HMS Skate (D39)
 The HMS Skate 1942
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The Royal Navy's HMS Skate (D39) was the only R-Class destroyer of the First World War that was also used in the Second World War .
The skate used as a training ship for the torpedo school in 1939 was armed again and used to secure the convoys coming to Great Britain and moved to Iceland in 1940. From 1942 until the end of the war, it was only used in the closer coastal area of the north-western access roads. The HMS Skate was the oldest British destroyer used in World War II.
Building history
The second HMS Skate was ordered from John Brown in December 1915 together with the Simoom . The shipyard had previously received an order for four boats of the class in July 1915. With a total of eight boats, the Scottish shipyard produced most of the boats in this class of 62 destroyers, which 14 shipyards were involved in building. The R-Class was the first class of destroyers developed during the war in the Royal Navy, which ordered the first two boats in May 1915. Developed from the M-Class , it showed improvements in fuel efficiency through the use of geared turbines and a two-shaft drive. Outwardly, it was distinguished by a raised rear cannon. The boats were three-chimney except for eleven boats of the last order (modified R-class) and seven boats supplied by Yarrow . The names of the boats began not only with R, but also S, T and U.
Of the 62 boats, eight were lost during the First World War, including HMS Simoom , the Skate's sister boat, which was torpedoed by the German torpedo boat S 50 in the North Sea on January 23, 1917 . Except for the skate, all other boats in the class were decommissioned by 1937.
Longer than the skate , however, was still the at Thornycroft built HMS Radiant present, to the September 1920 Royal Siamese Navy was sold and there as Phra Ruang was canceled until the 1957th
Mission history
Service in the First World War
The skate entered service on February 19, 1917. Shortly afterwards, on March 12, 1917, the new destroyer at the Meuse lightship was badly damaged by a torpedo hit by the German submarine SM UC 69 under Kapitänleutnant Erwin Waßner and had to be towed to Harwich by the boats HMS Lennox and HMS Lawford . During the repair, the boat was converted into a mine-layer. By the end of the war in 1918, the skate's identifier (F62, G05, F46) was changed several times . Most recently she was one of 28 boats of the 10th destroyer flotilla of the " Harwich Force ". On March 12, 1920, she was decommissioned in Portsmouth and assigned to the reserve.
Later she came to the torpedo school as a training boat.
Service in World War II
At the beginning of the war, the skate was prepared for mine sweeping exercises. However, the lack of security vehicles already led to the arming and fitting out as an escort vehicle in January 1940. The first deployment to secure a group of miners at the end of February 1940 showed the limited capabilities of the boat in bad weather. Nevertheless, in March she was assigned to the 2nd Escort Group in the Northwestern Western Approaches , where she served alongside the destroyers Douglas , Veteran and Saladin .
In September she and the group were transferred to Iceland to improve the security of the convoys in the central Atlantic. On the 22nd she was able to pick up the 55-man crew of the Torinia tanker torpedoed by U 100 . Two days later she also took over the 45 men of the burning freighter Scholar , which was also torpedoed by U 100 and which the tug Marauder could no longer keep afloat. The skate finally sank the two ships and brought the crews to Londonderry . Both ships belonged to the convoy HX 72 of 41 ships, which lost 11 ships and damaged another three. U 100 sinks seven ships alone. Skate strengthened with Scimitar from the 22nd the existing fuse of the sloop Lowestoft , the former remote control boat Shikari and three corvettes, which had only arrived after the first attack by the submarines. With the reinforcement it was possible to prevent further attacks.
On June 18, 1941, the skate was able to find the 70 survivors of the Norfolk (10948 BRT) sunk by U 552 and take them on board. The lone driver, sunk about 175 nautical miles northwest of Malin Head, was completed in 1920 at the Bremer Vulkan as Sauerland (ex Vogtland ) for Hamburg-America Line (HAPAG), but had to be delivered after the surrender conditions. Only one crew member of the Norfolk was killed in its sinking. Skate brought the rescued crew to Londonderry.
From September 11th the skate was in the 2nd Escort Group coming from Iceland with Douglas , Veteran , Saladin and the former US-American HMS Leamington (ex USS Twiggs (DD-127)) to reinforce the Canadian 24th Escort Group the defense of convoy SC 72 , which lost 16 of its 64 ships, but only two after the arrival of EG B2, which also sank U 207 . On October 24, the old destroyer suffered considerable damage while securing unattacked convoys in very heavy storms and lost the rear funnel. Until November the skate failed because of the necessary repairs.
From 1942 until the end of the war, the old destroyer was only used in the closer coastal area of the north-western access roads. From October 1, 1942, it belonged to the old anti-aircraft cruiser Curacoa and the destroyer Bulldog , the escort destroyers Bramham and Cowdray and the Polish destroyer Blyskawica to secure the Queen Mary on the last part of the journey with 10,000 US soldiers to Glasgow. The express steamer rammed the cruiser Curacoa on October 2nd through misunderstandings and cut it into two rapidly sinking parts. Of the 439 men on board the cruiser, the late returning Bramham and Skate were only able to save 101 men, while the escort continued its journey at high speed because of the existing submarine danger.
At the end of the war in Europe, the HMS Skate , the oldest British destroyer used in World War II, was decommissioned and finally scrapped in Newport , Wales from July 1947 .
literature
- Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronicle of the Naval War 1939-1945 , Manfred Pawlak VerlagsGmbH (Herrsching 1968), ISBN 3-88199-0097
- Alexander Bredt (Ed.): WEYERS Taschenbuch der Kriegsflotten 1941/1942 , Lehmanns Verlag (Munich / Berlin), 1941
- MJ Whitley: Destroyers of World War 2 , Cassell Publishing (1988), ISBN 1-85409-521-8
Web links
- HMS Skate (H39) - Old R-class Destroyer accessed November 18, 2013
- HMS Skate (H39 ) accessed November 18, 2013
Individual evidence
- ↑ Harald Bendert: The UC boats of the Imperial Navy. Mine warfare with submarines. ES Mittler & Sohn, Hamburg, Bonn, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-8132-0758-7 . P. 171
- ^ Rohwer: Seekrieg , p. 72
- ^ Rohwer, p. 162