HMS Thracian
 The former Thracian as a Japanese test ship
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HMS Thracian (D86) was a destroyer in the British Navy . Construction of the destroyer began during the First World War , but the ship was only completed at a state shipyard after the end of the war. The destroyer was one of 67 units in the S-Class , eleven of which were still in service during World War II.
In 1939 the destroyer served with the sister ships Tenedos and Thanet in the Hong Kong harbor protection flotilla . The destroyer remained there in December 1941 as the largest British warship. After the occupation of the British colony, the Japanese repaired the aground ship and used it as an escort boat with the number 101 from the end of 1942 and as a training ship from 1944.
In 1945 the destroyer was found in the Japanese naval port of Yokosuka and transferred to Hong Kong. There the former Thracian was sold for demolition and scrapped in 1947.
History of the Thracian
The construction contract for the HMS Thracian was awarded to the Hawthorn, Leslie & Company shipyard in Hebburn in June 1917 . The Tyne shipyard had completed its first destroyer for the Royal Navy in 1895 with the Sunfish . In cooperation with the neighboring turbine manufacturer Parsons , the prototypes Viper and Velox with turbine drive were created. With the first installation of a turbine system in a series destroyer of the River class , Eden , the shipyard played a large part in the introduction of this drive. By the beginning of the war, the shipyard had delivered 31 destroyers of almost all classes to the Royal Navy. During the First World War , another 25 destroyers and two light cruisers ( Champion , Calypso ) followed. For the shipyard, Thracian was part of an order for four S-Class destroyers . When she received the order, she had delivered the two aforementioned light cruisers, the Flotilla Commander Marksman and thirteen destroyers to the Navy since the beginning of the war . Five V- and W-class destroyers were under construction at the shipyard and it had received orders for two Scott-class flotilla commanders , whose keel was laid in October 1917. The keel-laying of the shipyard's first S-destroyer was therefore delayed until November 14, 1917. The three sister ships of the Thracian , Tenedos , Thanet and Turbulent , were started by the end of 1917, were launched from October 1918 and were launched between June and October Delivered in 1919. After the order for the four S destroyers, Werft received the order for three more W-class destroyers in 1918, two of which were also started. However, the order for these ships was canceled at the end of the war.
The keel laying of the Thracian as a new building N ° 512 took place on January 17, 1918 and was only launched after the end of the war on March 5, 1920. The unfinished ship was towed to Sheerness in April 1920 and completed by April 21, 1922 at the local naval shipyard.
The S-Class destroyers had a displacement of 1075 ts and were 84.1 meters long. They were powered by three oil -fired Yarrow boilers and by Brown Curtis geared turbines , which enabled a top speed of 32 knots via two shafts with 27,000 hp. The planned maximum speed of 36 knots was not achieved. The crew of the boats consisted of 99 men with six officers. The boats were armed with three 102 mm Mk.IV rapid-fire cannons and a 40 mm anti-aircraft gun . For this they had five machine guns of the types Vickers and Lewis for landing commandos and two 21-inch torpedo tube twin-tube sets. The boats had two water bombers and two flow paths for water bombs.
Mission history
The Thracian was first handed over to the "Nore Reserve" and then at the end of 1923 assigned to the 8th Destroyer Flotilla of the Atlantic Fleet . The flotilla consisted of the Flotilla Leader Broke of the Thornycroft Leader and seven destroyers of the "S" class, most of which had only a reduced crew.
In 1927 the flotilla was activated and, because of the unrest there, relocated to China Station , where the Thracian and her sister ships Sepoy , Seraph , Serapis , Sirdar , Somme , Stormcloud and Sterling stayed until 1931. After the flotilla had been converted to "W" -class destroyers, the "S" -class destroyers returned home and came to the reserve. The Thracian belonged again to the "Nore Reserve" with the "S" destroyers Scimitar and Scout .
In 1936 the Thracian returned to the Far East and was stationed in Hong Kong. The sister ship Tenedos had already been moved there last year . In 1937 Thanet and Scout were added. Since the fall of 1938, Hong Kong was cut off from China in the immediate area after the Japanese had landed near the crown colony on the mainland, conquered the coastal area against little resistance from the Chinese, and blocked the European colonies Hong Kong and Macao from direct access to China. The destroyers secured the territory around the crown colony and the entry and exit of the submarine flotilla initially stationed there.
When the war began in Europe, Thracian and Thanet were in Hong Kong, while the other two destroyers in Singapore began on September 4, 1939 with the construction of the planned mine barriers to protect the British main base in the Far East. After the arrival of the Stronghold , who had moved from Europe to the Far East, Scout returned to Hong Kong in October. The destroyers Sturdy (whose relocation in the Mediterranean was canceled), Scimitar and Sardonyx of the S-Class, which were originally to be relocated there by 1940, remained in Europe.
When Japan attacked the Allies in December 1941, Thanet and Scout managed to leave Hong Kong in time and to escape via the Philippines and the Dutch East Indies to Singapore. The Thracian left behind took part in the unsuccessful defense of the crown colony and was sunk herself at Christmas 1941.
The Thanet and Tenedos built at the same shipyard and the Stronghold were lost in the battle against the Japanese in 1942; Scout survived the Second World War as a barge in Trincomalee , five other S-class destroyers were still in Great Britain at the end of the war. The Turbulent , which also developed at Hawthorn Leslie from 1917 to 1919, had already been canceled in 1936.
Thracian in Japanese service
The Thracian , which was sunk in shallow water in Hong Kong , was lifted by the Japanese in July 1942 and put into service as the escort boat Patrol Vessel No.101 (第 101 号 哨 戒 艇) on November 25, 1942 for the Japanese fleet. The former destroyer was newly armed and only uses two boilers, which reduced engine performance and only allowed a top speed of 25 knots.
The loot ship was subordinated to the Yokosuka Naval District and secured Japanese coastal traffic in this area. In March 1944, the former Thracian in Yokosuka was used as a training and test ship for Japanese radar systems. After Japan surrendered, the old destroyer was discovered there and returned to the British in Hong Kong in October 1945. In the British Crown Colony, the ship was demolished from February 1946.
literature
- Maurice Cocker: Destroyers of the Royal Navy, 1893-1981. Ian Allan 1983, ISBN 0-7110-1075-7 .
- Fred Dittmar, Jim Colledge: British Warships 1914-1919. Ian Allen 1972, ISBN 0-7110-0380-7 .
Web links
- 8. DISTRIBUTION OF DESTROYERS 1919-1939
- 50 Admiralty "S" Jane´s 1919, p. 103
- "S" Class Destroyer (1918)
- "S" destroyers (SIMOOM) (67 (2), 1918-1924)
- ex-British "S" type patrol ship (1922/1942)