISBN 0-85680-010-4 .
- MJ Whitley: Destroyers of World War 2nd Naval Institute Press, Annapolis 1988, ISBN 0-87021-326-1 .
Web links
- O and P groups destroyers on navypedia.org; accessed on April 28, 2020
- PATHFINDER launched as ONSLAUGHT on tynebuiltships.co; accessed on April 28, 2020
- Service History HMS PATHFINDER (G 10) - P-class Destroyer on naval-history.net; accessed on April 28, 2020
- HMS Pathfinder (G 10) -Destroyer of the P class on uboat.net; accessed on April 28, 2020
- Britain 4 "/ 40 (10.2 cm) QF Mark IV on navweaps.com; accessed on May 1, 2016
HMS Obdurate | Obedient | Offa | Onslaught | Onslow | Opportune | Oribi | Orwell
HMS Pakenham | Paladin | Panther | Partridge | Pathfinder | Penn | Petard | Porcupine
Pakistan :
Tariq |
Tippu Sultan |
Tughril