HMS Wolverine (D78)
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The HMS Wolverine (D78) was a destroyer of the British Royal Navy and was built by J. Samuel White & Co. in Cowes . She was one of the modified W-class boats that were only completed after the end of the First World War . At the beginning of the 1930s, the destroyer was assigned to the reserve and reactivated at the beginning of the Second World War . The Wolverine was mainly used to secure convoy shipping . For a long time, the sinking of the German submarine U 47 with its commander Günther Prien was attributed to her, but the actual end of this is still unclear. In 1942 the Wolverine was converted into a "short range escort". The boat survived the war and was then scrapped.
Building history
The Wolverine has been at the shipyard of J. Samuel White in Cowes on the island shortly before the end of World War Wight started and ran on 17 July 1919 as the seventh ship of the Royal Navy, which according to the Nordic marten Wolverine was named, from the pile . The immediate predecessor as name-bearer was a Beagle- class destroyer launched in 1910, which sank after a collision on December 12, 1917 during the World War.
The new Wolverine was a V- and W-class boat and belonged to the subgroup of the "modified Admiralty W-class", which consisted of 14 boats. The shipyard in Cowes was one of the shipyards in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland specializing in destroyer construction , producing a total of seven V- and W-class boats. The Wolverine was the penultimate of the four modified W-class boats built there. Her closer sisters were the Witherington , Wivern and the Worcester, completed at the Portsmouth naval shipyard .
The modified W-class boats used the same hull as all V- and W-class boats, but were the only ones in the class armed with the 120mm gun introduced by the Scott- class flotilla commanders . As a torpedo weapon, they had two sets of triple tubes.
When the Wolverine was converted into a "short range escort" in 1942, it gave up two of its guns. Replaced the "A" gun with a 24-barrel Hedgehog volley launcher . The "Y" -Geschütz made for a greater depth charge storage space. The rear torpedo set was removed and a 12 pounder anti-aircraft gun installed in its place . In addition, a modern radar was installed on the bridge.
Calls
After its completion in 1920, the Wolverine served with the 3rd Destroyer Flotilla, first with the Atlantic Fleet , then with the Mediterranean Fleet . The economic difficulties also forced the Royal Navy to reduce the active fleet, so that the Wolverine was assigned to the reserve. In 1932 she was one of the reserve units in Rosyth .
War missions
In August 1939 the destroyer was reactivated and assigned to the 15th Destroyer Flotilla. Until April 1940 it secured the access routes to the British Isles . At the beginning of April 1940 she was assigned to the Home Fleet to secure the troop transports to Norway against the German company Weserübungen .
On 14./15. May 1940 the Wolverine secured together with the Sloop Stork the transporter Chrobry (11,442 GRT), which was supposed to transport a British battalion to Bodø . The unit was attacked in the Vestfjord by Ju-87 dive bombers of I./StG 1 , which hit the transporter that had to be abandoned. The Wolverine went alongside the burning Chrobry and took over 694 soldiers, whom she dropped off at Harstad . The remaining survivors were taken over by Stork , who initially only fought the air strike . At the beginning of June, the destroyer was one of the security forces in the evacuation convoys when the Allies withdrew from Norway.
From August 1940 the Wolverine served in the “4. Escort Group ”for anti-submarine defense on the north-western approaches to Great Britain. At the beginning of 1941 it was equipped with radar . At the beginning of March 1941 she was one of the security forces on convoy OB.293, which was discovered and shadowed by U 47 south of Iceland. The sinking of U 47 under Kapitänleutnant Günther Prien was attributed to her. In fact, they attacked UA , which was badly damaged and returned to the bases in France.
On April 5, 1941, the Wolverine succeeded in securing the SC26 convoy together with the sloop Scarborough in the sinking of U 76 . Until January 1942, the Wolverine was usually deployed from Scotland. From February to May 1942, the destroyer was converted into a "short range escort".
From June 21, 1942, the Wolverine was used again and ran with the WS 20 convoy to Gibraltar, her new base. In August 1942 the Wolverine secured the aircraft carrier Furious together with the destroyers Keppel , Malcolm , Venomous and Wrestler during the supply operation “ Pedestal ” for Malta . The Furious launched 37 Spitfires south of the Balearic Islands to reinforce Malta's air defense. On the march back, the Wolverine rammed and sank the Italian submarine Dagabur on August 12, which was about to attack the carrier. She seriously damaged herself in the process. It ran back to Gibraltar with only one turbine ready for use . After an emergency repair and with a makeshift bow, it ran back to England and was overhauled there.
On December 18, 1942, the boat was ready to use again to serve to secure the " Northwestern Approaches ". On February 27, 1943, she moved to the new station Freetown to secure the WS 27 convoy . Until January 1944 it served from there as a temporary security for passing Middle Eastern convoys on the way to Cape Town . It returned to England in January 1944 for routine repairs. By the end of the war in Europe, Atlantic convoys were again secured in the last phase of the march to the British Isles .
The End
With the German surrender in May 1945, the Wolverine's use ended . It was decommissioned in August 1945 and broken up in Troon in 1946 .
literature
- Maurice Cocker: Destroyers of the Royal Navy, 1893-1981. Ian Allan, 1983, ISBN 0-7110-1075-7 .
- Bodo Herzog: 60 years of German submarines 1906–1966. JF Lehmanns Verlag, Munich 1968.
- Léonce Peillard : The Battle of the Atlantic. Wilhelm Heyne Verlag, Munich 1978, ISBN 3-453-00817-0 .
- 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 VerlagsGmbH, Herrsching 1968, ISBN 3-88199-009-7 .
Web links
- HMS Wolverine at naval histories
- HMS Wolverine at uboatnet