HMS Valiant (1914)
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The HMS Valiant was a battleship of the Royal Navy , the fifth ship of the five units comprehensive Queen Elizabeth class .
The Valiant was on 31 January 1913 in the Fairfield Shipyard in Glasgow on keel laid and had on November 4, 1914 its launching . The battleship entered service in February 1916.
First World War
After the commissioning, the Valiant was subordinated to the 5th battle squadron. The battleship took part in the Skagerrak Battle at the end of May 1916. The Valiant fired 288 381 mm shells and shot down a torpedo. While the sister ships HMS Malaya and HMS Warspite were involved in heavy fighting with the battlecruisers of the German battle fleet, the Valiant remained unmatched and left the battlefield undamaged. In August 1916 it collided with the Warspite and had to be in a dock for repairs for a month.
Interwar period
From 1919 to 1923 the Valiant belonged to the 1st battle squadron of the Atlantic Fleet and from 1924 to March 1929 to the 1st battle squadron of the Mediterranean fleet . On March 23, 1929, the ship was decommissioned. A long time began for the Valiant in the shipyard. Anti-torpedo devices in the form of bulbous side extensions on the ship's hull were installed and the torpedo tubes were converted. In addition to improvements to the machines, she got a new catapult for the aircraft. On December 2, 1930, the Valiant was put back into service. From September 15 to 16, 1931, the ship's sailors were involved in the Invergordon mutiny . Until the end of the 1930s, she was repeatedly reassigned to other squadrons and was decommissioned again in March 1937 for a two-year total renovation at the Devonport naval shipyard .
Second World War
Shortly after the start of the Second World War , the Valiant was put back into service on November 30, 1939 and relocated to the West Indies to retract and prepare for war . On the way back to Great Britain she secured a convoy and was then assigned to the 2nd Battle Squadron of the Home Fleet . The Valiant carried out security services for troop transports and supported the British landing troops in the Norway campaign in May 1940. The battleship narrowly escaped a torpedo that had been shot down by the German submarine U 38 .
Then the battleship was involved in Operation Catapult against the French navy in Mers-el-Kébir . Even before this operation, the Royal Navy had formed a Mediterranean force, Force H , to which the Valiant now belonged. In September she joined the squadron in Alexandria with the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious . For the rest of the year she drove security services in the Mediterranean , especially during naval advances. During the night from December 18 to 19, she and the Warspite shelled the Albanian port of Valona .
The Valiant took part in the battle of Cape Matapan and fired five broadsides at the Italian heavy cruiser Zara , but could not sink the ship. A little later, however , the Zara sank after being hit by shells from the Warspite and HMS Barham . In the early hours of the morning, the Valiant and the Warspite surprised the heavy cruiser Fiume and sank it with 381 mm salvos. When marching back from the battle, the Valiant ran into a mine and was slightly damaged. She received much more serious damage during the British counter-operations against the German landing on Crete , when she received two hits aft from a German bomber and had to go to the shipyard for repairs for a few weeks.
The Valiant - like the HMS Queen Elizabeth - was hit on December 19, 1941 in the port of Alexandria by an explosive charge that Italian combat swimmers with manned torpedoes of the Maiale type had deposited in the port. The explosive charge tore a 20 by 10 meter hole in the torpedo bulge and the double floor at the height of tower A. The front ammunition chamber was full and the Valiant , like the Queen Elizabeth , ran aground. However, it could be lifted quickly and, after a makeshift repair, sailed to the shipyard in Durban harbor to be completely restored. However, it was not until May 1943 that she was fully operational again - after having been in dock for several times. By December she was again in several landing maneuvers in the respective cover association.
In 1944 the Valiant belonged to the Eastern Fleet and operated in the Indian Ocean . When she docked in the port of Trincomalee for overhaul on August 8, 1944, the floating dock collapsed and the battleship again suffered serious damage. After an emergency repair, she embarked on an arduous journey home and ran aground in the Suez Canal . It was only in January 1945 that she was finally able to march home - this time via Cape Town - and saw the end of the war in the dock.
post war period
After the war, the Valiant Wohnhulk was used by young sailors who were training to become machine personnel. In 1948 the ship was removed from the list of ships and was scrapped and scrapped in Troon .
literature
- Mike J. Whitley: Battleships of World War II. Classes - construction data - technology. Motorbuch-Verlag, Stuttgart 2003, ISBN 3-613-02289-3 .
- Robert Gardiner (Ed.): Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906-1921 . Conway Maritime Press Ltd, London 1985, ISBN 0-85177-245-5 , pp. 33-34 .
Web links
Footnotes
- ↑ George Bruce: Naval Battles of the 20th Century. Flechsig, Würzburg 2004, ISBN 3-88189-506-X .