C- and D-Class (Royal Navy)

**C and D class**
	The Kempenfelt , leader of the C group, later HMCS Assiniboine
Ship data
country	United Kingdom of Canada;
Ship type	destroyer
Shipyard	* 4 destroyers: ; Vickers , Barrow 2 destroyers, 1 leader: ; Portsmouth Dockyard ; 2 destroyers each: ; Palmers , Thornycroft , Fairfield ,; 1 leader: White ;
Construction period	1930 to 1933
Launch of the type ship	September 29, 1931
Units built	14th
period of service	1932 to 1945
Ship dimensions and crew
length	100.3 m ( Lüa ) 96.9 m ( Lpp )
width	10.1 m
Draft	Max. 3.7 m
displacement	Standard : 1,375 ts ; maximum: 1,865 tn.l. , later up to 2100 tn.l.
crew	145 men (175 leaders)
Machine system
machine	3 Admiralty boilers; 2 sets of Parsons geared turbines
Machine ; performance	36,000 PS (26,478 kW)
Top ; speed	36 kn (67 km / h)
propeller	2
Armament
	4 × Sk 120 mm L / 45 Mk.IX ; 1 × Flak 76 mm L / 45 ; 2 × Flak 40 mm L / 38 ; 2 × 4 torpedo tubes Ø 533 mm; C-boats: minesweeping equipment, ; 6 depth charges; D boats: 20 depth; charges, 2 launchers, 1 drop rail;
Sensors
	C-boats type 119 ASDIC , ; D-boats sonar type 121 ; from 1941: Radar

The C- and D-Class were a ship class of destroyers in the Royal Navy during World War II . It consisted of two groups or subclasses. One ship each was equipped as a flotilla leader . The fourteen ships of the two groups were built in different British shipyards in the early 1930s. All five ships of the C group were handed over to Canada by 1939, later two destroyers of the D group followed . Nine ships were lost in the war, the remaining four units in Canada and the Flotilla Commander Duncan , who was still with the Royal Navy, were scrapped after the war. Their design was based on the J-Class, but their construction costs were lower and they were less complex to use.

History of the class

The destroyers were financed from the 1929 (“C” class) and 1930 (“D” class) budgets. They were a further development of the "A" class . They were slightly larger, with 461 to 473 tn.l. Oil more fuel and a longer range at 5500 nm. In order to maintain the speed, the machine output was also increased somewhat. The destroyers received a new fire control system and improved anti-aircraft armament with a 76 mm anti-aircraft gun between the funnels. The two 40 mm single pompom guns came in front of the bridge structure. According to the plans for the new construction of the destroyer, the ships of the C group should again receive a mine detection facility and the following D group should have reinforced anti-submarine equipment.

The Great Depression forced Great Britain to reduce its arms spending. In 1930 the construction of planned cruisers was abandoned and not nine, but only five ships of the C group were built. The four "normal" destroyers received, in addition to the possibility of carrying mine detection equipment, three depth charges, each with two depth charges, and a sonar device. The leader Kempenfelt had larger structures with space for a flotilla staff. The minesweeping equipment and the anti-submarine components were completely dispensed with when this ship was commissioned.

Another nine units were procured from the D group that was subsequently ordered. In addition to a more modern sonar device, they received two depth charges and a drop rail and carried 20 depth charges. The bridge structure was changed and the 40 mm guns were placed in the enlarged sides of the bridge. Dainty , Decoy , Delight and Duchess of this group received heavy machine-gun quadruples of the Vickers type instead of the 40-mm guns at these positions , whose higher rate of fire was considered more effective against attacking aircraft.

Mission history

In April and May 1932 the five ships of the C group were delivered. They formed the re-engined "2nd Destroyer Flotilla" in the Home Fleet , together with the destroyers Valorous , Vega , Venetia and Viceroy of V and W class . In September 1935, the flotilla was relocated to the Mediterranean due to the Abyssinia crisis. In December the old destroyers formed a new 19th flotilla with ships from the reserve in Malta , while Kempenfelt moved with the other C destroyers to the Red Sea . In April 1936 the ships returned home. After the return and overhaul, the ships were used for international neutrality monitoring in the Bay of Biscay in the early phase of the Spanish Civil War and for other tasks.
Because the C-Class did not fit into the structure of the Royal Navy due to the number of its ships , the destroyers including the associated destroyer leader were gradually left to the Canadian Navy from 1937 as soon as the appropriate funds were available there. After Crescent and Cygnet , which had been put into service in Chatham as HMCS Fraser and St. Laurent for the Canadian Navy on February 17, 1937 , Comet as Restigouche and Crusader as Ottawa followed in June 1938 . They were stationed on Canada's Pacific coast until the beginning of World War II . It was not until October 19, 1939 that the Kempenfelt was also handed over during a shipyard stay after a collision in Devonport and at the same time renamed HMCS Assiniboine . On November 17, she arrived in Halifax , Nova Scotia , where the other ships had moved.

The nine ships of the D group came into service between October 1932 and April 1933 and replaced destroyers of the V and W class in the "1st Destroyer Flotilla" in the Mediterranean Fleet . In December 1934 the “1st DF” and the “8th Destroyer Flotilla” exchanged their destroyers at the China Station . The ships of the D-group came to East Asia and again replaced ships of the V- and W-class, which went to the Mediterranean, to be replaced there in the spring of 1936 by new G-class ships. In May 1939 the 8th Flotilla was renamed the “21st Destroyer Flotilla”. After the beginning of the Second World War, the flotilla was commanded back home and no longer used as an association.

The first loss in the war was on December 12, 1939, when the Duchess collided with the battleship Barham . 1940 Daring , Fraser , Delight and Diana , who had just been given to Canada as Magaree , were lost. Duncan was badly damaged and was out for over a year. Dainty , Diamond and Defender were lost in the Mediterranean in 1941 and on September 14, 1942 the Ottawa sunk in the North Atlantic off Canada by U 91 was the last war loss of the class.

List of ships

Surname	Shipyard	Keel laying	Launch	Commissioning	Whereabouts
C class
HMS Crusader (H60)	Portsmouth Dockyard , Portsmouth	September 12, 1930	September 30, 1931	May 2, 1932	1938 to the Canadian Navy (RCN) passed and as HMCS Ottawa put into service, on 14 September 1942 at the North Atlantic by German submarine U 91 sunk.
HMS Comet (H00)	Portsmouth Dockyard , Portsmouth	September 12, 1930	September 30, 1931	June 2, 1932	Handed over to the RCN in 1938 and commissioned as HMCS Restigouche , sold for scrapping on November 9, 1945.
HMS Kempenfelt (D18)	J. Samuel White , Cowes	October 27, 1930	October 29, 1931	May 30, 1932	Flotilla commander , transferred to the RCN in 1939 and commissioned as HMCS Assiniboine , sunk on November 10, 1945 en route to scrapping near Prince Edward Island.
HMS Cygnet (H83)	Vickers-Armstrongs , Barrow-in-Furness	December 1, 1930	September 29, 1931	April 1, 1932	Handed over to the RCN in 1937 and commissioned as HMCS St. Laurent , sold for scrapping on November 9, 1945.
HMS Crescent (H48)	Vickers-Armstrongs , Barrow-in-Furness	December 1, 1930	September 29, 1931	April 15, 1932	Handed over to the RCN in 1937 and commissioned as HMCS Fraser , collided with the light cruiser HMS Calcutta in the Gironde on June 25, 1940 and sank.
D class
HMS Dainty (H53)	Fairfield Shipbuilders , Glasgow	April 20, 1931	May 3, 1932	December 22, 1932	Sunk by German Stuka on February 24, 1941 off Tobruk .
HMS Delight (H38)	Fairfield Shipbuilders , Glasgow	April 22, 1931	June 2, 1932	January 31, 1933	sunk by a German aircraft off Portland on July 29, 1940 .
HMS Daring (H16)	John I. Thornycroft & Company , Southampton	June 18, 1931	April 7, 1932	November 25, 1932	sunk by U 23 ( Otto Kretschmer ) on February 18, 1940 .
HMS Decoy (H75)	John I. Thornycroft & Company , Southampton	June 25, 1931	June 7, 1932	January 17, 1933	passed on 12 April 1943, the RCN and as HMCS Kootenay put into service, scrapped in January 1946th
HMS Diana (H49)	Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company , Jarrow	June 20, 1931	June 16, 1932	December 21, 1932	transferred to the RCN in September 1940 and commissioned as HMCS Margaree , sunk after a collision on October 22, 1940.
HMS Duchess (H64)	Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company , Jarrow	June 20, 1931	July 19, 1932	January 27, 1933	sunk on December 12, 1939 in the North Channel after colliding with the battleship HMS Barham .
HMS Defender (H07)	Vickers-Armstrongs, Barrow-in-Furness	September 29, 1931	April 7, 1932	October 31, 1932	Badly damaged on July 11, 1941 by a German aircraft of Lehrgeschwader 1 near Sidi Barrani (Egypt), then sunk by the Australian HMAS Vendetta .
HMS Diamond (H22)	Vickers-Armstrongs, Barrow-in-Furness	September 29, 1931	April 8, 1932	November 3, 1932	sunk by German Stuka aircraft on April 27, 1941 off Greece .
HMS Duncan (D99)	Portsmouth Dockyard, Portsmouth	September 29, 1931	July 7, 1932	April 5, 1933	Flotilla leader, scrapped in November 1945.

Web links

Commons : C and D grades - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

^ David and Hugh Lyon, Siegfried Greiner: Warships from 1900 to today, technology and use . Buch und Zeit Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Cologne 1979, p. 65 .
^ ^A ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Graham Watson: Between the wars: Royal Navy organization and ship deployments 1919–1939.
↑ Milner: Canada's Navy. The first century. 1999, p. 70 f.

[1] David and Hugh Lyon, Siegfried Greiner: Warships from 1900 to today, technology and use . Buch und Zeit Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, Cologne 1979, p. 65 .

[Watson-2] A ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f Graham Watson: Between the wars: Royal Navy organization and ship deployments 1919–1939.

[3] Milner: Canada's Navy. The first century. 1999, p. 70 f.