HMS Rotherham
Rotherham August 1942
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HMS Rotherham (H09) was the flotilla of the R-Class the Royal Navy during World War II and was awarded the Battle Honor Sabang 1944 and Burma in 1945 awarded.
The destroyer was made available in the summer of 1949 with two other destroyers of the Indian Navy class . The former Rotherham was used as INS Rajput until 1976 and then scrapped.
History of the ship
As flotilla leader of the "4rd Emergency Flotilla" (R or Rotherham class), the Rotherham was ordered with three other destroyers of the class in April 1940 at John Brown & Company in Clydebank . The ships of the new R-Class, like the Q or Quilliam -Class, took over the hull construction of the pre-war J-Class . The smaller number of guns in the new destroyers resulted in less need for ammunition chambers. This made larger fuel bunkers possible, which increased the operating range of the ships. The destroyer had the traditional British destroyer armament of four 120 mm Mk.IX cannons . These guns could only be raised up to 40 ° and were largely unsuitable for aircraft defense. He also had a 2-pounder "pom pom" quadruplet and six individual 20 mm Oerlikon automatic cannons . The keel of the new building with hull number 575 was not laid until April 10, 1941. The active start of construction of the Q and R class destroyers had been delayed by the war, as the British shipyards had to repair and refit the existing ships after the events in Norway and northern France were heavily used. The launch of the ship named after Captain Edward Rotheram (1753-1830) took place on March 21, 1942. The namesake was in 1805 commander of the liner Royal Sovereign in the battle of Trafalgar .
The flotilla leader hardly differed from the normal destroyers of the flotilla. He had an identical armament. Only the aft deckhouse was slightly larger. Launched as the first ship of the class, the Royal Navy's first Rotherham was also the first R-class ship to enter service in the Navy on August 27, 1942. Of the almost identical destroyers of the Q-class , only two destroyers had been completed before her and their flotilla leader Quilliam was not delivered until almost two months after the Rotherham .
Calls
The commissioned Rotherham was assigned to the Home Fleet and was initially used in the "8th Destroyer Flotilla" in the North Western Approaches . From October 31 to November 3, 1942, Rotherham there as "Local Escort" along with the destroyers Sardonyx , skate , Offa , Onslow , Oribi , the destroyer escort Holcombe and the American Seeflugzeugtender Barnegat to secure the troops-conduct WS24 used. Alone she then caught up with the convoy from the Clyde until the 11th to strengthen its "Ocean Escort", which consisted of the auxiliary cruiser Queen of Bermuda , as well as the old cruiser Despatch and the destroyer Ilex . For the first time, the convoy did not run via Freetown , but via the Brazilian Bahia , where it arrived on the 17th, in the South Atlantic. The march to the destination Durban was continued on September 20, reinforced by the auxiliary cruiser Alcantara . Despatch and Ilex left the escort in the South Atlantic . Because of the recognized danger of German submarines, the Australian destroyers Norman and Nepal as well as two Corvettes of the Flower class reinforced the security of the convoy on the passage through South Africa around the Cape of Good Hope until the convoy reached Durban on December 4, 1942.
Rotherham was there flotilla leader of the "11th Destroyer Flotilla" which should secure convoys from Durban in the Indian Ocean and the South Atlantic. So she secured the convoy WS28 between Freetown and Cape Town from April 11th together with the cruiser Kenya and the destroyers Foxhound and Quilliam and then from May 11th the convoy WS29 together with the cruiser Newcastle and the destroyers Racehorse and Relentless . From June 5th, the convoy WS30 was secured together with the Australian destroyers Norman and Quickmatch between Cape Town and Durban. In addition to Racehorse and Relentless , Redoubt and Rapid of the R-Class arrived in South Africa during this period .
In the second half of the year fuse operations followed in the Indian Ocean and in November 1943 the flotilla was relocated to Trincomalee to the Eastern Fleet .
Further missions in 1944/45
At the beginning of 1944 the "11th Destroyer Flotilla" with the eight destroyers of the R-class ( Rotherham , Racehorse , Raider , Rapid , Redoubt , Relentless , Rocket and Roebuck ) and the assigned 16th Destroyer Division with Paladin , Penn , Petard and Pathfinder was the largest British Eastern Fleet Destroyer Association . The “4th Destroyer Flotilla” with the six destroyers of the almost identical Q-class then belonged to the extensive reinforcements of the fleet.
From February 22, 1944, the Rotherham took part in a reconnaissance mission by the aircraft carrier Illustrious from Trincomalee with the cruisers Sussex and Gambia and the Dutch destroyer Tjerk Hiddes . After returning to Trincomalee on March 1, the Rotherham was used in the "26th Destroyer Flotilla".
In April and May 1944, the Rotherham was involved in the two American-British carrier raids ( Illustrious and Saratoga ) against Sabang and Surabaya .
The Rotherham secured during operation cockpit against Sabang from 16 April to overwater coverage Association of Eastern Fleet of three battleships and five cruisers along with the destroyers Racehorse , Penn , petard , the Dutch Van Galen and Australian destroyers Quiberon , Napier , Nepal and Nizam She did the same job on May 6th in the raid against Surabaja with Racehorse , Penn , Napier , Nepal , Quiberon , Quickmatch and Van Galen .
When the Eastern Fleet attacked the Japanese base in Port Blair on the Andaman Islands on June 21 with carrier aircraft from the Illustrious , the Rotherham was part of the association's security umbrella. In the course of Operation Crimson in July 1944, Corsair fighter-bombers from the carriers Illustrious and Victorious first attacked the airfields around Sabang on the 25th . Then fired at the four battleships Queen Elizabeth , Valiant , Renown and the French Richelieu , the seven cruisers Cumberland , Nigeria , Kenya , Ceylon , Phoebe , the New Zealand Gambia and the Dutch Tromp, as well as the destroyers Rotherham , Relentless , Racehorse , Rocket , Raider , Roebuck and Rapid of the R-Class Sabang with 294 × 38.1 cm, 134 × 20.3 cm, 324 × 15.2 cm, approx. 500 × 12 cm and 123 × 10.2 cm grenades. Finally the cruiser Tromp with the destroyers Quilliam , Quality and the Australian Quickmatch entered the port. The Allied attackers were able to withdraw largely undamaged.
From mid-September, the Eastern Fleet carried out a carrier raid against Sigli in northern Sumatra and reconnaissance flights over Sumatra and the Nicobar Islands with the carriers Victorious and Indomitable , the battleship Howe , the cruisers Cumberland and Kenya , in which the Rotherham and six destroyers of the R- Class made the fuse.
In October, the Rotherham moved across the Indian Ocean to the South African base in Simonstown for a routine overhaul, after which it returned to the Eastern Fleet in Ceylon in December. During its overhaul, the British Eastern Fleet was split into two fleets on November 22, 1944. The smaller remained as the East Indies Fleet in the Indian Ocean , while the larger part was to be relocated to the Pacific as the British Pacific Fleet (BPF) . Rotherham and the "11th Destroyer Flotilla" were assigned to the BEIF, remained in Southeast Asia and were used in the reconquest of Burma.
From January 1945, the flotilla was looking for Japanese ships that supplied the Japanese bases on the
Andaman and Nicobar Islands and also supported the advance of the Allies in Burma. From the end of February the flotilla fired at Japanese bases on the Andaman Islands several times, sank some coastal vehicles and was able to repel a Japanese air attack.
During the Allied landing near Rangoon (Operation Dracula ), the Rotherham belonged to an association around the battleships Queen Elizabeth and Richelieu and the escort carriers Shah and Empress, which with four cruisers and several destroyers to prevent Japanese reinforcements and various Japanese bases. a. attacked the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. On May 6th, the association again bombarded Port Blair with the battleships, cruisers and the destroyers Rotherham , Saumarez , Venus , Vigilant and Verulam Port Blair in the Andaman Islands and then returned to Trincomalee on May 9, 1945.
In June 1945 Rotherham secured with Racehorse , Relentless , Redoubt and Roebuck the escort carriers Stalker , Khedive and Ameer and the cruisers Royalist and Suffolk during the advance in the Strait of Malacca and air raids on Japanese airfields on Sumatra (Operation Balsam ). The association returned to Trincomalee on June 20.
On July 19, there was another advance with the battleship Nelson , the heavy cruiser Sussex , the escort carriers Empress and Ameer and Rotherham with Racehorse , Raider and Paladin (Operation Livery ). On the 26th, the formation was attacked by kamikaze bombers, three of which were shot down, but one of which hit the minesweeper Vestal so badly that he had to be sunk off the coast of Thailand. The Algerine-class minesweeper was the only ship in the Indian Ocean to be lost to Kamikaze and the Royal Navy's final war loss in World War II. The Trincomalee operation, which ended on July 30, 1945, was the Eastern Fleet's last combat mission before the Japanese surrender; the planned landing on the Malay Peninsula was postponed at the urging of the Americans.
On September 4, 1945, the Rotherham reached Singapore with the Sussex behind six Japanese minesweepers , where the local Japanese troops (77,000 men) signed their surrender on the Sussex by General Itagaki Seishirō and Vice Admiral Shigeru Fukudome . The Commander in Chief, Marshal Terauchi Hisaichi , who was unable to serve after a stroke , later surrendered personally to the Allied Commander in Chief Louis Mountbatten . On the 5th the Rotherham moved to the former British shipyard (HMS Sultan ), where the formal surrender of the 34,000 men of the Japanese Navy in Singapore was signed on the destroyer on the 8th.
Rotherham remained in Singapore until September 27, 1945 and then ran back to the base of the fleet in Trincomalee. From there she began on October 2, 1945, presumably with other ships of the flotilla, on the voyage home to Portsmouth, where the destroyer was decommissioned and assigned to the reserve. In 1948 the destroyer, together with the sister ships Raider and Redoubt, was loaned to the new Indian Navy after being overhauled.
Delivery to the Indian Navy
Rotherham was one of three R-class destroyers that were delivered to the Indian Navy in 1948. They were initially taken on loan and supplemented in 1953 by three Hunt destroyers ( Chiddingfold then Ganga , Bedale / ORP Ślązak then Godavari , Lamerton then Gomati ). Together, the six former British units formed the 11th destroyer flotilla of the Indian Navy until the mid-1970s. Both types were never fundamentally modernized by the Indian Navy after they were sold.
The former Rotherham was taken over as Rajput (राजपूत) (D141) on July 29, 1949 by the Indian Navy in Great Britain as the second of the ships. On July 4, 1949, the Ranjit (रणजीत) (ex- Redoubt ) was taken over as the first destroyer; as the third and last ship followed the Rana (राणा) (ex- Raider ) on September 9th, 1949. All three destroyers had been overhauled at British shipyards before they were handed over to the Indian Navy. They all received a lattice mast and improved ventilation for use in the tropics. Their boilers have been completely overhauled and their radar equipment has been brought up to the latest state of the art. The increased top weight due to these modifications was offset by an additional iron ballast.
The Rajput , which no longer met modern standards, was decommissioned in 1976 and the destroyer was sold for demolition.
Since September 30, 1980, the Indian Navy again had a destroyer Rajput (D51), the lead ship of a subgroup of the Soviet Kashin class modified for India .
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 .
- 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 2 , Naval Institute Press, Annapolis 1988, ISBN 0-87021-326-1 .
Web links
- HMS Rotherham (H09) - R-class Flotilla Leader on naval-history.net
- HMS Rotherham (H09) on uboat.net
- RANJIT destroyers (1942/1949) on navypedia
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h HMS Rotherham (H09) - R-class Flotilla Leader
- ↑ Rohwer: naval warfare , 11.- 01.31.1944 Indian Ocean, reinforcement of the British Eastern Fleet.
- ^ Rohwer: Seekrieg , April 16–24, 1944 Indian Ocean, Operation Cockpit.
- ^ Rohwer: Seekrieg , May 6–27, 1944 Indian Ocean, Operation Transom.
- ↑ Rohwer: naval warfare , 22.- 07.27.1944 Indian Ocean, Operation Crimson .
- ^ Rohwer: Sea War , September 16-23, 1944 Indian Ocean, Operation Light .
- ↑ Rohwer: naval warfare , 22.2.- 03.04.1945 Indian Ocean.
- ↑ Rohwer: naval warfare , 27.4.- 7.5.1945 Indian Ocean, operation Bishop
Remarks
- ↑ When the Rotherham was commissioned , four destroyers of the first war missions of the O- and P-Class were not yet completed; four destroyers before the war ordered L- and M-Class had to by Scott and Fairfield are delivered.
- ↑ The Rotherham was not the first war destroyer completed by John Brown. By the end of 1941, the shipyard had already completed two war missions for destroyers, Onslow and Paladin . With Piorun and Nizam , two pre-war contracts had been completed at the end of 1940. Had completed the yard next to these four destroyers to monitor Roberts end of October 1941 two cruisers of the Crown Colony-class cruiser with Fiji in May 1940 and Bermuda in July 1942 and six Hunt - destroyer escort , between June 1940 and February 1942 were Under Construction The carrier Indefatigable , launched at the end of 1942, and the battleship Vanguard, which began in October 1941, joined larger units . In addition to Rotherham and the three other R-Class destroyers that were ordered at the same time, John Brown also manufactured ten destroyers of the "War Emergency Type" of various subgroups.
