HMS Waterhen (D22)
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 The HMAS Waterhen , behind it the HMAS Stuart |
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| Overview | |
| Type | destroyer |
| Shipyard |
Palmer's Shipbuilding and Iron Company , Hebburn on the Tyne |
| Keel laying | July 3, 1917 |
| Launch | March 26, 1918 |
| Commissioning | July 17, 1918 |
| Whereabouts | Sank on June 30, 1941 after being attacked by dive bombers. |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement | |
| length |
95.1 m (312 ft) overall, |
| width |
8.9 m (29.5 ft) |
| Draft |
up to 4.9 m (13.66 ft) |
| crew |
119 men |
| drive |
3 Yarrow boilers , |
| speed |
34 kn |
| Range |
3,560 nm at 12 kn |
| Armament |
4 × 102 mm Mk.V gun |
| Sister boats |
18 boats Admiralty-W-class , |
| similar |
5 boats of the V-Leader class , |
The HMS Waterhen (G28 / D22) was a destroyer of the Admiralty W class, the 1918 to 1933 in the Royal Navy and then at the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and HMAS Waterhen (D22 / I22) was on duty. On June 29, 1941, the Waterhen was badly damaged by German and Italian dive bombers on a supply trip to the besieged Tobruk . The attempt to import it failed and it sank on June 30, 1941. It was the first loss of a vehicle by the Royal Australian Navy during World War II .
Building history
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The shipyard of the Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company in Jarrow on the Tyne began building warships early in 1916 and manufactured ships of all types until the outbreak of war. From 1895 ( Janus class , 275 tn.l.) she also built 28 destroyers for the Royal Navy. Of these, the HMS Viking of the Tribal class , which was delivered in 1910, was the last destroyer completed by Palmers before the outbreak of war. Even before the war began, the shipyard began building two Admiralty M-class destroyers as the last peace contract, of which the shipyard had delivered a total of ten boats by 1917. She also received orders for two Admiralty R-Class boats and two Admiralty W-Class boats with the HMS Wryneck and HMS Waterhen completed on November 11, 1918 . The Waterhen's keel was laid in July 1917, on March 26, 1918 it was launched and on April 17, 1918 it was completed. The Waterhen was the thirteenth of fourteen destroyers delivered by Palmer during the war, but other ships continued to be built there, of which the battleship HMS Resolution was the largest. Four S-class destroyers that had been started during the war were not completed until 1919.
The 19 Admiralty-W- class destroyers were one of six similar classes that entered service at the end of World War I. Very similar were the Admiralty V class (23 boats), which preceded the subgroup of the Admiralty V class leader (5) and the slightly different boats of the Thornycroft V and W class (4) and Thornycroft modified W class (2 ) and the Admiralty modified W class (14 completed, 38 not completed). Of all sub-classes, 67 boats were completed. Between the two world wars, the V- and W- class ships formed the backbone of the British destroyer flotillas until they were replaced by newer, more modern ships from the early 1930s. By the mid-1930s, most of the ships had been transferred to the reserve fleet. Many of them were later used as escort ships for supply convoys during World War II . The Royal Navy developed three standard conversions in the mid-1930s, which freed up more modern ships for use with the fleet units.
Mission history
The HMS Waterhen , completed in April 1918, was taken into active service in the British Royal Navy and still took part in the events of the First World War. She came to the 12th destroyer flotilla of the Grand Fleet .
She later belonged to the British Atlantic Fleet and then to the Mediterranean Fleet , where she was most recently a member of the 1st Destroyer Flotilla.
The HMS Waterhen was handed over to the Royal Australian Navy on October 11, 1933 in Portsmouth and formally renamed HMAS Waterhen . In addition to her, the destroyers HMS Vampire , HMS Vendetta , HMS Voyager of the Admiralty V- and W-Class and the flotilla commander HMS Stuart were surrendered to Australia. The boats marched together to Australia until December 21, 1933 and replaced the previous Australian flotilla, which consisted of the flotilla leader HMAS Anzac and the destroyers of the S-class HMAS Stalwart , Success , Swordsman , Tattoo and Tasmania and was to be scrapped.
On October 9, 1934, the Waterhen was assigned to the reserve of the Australian Navy and replaced by HMAS Vendetta in the active fleet. On April 14, 1936, she returned to the active fleet for the HMAS Voyager , which was in reserve . On June 1, 1938, she was transferred to the reserve with the Vendetta and the flotilla leader Stuart . Because of the European crisis in autumn 1938, it was reactivated briefly from September 26th to November 10th. On September 1, 1939, the destroyer was finally put back into service because of the outbreak of war.
Together with the other Australian destroyers, the Waterhen left Australia on October 14, 1939 to serve at the China Station in Singapore according to the mobilization plan. Together with the also re-commissioned Stuart and the Vendetta , she began the transfer march from Sydney , while the other two boats were in Fremantle and met on the way to the formation. During the approach, the decision was made to use the destroyers in the Mediterranean, where the boats were referred to by German propaganda as the "scrap iron flotilla". The five destroyers left Singapore for their new area of operation on November 13th.
War missions
The appearance of the German armored ship Admiral Graf Spee on November 15 in the Indian Ocean led to the dissolution of the marching formation and the distribution of the Australian destroyers to various hunting groups that were supposed to find the German armored ship, which was already on its way back to the Atlantic. The Waterhen ran to Colombo and on November 20 joined the group with the aircraft carrier HMS Eagle and the heavy cruisers Cornwall and Dorsetshire , which should also be joined by the Vendetta , which remained in Penang for the time being . The Waterhen left the fighter group on December 14th after the British had brought the ironclad off Montevideo on December 13th . It reached Malta on December 17th , where the vendetta had arrived on the 14th. On the 24th, both took over an escort to Marseille .
When Italy entered the war in June 1940, the destroyers moved to Alexandria and formed the 10th destroyer flotilla there with British destroyers. On 11/12 June 1940 the Waterhen was assigned to the security units of the aircraft carrier Eagle and the battleships HMS Malaya and Warspite . The Australian cruiser HMAS Sydney also belonged to the association that advanced into the eastern Mediterranean . After a submarine hunt with the Australian boats Stuart , Vampire and Vendetta followed on 26/27. June together with the last two destroyers mentioned and the cruiser HMS Orion a commando operation against the Italian island of Castellorizo off the Turkish coast. The Waterhen supported the land troops from July to September and again in the newly formed Force B from the four Australian destroyers (without Stuart ) from December onwards during the advance into Cyrenaica . On January 30, 1941, she collided with the British trawler Bandolero off Sollum , which sank.
The destroyer was severely damaged and was not operational again until March 5th. On March 7th, he accompanies transporters to Piraeus for the first time . At the beginning of April the Waterhen was used again to secure supplies to Tobruk and on 14th she rescues the wounded and nursing staff from the bombed hospital ship Vita . At the end of the month, further operations to secure, supply and evacuate troops in Greece will follow .
From May 5, 1941, the Waterhen supplied the enclosed Tobruk with the Voyager , interrupted by a trip on the 16th together with Voyager , the cruiser HMS Coventry and the sloop HMS Auckland to Crete with troop reinforcements.
Loss of the Waterhen
On the 13th supply trip of the Waterhen to Tobruk on June 29, 1941 together with the HMS Defender , the destroyers were attacked by German and Italian Junkers Ju-87 dive bombers. These did not score a direct hit on the Waterhen . However, the bombs exploding very close to the boat incapacitated the controls and caused a large leak in the engine room. The Defender took over the crew including all injuries. As the bombers turned off and there were no further air strikes, the Defender took the Waterhen in tow as darkness fell . Shortly after midnight, however, it was clear that it was impossible to rescue the damaged ship and the HMAS Waterhen sank on June 30, 1941 at the position 32 ° 15 ′ N , 25 ° 20 ′ E, .
The sinking of HMAS Waterhen was the Royal Australian Navy's first warship loss during World War II.
literature
- Maurice Cocker: Destroyers of the Royal Navy, 1893-1981. Ian Allan, 1983, ISBN 0-7110-1075-7 .
- Antony Preston: Destroyers. Bison Books, London 1977, ISBN 0-600-32955-0 .
- Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronicle of the naval war 1939-1945. Manfred Pawlak Verlag, Herrsching 1968, ISBN 3-88199-009-7 .
Web links
- HMAS Waterhen - V & W-class Destroyer in WORLD WAR 2
- HMAS Waterhen official website of the RAN
- Libya & Then There Were Four?