HMS Tuscan (R56)

HMS Tuscan

The HMS Tuscan in Australia in 1946

Ship data flag  United Kingdom Ship type Destroyer , 1953 frigate class S to W class Shipyard Swan Hunter , Wallsend Build number 1663 Order March 14, 1941 Keel laying November 6, 1941 Launch May 28, 1942 Commissioning March 11, 1943 Whereabouts from March 26, 1966 demolished

Ship dimensions and crew length 110.6 m ( Lüa ) 103.5 m ( Lpp ) width 10.9 m Draft Max. 4.32 m displacement 1710 tn.l. , Max. 2505 tn.l. 1953: 1800, max. 2300 tn.l.   crew 175–225 men

Machine system machine 3 Admiralty Kessel Parson turbines 2 shafts Machine performance 40,000 hp Top speed 36.75 kn (68 km / h) propeller 2

Armament 4 × 1 120 mm L / 45 Mk.IX guns later 1 x 2 / 40A mm-L-58 Bofors -Flak 4 × 2 Oerlikon 20 mm automatic cannons 2 × 4 torpedo tubes Ø 53.3 cm 2 drop racks u. 4 launchers for up to 130 depth charges Sensors Radar , sonar ,

Armament from 1953 1 × 2 105 mm L / 45 Mk.19 gun 1 × 2 Bofors 40mm Mk.5 automatic cannon 5 × 1 Bofors 40mm Mk.9 cannons 2 × 3 Squid AS thrower 1 × 4 torpedo tube set Ø 53.3 cm

HMS Tuscan (R56) was a Royal Navy destroyer that was completed in 1943 as the second in the S to W classes . During the Second World War , the Tuscan was awarded the Battle Honors Adriatic 1944, South France 1944 and Aegean 1944. The ship was not ready for a planned mission in the Pacific and only reached Australia after the American atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki . In 1946 the Tuscan returned to Great Britain and was decommissioned.

From 1952, the destroyer was converted into a Type 16 anti-submarine frigate . The destroyer was re-armed with only one 102 mm twin gun (on the forecastle), one 40 mm Bofors twin gun and five individual Bofors, only one torpedo tube set and two Squid launchers against submarines. Then designated as the F156 frigate , the ship remained in the reserve until it was decommissioned in 1965 and sold for demolition.

History of the Tuscan

The main armament of the new destroyers of the War Emergency destroyers from the 5th Flotilla ( S-Group ) ordered in January 1941 were new 120-mm-L / 45-Mk.IX guns in the newly developed CP XXII single mount. This made it possible to increase the main guns up to 55 °, which meant that the guns could also be used in air defense. In addition, the guns came in a new, heavily sloping casing with automatic grenade feed.
The new War Emergency destroyers were initially delivered to Hazemeyer mount without the 40 mm Bofors twin gun intended for the class , which was to replace the quadruple pompom in this class and to be mounted on the previous headlight position. The new weapon was only set up during the service period and replaced the individual Oerlikons set up as an emergency solution. In addition, the first destroyers of the new class had two pairs of 20 mm Oerlikon twin automatic cannons on the side of the bridge and behind the funnel. When the ships of the class were relocated to the Far East in 1945, individual 40 mm Bofors replaced the still existing 20 mm Oerlikons to improve the kamikaze defense .
The ships of the new class also had two quadruple torpedo tube sets and four depth charges , initially with 70 depth charges, as additional armament .

HMS Tuscan was the third ship of the Royal Navy with that name and ordered with the other destroyers of the T Group on March 14, 1941. The first four ships group emerged from John Brown and Swan Hunter before all other ships of the class including all destroyers of the S-group ordered in January 1941. The keel of the new building with construction number 1663 was laid on September 6, 1941 at Swan Hunter in Wallsend and it was launched on May 28, 1942 as a Tuscan . The destroyer was the third ship in the Royal Navy to bear this name, which was last carried by an S-class destroyer manufactured by Yarrows from 1919 to 1932 . The new Tuscan came into service with the Royal Navy on March 11, 1943 as the second ship of its class and group. The eight ships of the T group were created in two groups. The other four destroyers at Cammel Laird and Denny were only completed between September 13, 1943 and January 20, 1944. By then, seven destroyers were from the S group , four from the U , five from the V and one from the W. -Group has also been put into service.

The Royal Navy first deployed the four new T-Group destroyers of the War Emergency type to secure traffic around the Irish Sea . On May 14, 1943, the Tuscan ran into what was probably a British floating mine in the Bristol Channel . The damaged destroyer was brought to Milford Haven by the Polish hurricane . The destroyer was not ready for action again until September 1943 and was planned and equipped for further use in the Mediterranean.

Operations in the Mediterranean

After the renewed commissioning, the Tuscan moved to the Mediterranean , where it was initially used in the Adriatic . The destroyer changed operations several times on the Italian peninsula and secured a British carrier group of seven escort carriers off southern France when the Allies landed ( Operation Dragoon ) with all the other seven ships of the T group and the cruisers Royalist and Delhi .

The Solferino 1925, later TA 18

Then the flotilla moved with six ships to the Aegean Sea , where the Germans withdrew to a few islands. While fighting the German retreat, the Tuscan and her Leader Troubridge were able to sink the German transporter Toni (ex-Italian Tealia , 638 GRT) north of Crete on September 13 . The British side assembled in the British Aegean Force seven escort carriers, seven light cruisers, the 24th Destroyer Flotilla with six destroyers of the T group , the Greek Navarinon and the Polish Garland as well as six British and five Greek Hunt destroyers . When laying the last German ships in the Aegean from Piraeus to Thessaloniki succeeded Tuscan with her sister ship Termagant , to ask a German association and the torpedo boat units TA 37 (ex- Gladio , Italian Ariete class ), the submarine hunter UJ 2101 and the harbor protection boat GK 32 on October 7, 1944. 19, the recessed Tuscan ago Volos still TA 18 (ex Solferino , Italy Palestro class ). Although there were no more German naval forces in the Aegean from the end of October 1944, the Tuscan stayed in Greek waters until December 1944, where she sank two German landing craft off Rhodes with the Kelvin .

Planned use against Japan

The destroyer, which returned to Great Britain at the end of 1944, was overhauled and re-armed on 40 mm anti-aircraft guns by April 1945 because of the kamikaze threat to the Allied units. The Tuscan arrived in Australia for use in the British Pacific Fleet only after the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan . She came with the sister ships Tyriann and Tumult as well as the destroyer Quiberon to the association around the light carrier Colossus with the cruisers Bermuda and Argonaut . They took freed prisoners of war and former civilian internees on board in front of the Yangtze River estuary and on the river and brought them to safety. In 1946 the destroyer returned to Great Britain , partly in association with the Argonaut and other ships of the class, and was then decommissioned.

In 1949, while still in reserve, work began to put the ship back into operation.

Reclassification as a frigate

Sister ship HMS Tenacious as a Type 16 frigate

The destroyer was converted into a anti -submarine frigate and classified in the post-war years . The Tuscan was as six other ships of the T group , only the less extensive conversion to a frigate from the Type 16 subjected. The main measure of the conversion was rearmament: the four 120 mm guns came off board; the heavy artillery armament was reduced to a 102 mm twin gun on the raised B position in front of the bridge structure. As a light anti-aircraft weapon, the destroyers continued to use a 40 mm Bofors twin gun and five individual guns of the same type after the conversion. Relatively far at the stern, the type 16 conversions received two Squid type volley launchers for fighting submarines.

The final conversion of the Tuscan took place from May 1952 to September 1953 at the Mount Stuart Dry Docks in Cardiff . After acceptance and brief testing, the ship was assigned to the reserve. The ship changed its location (Devonport, 1954 Portsmouth, 1960 Chatham and 1961 again Portsmouth) but did not return to active service.

The Tuscan was decommissioned in 1965. After the segregation, the former, converted into a frigate destroyer in Great Britain was sold to BISCO for demolition, which began on March 26, 1966 at MacLellan in Bo'ness , where it had been towed.

Conversions to Type 16 frigates

Surname	F?	shipyard	finished	modification	Final fate
Conversions of destroyers of the T group
HMS Teazer (R23)	F23	Cammell Laird	13.09.43	1953–1954 Mountstart Dry Docks, Cardiff ,	2nd Training Squadron , available for purchase from September 1961, demolished from August 1965
HMS Tenacious (R45)	F44	Cammell Laird	10/30/43	1951-1952 Royal Dockyard, Rosyth	from 1954 reserve, decommissioned in 1965 and sold for demolition
HMS Termagant (R89)	F189	Denny	10/30/43	1952–1953 Grayson Rollo , Birkenhead ,	from August 1957 reserve, decommissioned in 1965 and sold for demolition
HMS Terpsichore (R33)	F19	Denny	1/20/44	1953-1954 Thornycroft	from 1955 reserve, decommissioned in 1966 and sold for demolition
HMS Tumult (R11)	F121	John Brown	2.04.43	1949– 1950 Grayson Rollo, Birkenhead,	from December 1957 reserve, sold in 1965 to Dalmuir for demolition
HMS Tuscan (R56)	F156	Swan Hunter	03/11/43	1949 - 1953 Mountstart Dry Docks, Cardiff ,	from 1953 reserve, separated in 1965, demolished in 1966
HMS Tyrian (R67)	F67	Swan Hunter	4/8/43	1951-1953 Harland & Wolff , Liverpool	from September 1956 reserve, separated in 1963, demolished in 1965
Conversions of the O- and P-Class
HMS Orwell (G98)	F98	Thornycroft	7.10.42	1952 Royal Dockyard , Rosyth ,	from December 1959 reserve, separated in 1963, demolished in 1965
HMS Paladin (G69)	F169 •	John Brown	12/12/41	1954 Royal Dockyard, Rosyth	Separated in 1961, demolished in 1962
HMS Petard (G56)	F56	Vickers Armstrong Tyne	06/14/42	1953–1955 Harland & Wolff , Belfast ,	Separated in May 1964, demolished in 1967
Tippu Sultan ex HMS Onslow (G17)	260	John Brown	8.10.41	1957-1959 Grayson, Rollo & Clover	1949 Pakistan, deleted in 1979, demolished in 1980
Tughril ex  HMAS Onslaught (G04)	261	Fairfield	06/19/42	1957-1959 C. & H. Crighton	1951 Pakistan, deleted in 1975, demolished in 1978

literature

• Maurice Cocker: Destroyers of the Royal Navy, 1893-1981 , Ian Allan 1983, ISBN 0-7110-1075-7 .
• Hans H. Hildebrand / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships: Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present , Koehler's publishing company, Herford, seven volumes
• HT Lentom: Warships of the British & Commonwealth Navies , 2nd Ed., Ian Allan, London 1966
• Anthony Preston: Destroyers , Bison Books Ltd. 1977, ISBN 0-600-32955-0
• Alan Raven, John Roberts: War built Destroyers - O to Z Classes , ENSIGN 6, Bivouac Books Ltd. (1976)
• Jürgen Rohwer, Gerhard Hümmelchen: Chronicle of the naval war 1939-1945 , Manfred Pawlak VerlagsGmbH, Herrsching (1968), ISBN 3-88199-0097

Web links

• "S", "T", "U", "V" and "W" destroyers (1943–1944) navypedia, accessed February 16, 2019
• HMS TUSCAN (R 56) - T-class Destroyer accessed on February 16, 2019
• TARIQ destroyers (1941–1942 / 1949–1951) accessed March 26, 2019
• Jürgen Rohwer, Gerhard Hümmelchen: Chronicle of the Naval War 1939-1945 Edited by the Library for Contemporary History, Württemberg State Library Stuttgart

Individual evidence

1. ^ Rohwer: Sea War , August 15, 1944 Mediterranean, Operation Dragoon
2. ^ Rohwer: Sea War , September 12-25, 1944 Mediterranean / Greece
3. ↑ Rohwer: naval warfare , 24.9.- 13 October 1944 Mediterranean / Aegean
4. ^ Rohwer: Sea War , October 5-30, 1944 Mediterranean / Aegean
5. ↑ HMS TUSCAN (R 56) - T-class Destroyer
6. ↑ For frigates of the type 16 , in addition to seven ships of the T group, three ships of the P class and two Pakistani ships of the O class were converted