Glaisdale (L44)
 The Glaisdale
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The Glaisdale (L44) was a destroyer escort the British Hunt Class of type III , which for the British Royal Navy was built and from 1942, the Norwegian exile Marine provided with Norwegian crew put into service and under British command to severe Damage in the summer of 1944 before Normandy was used.
In August 1946 the Norwegian Navy bought the ship and renamed it KNM Narvik (D309) . The ship, initially classified as a destroyer, was reclassified to the frigate F309 from 1956 . In 1961 the Narvik was canceled and scrapped a year later.
History of the ship
The ship was ordered as a Hunt class destroyer escort of the Type III on August 23, 1940 as part of the British war budget of 1940 at Cammell, Laird & Company in Birkenhead along with a sister ship . The shipyard, which had already received the order for the type ship of the Hunt class HMS Atherstone (L05) , should after four ships of type I ordered in 1939 (completed from March 1940 to May 1941), two ships of type II ordered in 1939 ( August to November 1941), build another four Type III ships, the first pair of which was ordered in early July 1940. The keel-laying of the last couple took place on January 18 and February 4, 1941. The Glaisdale with hull number 1081 was the tenth and last destroyer of the Hunt class to be built by the Cammell Laird. Even before it was launched, the ship was loaned to the Norwegian Navy on December 23, 1941. On January 5, 1942, the ship was launched under the name Glaisdale provided by the Royal Navy and was put into service with a Norwegian crew on June 12, 1942 to be used in a British flotilla under the direction of the Royal Navy.
Her immediate sister ship Eskdale (hull number 1080, keel laid on January 18, 1941) was only launched on March 16, 1942 and came into service on July 31, 1942 under a Norwegian crew as a replacement for the HMS Newport , a no longer usable formerly American Town-class destroyer. The Vier-Schornsteiner, which the Norwegians took over in March 1941, had been undergoing repairs again since March 1942.
The largest ships in the Norwegian Navy at the end of July 1942 were, besides the two Hunt destroyers, the St. Albans (ex-US destroyer Thomas (DD182) ) of the Wickes class and five corvettes of the Flower class .
War missions
The Glaisdale was for the first exercises and with the Home Fleet in Scapa Flow and then came to the British 1st Destroyer Flotilla in Portsmouth , where the Eskdale , which came into service a little later, followed. Eight British speedboats, the two Norwegian and another three British Hunt destroyers ( Cottesmore , Quorn and Albrighton ) prevented the heavily secured auxiliary cruiser Schiff 45 Komet from breaking through the canal on the night of October 14, 1942 , that of MTB 236 with two torpedoes was sunk and sank with the entire crew. The Brocklesby was damaged by the securing M-boats and four T-boats from a group of four destroyers escort that was still arriving.
The convoy MKF.1 marching back from North Africa , which was secured by the escort carriers Argus and Avenger , the destroyers Wrestler , Amazon and Glaisdale , lost the troop carrier Warwick Castle (20,107 GRT) on November 14, 1942 by U 413 and on November 15 , 1942 . U 155 sank the carrier Avenger (514 dead), also the troop transport Ettrick (11,279 GRT), from which the Glaisdale took over 312 castaways and the transporters USS Almaack (AK 27) (6737 GRT) and USS Electra (AK 21) (6200 BRT) were lost. U 98 was sunk by wrestlers and the US destroyers Woolsey , Swanson and Quick sank U 173 . Other submarines were damaged.
On April 14, 1943, the German 5th Schnellbootflotille attacked with six boats off Lizard Point the British convoy PW 323 from six steamers, which was attacked by the two Norwegian destroyers Glaisdale and Eskdale as well as two Norwegian and three British trawlers. S 90 hit the Eskdale with two torpedoes, which were finally sunk by S 65 and S 112 . S 121 torpedoed the British freighter Stanlake (1742 BRT), which S 90 and S 82 subsequently destroyed.
On the night of July 10, 1943, the destroyers escorted by Melbreak , Wensleydale and the Norwegian Glaisdale attacked a German escort secured by the German 2nd minesweeping flotilla with five minesweepers near Ouessant and sank the M-boat M 153 . The fleet torpedo boats T 24 and T 25 , which were being moved to the west, intervened and severely damaged the Melbreak .
When it landed in Normandy in June 1944, the Glaisdale was assigned to the Juno landing area, where it worked with the three Hunt destroyers Stevenstone , Bleasdale and the French La Combattante, as well as fleet destroyers of the 8th and 27th destroyer flotilla and the cruisers Belfast and Diadem cooperated. On the night of June 10, the torpedo boats T 28 , Möwe and Jaguar attempted to attack the landing area from Le Havre . The German boats were pushed away from the Glaisdale , Ursa and the Polish Krakowiak . On the night of June 13th, four speedboats broke out of Cherbourg to attack the artillery support from the sea. After the boats had passed an American security line undetected, they were stopped in front of Le Havre by the Glaisdale , Stevenstone and the destroyer Isis and withdrew unsuccessfully. One of the boats was badly damaged by the destroyers.
On June 23, 1944, the Glaisdale triggered a mine in front of the invasion room, which led to the starboard engine failing. The damaged ship was towed to Portsmouth. After careful inspection, the ship was decommissioned on August 2 and returned to the Royal Navy by the Norwegian Navy.
The failure of the second Hunt destroyer and the sinking of the Svenner off Normandy led to the takeover of another Hunt destroyer by the Norwegian Navy. On August 8, 1944, she took over the newly repaired Badsworth of the Royal Navy, which was renamed Arendal in 1944 and bought by Norway.
Destroyer Narvik
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The Glaisdale , which had been lying in Hartlepool since 1944 , was purchased in August 1946 and was to come back into service with the Norwegian Navy as Narvik . After an initial repair in Great Britain, the ship was transferred to Norway in 1947 and overhauled and made ready for use in the naval shipyard in Horten . On January 18, 1951, the ship was put back into service as KNM Narvik by the Norwegian Navy. Under the command of the later Admiral Charles Oluf Herlofson , the ship served as a training ship. That was the job that Arendal took on. The Norwegian Navy also acquired two other Hunt destroyers from the Royal Navy, which were converted into anti-submarine frigates in the mid-1950s. Therefore, the four Hunt class ships in Norway were reclassified to frigates in 1956.
Because of the influx of new units, the two school frigates Narvik and Arendal were decommissioned in May 1961 and then scrapped.
Norwegian hunt destroyer
| Surname | ex HMS | Shipyard | Launch | delivery | in service | Type | off-duty | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1951: Narvik | D / F 309 | Glaisdale | Cammell Laird | March 16, 1942 | 06/12/1942 | (2.) January 18, 1951 | III | May 1, 1961 |
| Eskdale | Cammell Laird | 5.01.1942 | 07/31/1942 | dto. | III | Sunk April 14, 1943 | ||
| Arendal | D / F 310 | Badsworth | Cammell Laird | 03/17/1941 | 08/18/1941 | 11/16/1944 | II | May 1, 1961 |
| Tromso | D / F 311 | Zetland | Yarrow | March 7, 1942 | 06/27/1942 | .1952 | II | May 1965 |
| Haugesund | D / F 312 | Beaufort | Cammell Laird | June 9, 1941 | November 3, 1941 | 09/30/1954 | II | May 1965 |
Individual evidence
literature
- HT Lenton: Warships of the British and Commonwealth Navies. Ian Allan 1969.
- Antony Preston: Destroyers. Hamlyn, ISBN 0-60032955-0 .
- Jürgen Rohwer , Gerhard Hümmelchen : Chronicle of the naval war 1939-1945. Manfred Pawlak Verlag, Herrsching 1968, ISBN 3-88199-009-7 .