HMS Scylla (98)
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
The HMS Scylla was a British light cruiser of Dido class during the Second World War .
The Scylla was at the shipyard of Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering in Greenock built. Like her sister ship HMS Charybdis , the Scylla was equipped with QF-4.5-inch (113-mm) guns instead of the class-typical QF-5.25-inch (133-mm) guns, as there were bottlenecks in these . Due to their historical name and the nominally weaker armament, the two ships were nicknamed "Toothless Terror", although they were superior to the rest of the ships in the class in terms of air defense.
Calls
After commissioning in June 1942, the Scylla was entrusted with the protection of convoys in the Arctic Ocean as part of the Home Fleet .
As early as October 15, 1942, she was posted to Gibraltar , where she took part in the landing operations in North Africa ( Operation Torch ) as part of the eastern task force with the aim of Algiers in the following month . Already in December she left the Mediterranean to take part in the hunt for returning blockade breakers of the Axis powers in the Bay of Biscay . On January 1, 1943, she intercepted the German blockade breaker Rhakotis about 200 nautical miles northwest of Cape Finisterre . When the Scylla opened fire, the German crew sank their ship.
In February she performed accompanying tasks with some northern sea convoys ( Convoy JW 53 ), but returned to the Bay of Biscay in June to protect anti-submarine operations.
In September 1943 she was part of the carrier group that supported the Allied landing at Salerno ( Operation Avalanche ), but returned to Great Britain immediately afterwards to be converted as a flagship. The renovation work lasted until April 1944. She took part in the landing operations in Normandy ( Operation Neptune ) as part of the eastern task force.
On June 23, 1944, the Scylla ran into a mine and was so badly damaged that it was written off as a total loss. She was towed to Portsmouth and used in ship targeting exercises from 1948 to 1950. From May 4, 1950, she was scrapped at Thomas W. Ward Ltd in Barrow-in-Furness .
literature
- Roger Chesneau (Ed.): Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships. 1922-1946. Conway Maritime Press, London 1980, ISBN 0-85177-146-7 .
- James J. Colledge, Ben Warlow: Ships of the Royal Navy. The complete record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy from the 15th century to the present. New revised edition. Chatham, London 2006, ISBN 1-86176-281-X .
- Bernard Ireland: The Illustrated Guide to Cruisers. Hermes House, London 2008, ISBN 978-1-84681-150-0 .
- Alan Raven, H. Trevor Lenton: DIDO class Cruisers (= Ensign. 2). Bivouac books, London 1973, ISBN 0-85680-003-1 .