HMS Punjabi

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Punjabi
HMS Punjabi.jpg
Ship data
flag United KingdomUnited Kingdom (Naval War Flag) United Kingdom
Ship type destroyer
class Tribal class
Shipyard Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company
Greenock
Build number 569
Order June 1936
Keel laying October 1, 1936
Launch December 18, 1937
Commissioning March 23, 1939
Whereabouts Sunk on May 1, 1942 after a collision
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
Top
speed
36 kn (67 km / h)
propeller 2
Armament

last

The HMS Punjabi (F21 / G21) was a destroyer of the second Tribal-class destroyer of the Royal Navy , which was placed as the last in March 1939 in service. The Punjabi was the first ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name of the inhabitants of today's border area between India and Pakistan .

She sank on May 1, 1942 after colliding with the battleship HMS King George V. east of Iceland.

History of the destroyer

The Punjabi belonged to the second order of destroyers of the new Tribal class. The Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company shipyard in Greenock received an order for two ships of the new class in June 1936. The new buildings were built under construction numbers 568 and 569. The first was launched on October 5, 1937 as HMS Matabele . The second followed on December 18, 1938 as HMS Punjabi .

Mission history

The Punjabi was the last ship of the class for the Royal Navy on 29 March 1939, the Tribal flotilla of Home Fleet put into service and is retracted from Portland. In May she began working with the other destroyers of the Tribal Destroyer Unit, which has since been renamed the 6th Destroyer Flotilla. From June 1st to 4th, the Punjabi was involved in the unsuccessful effort to rescue the Thetis submarine , which killed 99 people near Anglesey . In August the flotilla carried out its first exercises with the French in the Atlantic.

War missions

In December 1939, the Punjabi used in the Home Fleet collided with a merchant ship. It was repaired at the Stephens shipyard in Govan from mid-December to the end of February and resumed its service with the 6th destroyer flotilla in Scapa Flow in March together with seven sister ships.

On the evening of April 7, 1940, after reports about the German operation off Norway , she went with the core of the Home Fleet (the battleships Rodney and Valiant and the battle cruiser Repulse ; secured by the destroyers Punjabi , Bedouin , Eskimo , Kimberley , Jupiter , Codrington , Griffin , Electra , Escapade and Brazen ) under Admiral Forbes from Scapa into the Shetland-Norway-Narrows, which the French cruiser Emile Bertin joined with the destroyers Maillé-Brézé and Tartu . In response to the emergency message from the Glowworm, Forbes detached the Repulse on the 8th with the cruiser Penelope and the destroyers Bedouin , Punjabi , Eskimo , Kimberley against the Admiral Hipper , which, however, had already sailed to Trondheim . The Repulse unit was sent further north to Renown off the Lofoten Islands .

Swordfish floatplane

On April 13, the Punjabi belonged to the allied naval force that attacked the German destroyers who had remained in Narvik . The battleship Warspite and eight other destroyers Foxhound , Forester , Hero , Icarus , Kimberley as well as the sister ships Bedouin , Punjabi , Eskimo and Cossack , supported by the Warspite aircraft (a Fairey Swordfish floatplane), ran into the Norwegian port for the remaining ones to destroy eight German destroyers who, after the first battle on the 10th with the 2nd British destroyer flotilla (five H-class boats ), lacked fuel and ammunition. The first success came with the Swordfish, which sank the U 64 and warned the association of Erich Koellner , who was waiting in hiding and was sunk by Warspite , Bedouin and Eskimo . In the following battle with the five operational German destroyers, the Bedouin suffered minor damage. The German destroyers withdrew after they had largely used up their ammunition. The Eskimo pursued Hermann Künne that eventually sunk themselves and by a torpedo of the Eskimo was hit. The British destroyer was hit by a torpedo from Georg Thiele while in pursuit and lost its forecastle. Punjabi and Cossack attacked the two destroyers that remained in the harbor, Punjabi lay there after six hits and could only be started again after an hour, Cossack sank Erich Giese , who was opening the voyage, with the Foxhound , but then fell through artillery hit by Diether von Roeder and run aground on a wreck in the harbor too. The remaining German destroyers sank themselves after they had used up their ammunition. The British federation withdrew, with Cossack only being released during the next flood. The three heavily damaged tribal destroyers were taken to Skelfjord , where the Royal Navy had set up a makeshift repair facility. The core of the provisional base was the angry German freighter Alster , which was supposed to supply the German destroyers in Narvik and was now used for the makeshift repairs of the cruiser Penelope . Punjabi was able to return to Great Britain on the 20th, where it was repaired in Devonport Dockyard in Plymouth from April 28th . In addition to the elimination of damage to the 120-mm twin gun was applied to the X -position by a more suitable for the anti-aircraft 102-mm twin gun replaced. This change was carried out on all remaining tribals as part of pending repairs. Punjabi 's main flotilla, the 6th Destroyer Flotilla, had only four operational ships at the end of May, as Somali , Matabele and Eskimo were also under repair. The second flotilla with tribal destroyers, the 4th DF, only had four ships ready for action and had already lost two ships, Gurkha and Afridi . On June 12th, the Punjabi was ready for action again in Plymouth and was first used on the 17th to evacuate military and civilians from St. Nazaire , from where it then evacuated Polish soldiers on the 20th. On the 25th she resumed her service with the Home Fleet. When Force H, stationed in Gibraltar, moved to Great Britain in early August 1940 to reinforce the Home Fleet, Punjabi , Tartar and Zulu took up the unit west of Ireland on the 9th and accompanied the battle cruiser Hood and the carrier Ark Royal to Scapa Flow.


After various tasks for the Home Fleet, the Punjabi was overhauled in Rosyth in March / April 1941 and a radar of the Royal Air Force modified for use on ships. When the British aerial reconnaissance established the disappearance of the German battleship Bismarck and the cruiser Prinz Eugen from the Norwegian coast on May 22nd, the Home Fleet under Admiral Tovey went with the battleship King George V , the carrier Victorious , the 2nd cruiser squadron with four light cruisers and the available destroyers Punjabi , Inglefield , Intrepid , Active and the Australian Nestor in sea to prevent the suspected breakthrough of the Germans into the Atlantic. When the news of the German breakthrough through the Denmark Strait and the sinking of the Hood arrived, the destroyers had to be dismissed, as they could neither follow the speed of the heavy ships in the prevailing weather nor had sufficient fuel. The Punjabi ran with the destroyers of the Home Fleet on 25 Hvalfjörður in Iceland to refuel.
On July 27th, the Punjabi ran in association with the sister ship Tartar and the cruisers Nigeria and Aurora under Rear Admiral Vian von Scapa Flow until the 31st to Spitsbergen to examine the Norwegian and Russian branches there and to determine whether it was suitable as a base for supply or service Escort vehicles to explore on the way to the Soviet Union. Due to the inability to use it throughout the year, Vian voted against an expansion. On the march back, the Norwegian weather station on Bear Island was evacuated and destroyed on August 1st. An advance against the Norwegian coast was recognized early by the German aerial reconnaissance and therefore canceled.

From August 30 to September 15, the Punjabi ran with her sister ships Matabele and Somali to Murmansk and back to Scapa. They accompanied the heavy cruiser Shropshire and the old carrier Argus with Hawker Hurricanes and RAF personnel for Russia. The 151st RAF Wing was to support the defense of Murmansk and train Russian personnel on the machines.
At the turn of the year the Punjabi was overtaken at Hawthorn Leslie in Hebburn on the Tyne .

At the beginning of February 1942 the ship was ready for use again. On March 5, 1942, a Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor captured the convoy PQ 12 around 70 nm south of Jan Mayen . On the 6th, the battleship Tirpitz under Vice Admiral Ciliax set sail with four destroyers from Trondheim to attack the convoy. The messages decrypted by the British about the departure of the German ships enabled countermeasures. For the cover group with the battleships Renown and Duke of York , the cruiser Kenya and the Punjabi as well as the other destroyers Eskimo , Faulknor , Fury , Echo and Eclipse , the main part of the Home Fleet ran under Admiral Tovey with the battleship King George V. , the carrier Victorious , a cruiser and six destroyers. The Kenya was detached to the convoy for local security. Due to poor visibility, the Home Fleet could not find the Tirpitz , but the German ships could not find PQ 12 either, but narrowly missed the counter- convoy QP 8 , which was only secured by two minesweepers and two corvettes , the destroyer Friedrich Ihn only sank the fallen Soviet freighter Izora (2815 BRT). On the 9th, the Tirpitz was unsuccessfully attacked by twelve Albacore torpedo planes of the Victorious off the Vestfjord , with two machines being shot down. A German attack with three Junkers Ju 88s on the British aircraft carrier was also unsuccessful. The Tirpitz initially only ran back to Narvik. On 11/12 March tried the Punjabi and the destroyers Bedouin , Eskimo , Tartar as well as Faulknor , Fury , Intrepid and Icarus to intercept the Tirpitz expected before Bodø , but the battleship did not move to Trondheim until the following night.

The Punjabi backs of 10 April with the destroyer Marne , Oribi , Fury and Eclipse as well as a minesweeper and two anti-submarine trawlers the convoy QP 10 of 15 vans of Kola to Iceland. From the 12th, the cruiser Liverpool reinforced the security. On the night of April 13, U 435 missed the Punjabi , but sank the freighters El Occidente (6008 GRT) and Kiev (5823 GRT). In two German air raids on the 11th the Empire Cowper (7164 BRT) and on the 13th the Harpalion (5486 BRT) were lost.

The end of the Punjabi

The King George V off Seyðisfjörður (Iceland) with the
bow damaged by the collision

The Punjabi was the end of April 1942, the remote backup group for the convoy PQ 15 allocated. She left Hvalfjörður on April 29th . On May 1, 1942, the destroyer was rammed by the battleship King George V in heavy fog at high speed and cut in two. 169 men were rescued from the Punjabi's forecastle, which was still floating for a while , and another 40 were rescued from the water by other destroyers such as the Marne and Martin . The part of the crew on the rapidly sinking stern was killed when the Punjabi depth charges exploded. This happened right in front of the USS Washington , which had to pass between the two parts of the Punjabi and was slightly damaged by the detonations of the depth charges. The Punjabi sank around 66 ° 0 ′ 0 ″  N , 8 ° 0 ′ 0 ″  W Coordinates: 66 ° 0 ′ 0 ″  N , 8 ° 0 ′ 0 ″  W , 49 crew members could not be rescued. The King George V had serious damage to the bow, had to abandon the mission and first ran to Seyðisfjörður (Iceland). As a replacement, the Duke of York was sent to the North Sea.

Individual evidence

  1. Rohwer: Seekrieg 1939-1945 , p 36
  2. Rohwer, p. 39
  3. a fjord in the south of the island Flakstadøy in the municipality Flakstad (Lofoten)
  4. ^ Tartar (F), Ashanti , Bedouin , Mashona
  5. ^ Rohwer, p. 48
  6. Maori , Zulu HF, Nubian , Mohawk again Med
  7. Rohwer
  8. Rohwer
  9. ^ Rohwer, p. 150
  10. ^ Rohwer, p. 240

Web links

literature