HMS Vittoria (1917)
|
|
|---|---|
| V and W class | |
.jpg) The Vittoria |
|
| Overview | |
| Type | destroyer |
| units | 69, 22 of which are V-Class |
| Shipyard |
Swan Hunter , Wallsend , building no. 1047 |
| Keel laying | February 21, 1917 |
| Launch | October 29, 1917 |
| delivery | March 9, 1918 |
| Whereabouts | sunk on September 1, 1919 after being hit by a torpedo |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
1090 ts, maximum 1480 ts |
| length |
95.1 m (312 ft) above sea level |
| width |
9.0 m (29 ft 6 in) |
| Draft |
2.8 (9 ft 4 in) to 3.25 m |
| crew |
134 men |
| drive |
3 Yarrow boiler |
| speed |
34 kn |
| Range |
2600 nm at 15 kn and 367 t of oil |
| Armament |
4 × 102 mm gun |
| Armament as a mine-layer |
3 × 102 mm gun, |
| Sister boats of the shipyard |
17–42 † Viemeira |
The first HMS Vittoria the Royal Navy arrived in 1918 as a destroyer of the V- and W-class in service. The destroyer was used in the Baltic Sea during the Russian Civil War. On September 1, 1919, the ship was sunk by a Soviet submarine near Kronstadt .
History of the ship
In 1916, the Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson Ltd shipyard in Wallsend received an order for three V-class ships , which were completed as Vimiera , Violent and Vittoria .
The shipyard had first delivered a destroyer to the Royal Navy in 1910 with the Hope of the Acorn class . Six more orders followed by the beginning of the First World War. As part of the war building program, the shipyard became a prime contractor for the construction of destroyers and by the end of 1916 had received orders for nine M-class destroyers and six R-class destroyers .
The Vittoria was named in honor of Wellington's victory in the Battle of Vitoria in 1813 . The new building with the number 1047 was launched on October 29, 1917, and the destroyer was delivered on March 9, 1918. It was a V-class destroyer, albeit with Parsons steam turbines, while the majority of the ships in the Brown-Curtis class received steam turbines . The destroyer was also one of the eight ships of the class that were prepared for use as a mine- layer.
First missions
The Vittoria was assigned the identification G.05 in March 1918 to the "13th Destroyer Flotilla" at the Grand Fleet , which at that time had two flotilla commanders and 21 destroyers, nine of which were of the V and W class. In the fall, the destroyer was converted into a fast mine-layer. He gave up his 102-mm rear gun and the rear torpedo tube set and was now able to carry 60 mines. From October 1918, the destroyer was then designated F.96 .
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He then came to the end of the war in December 1918 for "20th Destroyer Flotilla" in Immingham , which at that time about the flotilla Abdiel and Gabriel , with tarpon and Telemachus two destroyers of the R-Class and the four V-destroyer VANOC , Vanquisher , Venturous and Vittoria decreed.
In 1919 the Vittoria belonged to the British units that protected the newly founded Baltic States in the Baltic Sea and fought the Red Fleet . The flotilla leader Abdiel and the four V-destroyers were dispatched to the Baltic Sea at the end of June 1919 by the “20th Flotilla” . Tallinn and Björkö near Vyborg became the basis for their use . The ships of the "20th Flotilla" were supposed to lay minefields between Finland and Estonia across the Finns with the minelayer Princess Margaret in order to largely rule out any intervention by the Soviet Baltic fleet in the development of the new states.
The loss of Vittoria
On Sunday, August 31, 1919, the Abdiel and the Vittoria anchored off the Finnish island of Seiskari after a routine inspection in the evening . The Soviet submarine Pantera the bars class had been watching the behavior of the monitoring destroyer for over a day and reached into the night, the destroyer with two torpedoes. One hit the Vittoria , which immediately began to sink. Only part of the crew was on board the ship, almost all of whom were rescued from the water by the Abdiel's boats . Only eight sailors were killed. The ship's commanding officer was Vernon Hammersley-Heenan (1888-1954), who had previously commanded the destroyer Vehement , the only loss of the class in World War I, until its sinking, which was not to blame for either of the losses.
The submarine Pantera withdrew immediately after its torpedo shots. It had achieved the first success of a Soviet submarine and sunk the largest enemy warship to date. The submarine's navigation officer was later Rear Admiral Berg . The boat became a traditional boat of the Baltic Red Banner Fleet and was preserved until 1941.
Early losses in the V and W classes
The sinking of the Vittoria was the second loss of a V- and W-class destroyer. The third loss occurred on the night of September 4, 1919, when the destroyer Verulam was also lost by a mine hit near the island of Seiskari. This destroyer was built at the Hawthorn, Leslie & Co. shipyard in Hebburn on the Tyne and in December 1917 it was in service with the Royal Navy on the "13th Destroyer Flotilla". When the main flotilla was dissolved, the Verulam came to the newly formed "2nd Destroyer Flotilla" and was then dispatched to the Baltic Sea in 1919. In its downfall, 16 men lost their lives.
The two destroyers sunk near Seiskari were surrendered to Finland in December 1919. Rescue attempts started in 1925 were abandoned when it was discovered that both ships had broken and a recovery would not be possible. In November 2013, the wrecks of the sunken destroyer were discovered by divers at 60 ° 1 ′ N , 28 ° 22 ′ E, and 60 ° 5 ′ N , 28 ° 23 ′ O rediscovered.
The first loss of a V-class destroyer occurred in the North Sea on the night of August 2, 1918 during the World War , when the vehicle, which was completed as a mine- layer at Denny in Dumbarton, was part of an operation by the “20th. Destroyer Flotilla (Mine Layers) ”was lost in the North Sea by a mine hit at 55 ° 33 ' N , 5 ° 24' E , which blew off its entire forecastle. An attempt to tow the still floating part of the hull (from the first chimney to the aft) by Abdiel failed. After the rest of the crew had been removed, other destroyers of the flotilla accelerated the sinking of the ship with their artillery. When the Vehement sank , 48 men died.
Shortly after vehemently even the older destroyer was on this assignment Ariel of Acheron class went on a mine and sank. 49 men lost their lives.
literature
- Geoffrey Bennett: Freeing The Baltic. Birlinn, Edinburgh 2002, ISBN 1-84341-001-X .
- MJ Whitley: Destroyers of World War 2. Arms & Armor, London 1999, ISBN 1-85409-521-8 .
Web links
- Vittoria 1918 Retrieved October 12, 2016
- HMS Vittoria (1917) accessed October 12, 2016
- Report on the re-discovery of the wreck (Russian) accessed October 12, 2016
- VandW ship list accessed October 7, 2016
Individual evidence
- ↑ Swan, Hunter & Wigham Richardson, Wallsend, Yard No. 1043,1045,1047
- ↑ a b c Vittoria 1918
- ↑ 20th DF End 1918
- ^ Bennett: Freeing the Baltic, p. 131
- ^ Bennett, p. 162.
- ↑ a b Casualty Lists JULY-DECEMBER 1919
- ↑ Vernon Hammersley-Heenan
- ↑ Radio: The Voice of Russia, November 8, 2013 ( Memento of the original from August 4, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
