HMS Tipperary
|
|
|---|---|
 The sister boat HMS Botha |
|
| Overview | |
| Type | Flotilla leader |
| Shipyard | |
| Launch | March 5, 1915 |
| Namesake | the Irish city of Tipperary |
| Commissioning | 1916 |
| Whereabouts | Sunk June 1, 1916 |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
1,700 ts |
| length |
100.9 m |
| width |
9.9 m |
| Draft |
3.4 m |
| crew |
197 men |
| drive |
6 White-Forster boilers, steam turbines, 3 screws, 30,000 hp |
| speed |
32 kn , |
| Armament |
|
| Bunker quantity |
433 tons of coal, 83 tons of heating oil |
| Sister boats |
HMS Faulknor , |
| very similar | |
The HMS Tipperary was a flotilla of Faulknor class in the Royal Navy . She led the 4th destroyer flotilla of the Grand Fleet in the Battle of the Skagerrak and sank during the attack on the deep sea fleet .
She was originally built at the British shipyard J. Samuel White in Cowes for Chile as a large destroyer Almirante Riveros of the Almirante Lynch class . At the beginning of the First World War it was bought by the Royal Navy and named after the Irish town of Tipperary .
Use in the Battle of the Skagerrak
The Tipperary sparked after its completion her sister boat HMS Faulknor as leading boat of the 4th Destroyer Flotilla with the destroyers of Acasta class from.
During the Battle of the Skagerrak , the flotilla was one of three destroyer flotillas that were supposed to protect the Grand Fleet from German torpedo boat attacks. The half-flotilla leader was the sister boat of the Tipperary , the HMS Broke , plus the destroyers Achates, Ambuscade, Ardent, Contest, Fortune, Garland, Hardy, Midge, Owl, Porpoise, Sparrowhawk, Spitfire and Unity of the Acasta class and seconded by the 12th flotilla Mischief of the M-class .
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A division of the flotilla ( Shark , Acasta , Christopher of the Acasta- class and Ophelia of the M-class) accompanied the battlecruisers Invincible , Inflexible and Indomitable of the 3rd battlecruiser squadron in front of the ships of the line in support of Beatty´ with the light cruisers Canterbury and Chester s battle cruiser fleet ran onto the battlefield and first met the German 2nd reconnaissance group. Since the Germans attempted a torpedo boat attack, the four destroyers were used to counterattack. The Shark damaged the V 48 , which was later sunk, but also received heavy hits and remained lying. Her commander Loftus William Jones , who was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross , declined the Acasta's help so as not to endanger another boat. Only six men of the crew were later rescued from a Danish ship. 86 Shark men lost their lives, which finally sank after a torpedo hit by the torpedo boat S 54 .
The Tipperary under Captain CJ Wintour led the main part of the 4th Destroyer Flotilla on the evening of the Skagerrak Battle to the south in pursuit of the German deep sea fleet. Shortly after midnight , three approaching ships were discovered on the HMS Garland , the fourth of the twelve boats. Captain Wintour could not identify the ships and requested an identification signal. The small cruisers SMS Stuttgart , Hamburg , Rostock and Elbing , which had approached almost 500 m , then opened fire. The ships of the line Westfalen and Nassau also intervened with their medium artillery. The 4th Flotilla had encountered the head of the German deep-sea fleet , which wanted to pass behind the British fleet.
The forward boats Tipperary , Spitfire , Sparrowhawk , Garland , Contest and Broke immediately attacked with torpedoes. With the ships close to each other, the use of torpedoes was difficult. There was uncertainty as to who was meeting whom. The Elbing received at this stage probably hit by a torpedo, which reduced their maneuverability, what with the collision with the battleship Posen contributed. Their damage later led to the abandonment of the ship. The Fortune was hit by the fire of the German ships of the line and sank burning with 67 men of her crew. Only one man could be saved. The Tipperary was also hit by the 15 cm guns of the Westphalian medium artillery at around 0:35 on June 1st, caught fire and lay there. It didn't sink until 2:45. 185 of its 197-strong crew lost their lives. The last remaining crew of the Elbing , which had to be abandoned at 4:40 am, rescued survivors of the Tipperary who were still floating in the water with their cutter .
The Broke had taken over the leadership of the remaining boats and was also badly hit. She got out of control and rammed the Sparrowhawk . It was finally possible to separate the boats again. The Broke took over part of the crew of the Sparrowhawk and after 2½ days she hardly reached the Tyne estuary in seaworthiness. She had lost 47 men in the fighting. The drifting Sparrowhawk , which did not get its machine going again, was finally sunk by the flotilla commander Marksman after unsuccessful towing attempts and taking over the remaining crew. Six men had died on the Sparrowhawk .
Alone almost undamaged, Ardent was looking for a connection to operational British units and ran again into the German battle line and was also sunk by the Westphalia . Two men, including the commander, were rescued from their crew; 78 men lost their lives.
With five lost boats, the 4th Destroyer Flotilla had to carry the most casualties in the Battle of the Skagerrak, in which eight British destroyers were sunk. The damaged Acasta , Spitfire (six dead each) and Porpoise (two dead) of the 4th flotilla also lost their lives.
The wreck is protected under the Protection of Military Remains Act of 1986.
literature
- Geoffrey Bennett: The Skagerrakschlacht , Wilhelm Heyne, Munich 1976, ISBN 3-453-00618-6 .
- NJ Campbell: Jutland: An analysis of the fighting , Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Md . 1987, ISBN 0-85177-379-6 .
- Maurice Cocker: Destroyers of the Royal Navy, 1893-1981 , Ian Allan 1983, ISBN 0-7110-1075-7 .
- James J. Colledge, Ben Warlow: Ships of the Royal Navy , Chatham, 4th ed. London 2010, ISBN 9-7819-3514907-1.
- Harald Fock: Z-before! International development and war missions of destroyers and torpedo boats, vol. 1. 1914 to 1939. Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-7822-0762-9 .
- Robert K. Massie : Castles of Steel: Britain, Germany, and the Winning of the Great War at Sea , Random House (2003), ISBN 0-345-40878-0 .
- Antony Preston: Destroyers , Hamlyn 1977, ISBN 0-600-32955-0
- Nigel Steel, Peter Hart: Jutland 1916: Death in the Gray Wastes , Cassell, London 2004, ISBN 0-304-36648-X .
Web links
- White Boats (ex-Chilean) (extract from Jane's Fighting Ships 1919, accessed May 6, 2011)
- u. a. Faulknor class with many pictures (accessed May 6, 2011)
- Inserts of the Faulknor class
- HMS Tipperary loss list on northeastmedals.co.uk
Individual evidence
- ↑ Campbell, pp. 309f.