HMS Petard (G56)
 The petard , 1943
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HMS Petard (G56 / D56 / F26) was a British destroyer from World War II . It was the only Allied warship that sank submarines from all three Axis powers . The greatest success, however, was the capture of German documents, which enabled the British to read the radio traffic of the German submarines until the end of the war. The ship, intensively used in the Mediterranean and Indian Oceans, was one of three "P" -class destroyers that survived the war. Although it was modernized in the 1950s, it was hardly used and was only demolished in 1967.
History of the ship
The second petard was one of eight "P" -class destroyers commissioned by the Royal Navy shortly after the start of World War II. Predecessor in its name was an M-class destroyer that the Royal Navy used from 1916 to 1921 and that had participated in the Battle of the Skagerrak .
Commissioning and first operations
The destroyer was originally supposed to be named Persistent , but was launched on March 27, 1941 as the Petard and second boat of this class built by Vickers-Armstrong's Walker Yard . On June 15, 1942, she was put into service as the 10th boat of the class and the penultimate "P" destroyer. The Petard's first in command was Lieutenant Commander SH Beattie, who later became famous when he rammed the lock gates of the St. Nazaire dock with the former American destroyer HMS Campbeltown . However, he was soon replaced by Lieutenant Commander Mark Thornton. The ship with its untested crew was assigned to the convoy WS 21 over the Cape of Good Hope to the Middle East as security. On September 22, 1942, the Petard was subordinated to the "12th destroyer flotilla" in Port Said and two days later the first combat use of its guns against three attacking Junkers Ju 88s took place .
The capture of the Enigma key records
On the morning of October 30, 1942, she was traveling with four other destroyers (HMS Pakenham , Hero , Dulverton , Hurworth ) in the eastern Mediterranean when a submarine was sighted by an airplane. The ships ran immediately to the specified place. They actually managed to locate the enemy boat (it was U 559 ) with the help of their ASDIC devices and to attack them with depth charges. But the damaged submarine did not have to appear until after dark; the crew disembarked (38 of the 45 men were rescued). Several crew members from HMS Petard swam to the submarine, descended into the tower and began handing secret documents upstairs, although the water rose higher and higher. When the boat finally sank, two of the British sailors were unable to leave it. They were HMS Petard's first officer , Lieutenant Francis Anthony Blair Fasson , and Able Seaman Colin Grazier . They were posthumously awarded the George Cross, which was actually intended for civilians. An award with the Victoria Cross was considered, but rejected again. The official reason for this was that at the time of her death the fighting had already ended. In reality, it was feared that the award of the Victoria Cross could draw the attention of German espionage to the incident involving U 559. Another British sailor survived and received the George Medal .
The captured documents included the current short signal booklet and the weather short key for 1942, which were used for the Enigma cipher machine . All were brought to Bletchley Park as quickly as possible , and on December 13th, for the first time since the introduction of the Enigma-M4 in February 1942, radio messages from German submarines could be deciphered again. From September 1943 the British could finally read the enemy radio traffic almost as quickly as the Germans themselves. This enabled the Allies to divert their convoys around the German submarines and to hunt down German submarines. As a result, the war in Europe could be won much earlier than would have been possible without the action of HMS Petard . Due to the high level of secrecy, even the crew members of the destroyer were not aware of this for decades after the war. This incident and the hijacking of U 110 were used in 2000 for the fictional film story " U-571 ".
Further missions in the Mediterranean
After the sinking of U 559 , the HMS Petard continued to be used in the Mediterranean, mainly for escorting ships that were supplying the Allied troops in North Africa or Malta. From November 17 to 20, 1942, the Petard was one of the forces of Operation Stoneage with which the Royal Navy brought four cargo ships, secured by three cruisers of the "15th cruiser squadron" and ten destroyers, to Malta. The attacks of the air forces of the Axis powers led to only one torpedo hit on the HMS Arethusa at the height of Derna . Petard and Javelin were left with the burning cruiser. The commander of the petard sent the javelin back to the convoy and towed the cruiser despite its list. The crew of the cruiser managed to trim their ship and the tug was able to run ten knots . When one wanted to increase the speed further in order to achieve the protection of one's own air force, the towing connection broke. The journey was continued at five knots, but a German reconnaissance aircraft had discovered and reported the tug in the meantime. Two subsequent attacks were repulsed by the flak and two accompanying Bristol Beaufighters . The bad weather and the damage to the cruiser allowed further towing only via the stern with three knots. In the afternoon there was a final attack by German Ju 88s. The Petard was temporarily lying there after a close hit and there were now 157 dead and many injured on board the Arethusa , including the commander. Nevertheless, the towing of the cruiser was able to continue and the next noon two tugs from Alexandria took over the task. The Petard remained with the damaged ship as a submarine safety device, which could be brought in and after an emergency repair was finally repaired in the USA by the end of 1943. The successful convoy that got through its four transporters ensured Malta's defensive capabilities.
On the night of December 14th to 15th, 1942, the Petard was en route to Malta with the Greek destroyer Vasilissa Olga when the lookout sighted a submarine. Since it was expected that it could possibly be a British one, a signal lamp was flashed on. However, when it shot down two torpedoes on the destroyers and dived, it was attacked with depth charges. Then it came back to the surface where the machine guns of HMS petard caused heavy losses among the disembarking crew. Eventually the submarine sank; it was the Italian Uarsciek . The survivors were picked up by the two destroyers.
In December 1942, the Petard secured further convoys, but then had to be repaired in January 1943, as it had suffered considerable damage when the Uarsciek was sunk in a collision with the submarine. She then secured five large passenger ships, including the Queen Mary , in the Red Sea with other destroyers , which were returning Australian troops from the Mediterranean to defend their homeland. Then the petard came to the boats of the ' Force K ' in Malta. On April 24, the boat also suffered personnel losses for the first time when an air strike killed five people and injured another ten. The boat was used against shipping traffic to supply and clear the last bridgehead of the Axis powers in Tunis . On May 4, Petard sank the transporter Campobasso (3566 GRT) and the torpedo boat Perseo with the Nubian and the Paladin . From the middle of May she took part in two bombardments of the island of Pantelleria with cruisers and other destroyers and on June 10th also in the occupation of the island. In June the Petard left the Mediterranean through the Strait of Gibraltar . The hope of returning home was disappointed, as the destroyer was only in the Atlantic to secure units for the planned landings in Italy. On July 14, 1943, the Petard transported the Allied Commander-in-Chief Eisenhower from Malta to Sicily and back to attend a conference. The following day the boat was hit by a tank shell off Catania , which penetrated the boat smoothly. From the end of August to mid-September, the Petard was one of the heavy-duty security ships that prepared and then supported landings in Italy by shelling.
From November, the Petard deployed in the Aegean Sea , where they supported the Allied attempt to occupy the Dodecanese archipelago, which was then part of Italy . During these missions, the Turkish territorial waters were partially used. As with all missions in the Mediterranean, it was attacked by German dive fighters and torpedo bombers. The Petard was one of those boats that were lucky enough not to be seriously hit and thus did not fall victim to the “destroers' graveyard”. During the first advance on October 7, the sister boat Panther was sunk and the flak cruiser Carlisle was hit so badly that it was not worth repairing. With their next advance on 22./23. she got into a minefield with the accompanying eclipse near Kalymnos . The Eclipse was lost with considerable personnel losses, while the Petard was able to get to safety with the survivors. Another deployment with reinforcements and supplies for the British-occupied Leros led to the failure of the cruiser Aurora (46 dead), which had to break off the mission. The Petard carried out the mission only with the HMS Belvoir , which also received a bomb hit, which remained largely without consequences due to failure of ignition. On the march back from an operation against Kalymnos on November 9, 1943 with the Hunt destroyers HMS Rockwood and ORP Krakowiak , the Rockwood was hit by a glide bomb of the type Hs 293 , which set the boat on fire. The petard managed to tow the destroyer escort into Turkish waters, from where it could later be brought to Alexandria by tugs. After a last mission on November 19, the Petard was released to Haifa to carry out urgently needed repairs.
Operations in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific
With a large naval force, the HMS Petard ran south through the Suez Canal in January 1944. With her, the sister ships Paladin , Penn and Pathfinder were moved to the British Eastern Fleet and formed the "16th destroyer division". On February 12, 1944, she joined a group of five troop carriers and the cruiser HMS Hawkins together with the Paladin as escort . On the same afternoon the troop transport Khedive Ismail (7513 GRT) was hit by two torpedoes south of the Maldives and sank quickly. The two destroyers succeeded in forcing the attacker, the Japanese submarine I-27 , to surface (with a length of 108 meters and a water displacement of almost 2200 tons, it was even larger and heavier than the HMS Petard ). While trying to ram the enemy boat, the HMS Paladin was damaged. Since the destroyer's shells had no effect, the HMS Petard shot seven torpedoes one after the other at the submarine, of which only the last hit and sank. In addition to the Japanese occupation, according to official figures, 1,297 people were killed who had been on the Khedive Ismail , including 77 women. Only 214 shipwrecked people could be rescued. The losses were also so high because the commander of HMS Petard was forced to throw depth charges in the middle of the shipwrecked people, as he suspected the enemy submarine to be exactly below. After the sinking of I-27 , the Petard rescued more castaways, then took over those already rescued by Paladin and a large part of their crew and then towed the sister boat to the Addu Atoll .
After further escort and security missions, including in April as part of the Eastern Fleet's carrier combat group during the attack on Sabang , the heavily worn Petard began her journey home to Great Britain on August 2nd, where she was to be completely overhauled. In September she was decommissioned and completely overhauled in Portsmouth . She gave up her five 102-mm single guns and received two 102-mm twin guns on the raised gun positions fore and aft. Instead of the gun in 3rd position, the boat received a second quadruple torpedo set. The light anti-aircraft weapons were completely swapped. She now received six 20 mm Oerlikon cannons, two of which were installed at the side ends of the bridge and on the searchlight platform. In addition, the boat received a new lattice mast and sensors according to the status of the current new buildings.
On March 20, 1945, the Petard ran after initial tests for exercises with the new crew in Scapa Flow . On April 6th, she had to go back to the shipyard because of a damaged screw and experienced the end of the war in Europe in the dry dock in North Shields on the Tyne. Then she was ordered to Ceylon . The destroyer ran out on June 25, remained in July for further exercises for almost four weeks in the eastern Mediterranean and arrived in Trincomalee on August 8, 1945 . He was assigned to the "10th destroyer flotilla", which also included the other two remaining P-class destroyers, Paladin and Penn . They were to be used for the planned landing on the Malay Peninsula, which did not take place because the war ended. On September 2, 1945, the Petard took part in the formal handover of Penang to the Allies. The boat was used to monitor the Japanese and against Indonesian independence fighters. After visits to various Indian ports, the boat arrived back in Great Britain in May 1946 and was decommissioned.
The HMS Petard in the post-war period
In May 1946 the HMS Petard was finally back in England. In September of the same year she was assigned to the reserve fleet in Harwich. After an investigation in Chatham, it was planned to be converted into a "Type 16 A / S Frigate". It took place at Harland & Wolff in Belfast from May to December 1953. The conversion to a Type 16 frigate included the reduction of the previous main armament to a 102 mm twin gun on the raised front gun position, the replacement of the previously existing light flak armament by seven 40 -mm-Bofors cannons; including a modern twin gun on the rear raised artillery position. The anti-submarine armament consisted of two Squid mortars . The remaining 21-inch (533-mm) quadruple torpedo tube set was the remainder of an armament against surface units. Seven T-class destroyers and the Orwell had already received this simple modernization, including modern sensors . This was followed by the Paladin and two O-class destroyers surrendered to Pakistan ( Tippu Sultan ex Onslow and Tughril ex Onslaught ).
In May 1955 the Petard was reissued in Devonport . It was not until September 1960 that it was put back into service in Plymouth by April 1961, followed by an overhaul in Chatham Dockyard by June 1962 . Then the boat was launched. Deleted in 1966, the HMS Petard was sold for demolition in 1967.
literature
- GG Connell: Fighting Destroyer: The Story of HMS Petard. Williamson Kimber & Co., 1976, ISBN 978-0-7183-0444-7 .
- Stephen Harper: Battle for Enigma. Ullstein Verlag, 2004, ISBN 3-548-25778-X .
- John Costello and Tery Hughes: Battle of the Atlantic. Lübbe Verlag, 1978, ISBN 3-404-65038-7 .
- Antony Kerstin: DESTROYERS. Hamlyn 1977, ISBN 0-600-32955-0 .
- Alan Raven, John Roberts: War built destroyers O to Z classes. Bivouac Books, 1976.
Web links
- The Capture of the Wetterkurzschlussel and Kurzsignalheft from U-559 . (English) accessed on December 21, 2017
- O and P groups destroyers
- Britain 4 "/ 40 (10.2 cm) QF Mark IV
- HMS Petard
Individual evidence
- ^ Preston: Destroyers. Pp. 31, 34.
- ↑ Connel: Fighting Destroyer: The Story of HMS Petard. 1976, p. 51.
- ↑ Connel, p. 65
- ^ Connel, p. 71
- ↑ Connell, pp. 83 f.
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War. P. 305.
- ↑ Connell, pp. 82 ff.
- ↑ Connell, pp. 104 ff.
- ↑ Rohwer, p. 353f.
- ^ Rohwer, p. 361.
- ^ Connell, p. 171
- ↑ Connell, pp. 171 ff.
- ^ Rohwer, pp. 380, 383.
- ^ Rohwer, p. 400
- ↑ Connell, pp. 187 f.
- ^ Connell, p. 197
- ↑ Connell, pp. 205 ff.
- ↑ Connell, pp. 210f.
- ↑ Rohwer, p. 400 f.
- ^ Connell, p. 220
- ^ Rohwer, p. 416
- ^ Rohwer, p. 417
HMS Obdurate | Obedient | Offa | Onslaught | Onslow | Opportune | Oribi | Orwell
HMS Pakenham | Paladin | Panther | Partridge | Pathfinder | Penn | Petard | Porcupine
Pakistan :
Tariq |
Tippu Sultan |
Tughril