Town Class Destroyers E-Book

John Henshaw

• Herausgeber: Crowood
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

Early in World War II, fifty obsolete US Navy destroyers were transferred to the Royal Navy in return for a 99-year lease on British bases in the Caribbean, Bahamas and Newfoundland. Though they were obsolete and far from ideal, they played a vital role in the Royal Navy's campaign. This is their complete story. Topics covered include the background to the acquisition of the ships, the Battle of the Atlantic; their specification and design, and modifications in RN service; operations and achievements, such as the St Nazaire raid and finally, losses and accidents. This authoritative text is supported by many contemporary photographs and twenty eight detailed plans prepared specially for this book. Superbly illustrated with fifty contemporary black & white photographs and twenty-eight plans specially drawn by the author.

Leseprobe

TOWN CLASS DESTROYERS

A CRITICAL ASSESSMENT

JOHN HENSHAW

THE CROWOOD PRESS

First published in 2018 by

The Crowood Press Ltd

Ramsbury, Marlborough

Wiltshire SN8 2HR

www.crowood.com

This e-book first published in 2018

® John Henshaw 2018

All rights reserved. This e-book is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of thistext may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 1 78500 402 5

CONTENTS

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Glossary

Note on the Drawings

1Introduction

2 The Battle of the Atlantic

3 Acquisition

4 The Ships

5 Specifications

6 Design

7 Material Deficiencies

8 Stage 1 Refit – Initial Modifications

9 Stage 2 Refit – Further Modifications

10 Long-Range Escorts

11 HMS Campbeltown and Operation Chariot

12 Operations

13 Camouflage

14 Repairs and Maintenance

15 Collisions, Groundings and Other Catastrophes

16 Achievements

17 Losses

18 Towns as Monitors

19 Flush-Deckers In USN Service

20 Fifty Ships that Saved the World?

21 Conclusions

Appendix I List of Town Class Destroyers

Appendix II All Shipping and U-Boat Losses

Appendix III Average Monthly Shipping Losses and Construction of Allied and Neutral Nations

Appendix IV Approximate U-Boat Numbers

Appendix V Shipping Sunk by Submarines and Submarines Sunk

Bibliography

Index

DEDICATION

Dedicated to all those poor souls who were unfortunate enough to have had to serve in those stop-gap-measure ships.

HMS Leamington arriving at Halifax, Nova Scotia in January 1943, covered in ice. Notice the topmast has gone, along with its air-warning radar antenna and the port-side yardarm, probably from storm damage or too much ice, or a combination of the two. Judging from the smoke from the galley’s ‘Charlie Noble’, the cooks have got something hot being prepared to take away the chill.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Inspiration-wise, Al Ross’s book, The Destroyer Campbeltown in the ‘Anatomy of the Ship’ series (Bloomsbury Publishing) was probably the starting point in my journey. Here, at last, was an authoritative work with excellent drawings of a typical Town class destroyer that allowed me to form the basis of a series of drawings to illustrate the very many variations made by the Royal Navy to try to make these antiquated destroyers into some sort of effective fighting ship. While these drawings tell the story to the very observant, a narrative was needed and also photographs to expand – indeed to prove – the authenticity of the drawings.

Google images provided the easiest instant source for photographs but one of the best original sources was www.navsource.org which is the website for NavSource: Naval History, Photographic History of the US Navy. This site provided a history of each of the fifty destroyers and many photographs of each to choose from. Some less-than-perfect photographs appear in the book because they are the only ones available and were felt necessary. My son Andrew – a professional photographer – was tireless in converting those photographs I identified as best illustrating the story into the publisher’s required format and I thank him for his valuable input.

Readers may notice a similarity with photographs used in Arnold Hague’s excellent reference, Destroyers for Great Britain. This is not a matter of laziness on my part, but more a result of the paucity of good-quality photographs, especially those taken from angles that adequately illustrated the range of modifications referred to in the text.

Writing a book is not, as some say, 90 per cent inspiration and 10 per cent perspiration. Perhaps that applies to novels, but a book involving collecting, sifting and analyzing data, and preparing dozens of drawings from not-too-perfect photographs taken at not-often-definable dates tends to make the reverse of that calculation applicable. The opinions expressed are entirely my own – as indeed are any errors – although every effort has been made to achieve both accuracy and a balanced view.

GLOSSARY

3in 50 cal Mk 20-22 A series of 3in guns dating back to World War I. Considered to be dual-purpose (anti-surface and anti-aircraft), they were of limited effectiveness in either role. While the projectile weighed 13lb (6kg), the bursting charge was only 0.3–0.74lb (0.14–0.34kg), depending on type.

ASDIC The primary device for detecting submarines via echo-location; the name being an acronym of the Allied Submarine Detection Investigation Committee. Also called sonar.

ATW Ahead Throwing Weapon (such as Hedgehog), designed to project anti-submarine missiles ahead of an attacking ship’s path.

AW Air Warning – as in air-warning radar.

Carley Float A life-raft made from a steel or copper inner tube that was divided into watertight sections and covered in a buoyant material such as cork, and covered in painted canvas with a floor of webbing or slatted wood. Carley floats came in various sizes.

Charley/Charlie Noble The easily identifiable H-shaped smoke exhaust from the warship’s galley, at the top of the galley stack.

Commissioning The act or ceremony of placing a warship into active service.

DC Depth Charge, a drum-shaped canister filled with high explosive and detonated via a hydrostatic valve set at pre-determined depths.

DCT Depth Charge Thrower, a hydraulic or explosively detonated projector to launch a depth charge clear of a ship.

Decommissioning The act or ceremony of taking a warship out of active service.

Depth Charge Chute A simple apparatus on the ship’s deckside, usually close to the stern. It holds two depth charges, allowing one or both to be dropped as and when necessary.

Depth Charge Rail A frame for stowing a series of depth charges so that they can be released over the stern. In USN termed a ‘Depth Charge Rack’.

DF Direction Finder (more particularly MFDF or MF/DF for ‘Medium Frequency Direction Finder’ to distinguish it from the latter, HF/DF ‘High Frequency Direction Finder’), an electronic device for homing in on and thereby obtaining the bearing of a radio source. Sometimes called RDF or ‘Radio Direction Finding/Finder’.

Displacement From the Archimedes Principle, the weight of the water displaced by a vessel when floating.

Flag Superior The letter that prefixes a ship’s pennant/pendant number, indicating a flotilla or class or type of ship.

Flag Inferior The letter that follows a ship’s pennant/pendant number to indicate a flotilla or class or type of ship, usually of a minor nature.

Full Load Full Load Displacement, the weight of the water displaced by a vessel when floating at its greatest allowable draft.

HA High Angle (gun), such as an anti-aircraft gun.

HA/LA High Angle/Low Angle (gun), capable of both surface and anti-aircraft action.

Hedgehog A 24-round anti-submarine spigot mortar firing 7in (17.8cm) diameter contactfuzed projectiles with a 35lb (16kg) charge. The spigots were arranged to cover a 40yd (37m) diameter circle at approximately 200yd (180m) ahead.

HF/DF High Frequency Direction Finder – ‘Huff Duff’ – which was able to obtain the bearing of even very short transmissions. A game-changer in the Battle of the Atlantic, allowing escorts to home in on U-boats transmitting to base or each other.

LA Low Angle (gun), for surface action.

Laid Down The ship’s keel being laid down; the keel was traditionally the first and major structural item on which the rest of the framework of the ship was constructed.

Launched Ships are seldom launched in a completed state – that is, fully fitted out. The slipways are needed for the next ship so ships are launched when they are substantially complete and then moved to fitting-out berths for completion.

MG Machine-Gun.

Montagu Whaler The RN’s standard rowing/sailing ship’s boat, in service from the 1890s to the 1960s, 27ft (8.2m) long, highly seaworthy, double-ended and of clinker construction.

Oerlikon A Swiss-designed, high-velocity 20mm cannon made under licence in large numbers in Britain and the USA, primarily as a light, short-range anti-aircraft weapon. There were two main types in use: the British Mk I/US Mk 4 with an elevating wheel on the left-hand side, or the taller-pedestal British Mk IIA/IIIA.

PP Length Between Perpendiculars, the length of a ship along the waterline from the forward surface of the stem (the main bow perpendicular member) to the after surface of the stern post (the main stern perpendicular member).

Paid/Paying Off The process leading up to decommissioning when a ship is de-stored and the crew is ‘paid off’.

Pendant Number Pronounced ‘pennant number’, the numbers or letters or combinations thereof used to identify individual ships.

Pom-pomSee QF 2-pounder Mk II.

PPI Plan Position Indicator; a radar display, a circular screen where the antenna is in the centre and all objects are represented surrounding it.

QF Quick Firing; a gun using fixed ammunition where the projectile and propellant are in one piece, offering a higher rate of fire than Breech Loading (BL) weapons where the projectile and propellant are separate and therefore slower to load.

QF 12-pounder 12cwt This weapon dated back to 1894. Twelve pounds (12-pdr) was the weight of the projectile and 12 hundredweight (12cwt) the weight of the barrel and breech. It was not a Quick Firing gun in the true sense of the word in that the projectile and propellant were separate, but they were loaded together on a special tray and it achieved fifteen rounds per minute. The gun stayed in production throughout World War II, such was demand.

QF 2-pounder Mk II A Vickers 40mm gun, in effect, an oversized Maxim machine gun that dated back to World War I. Its nickname ‘pom-pom’ is derived from the sound the gun made when fired.

QF 2-pounder Mk VIII An updated version of the QF 2-pounder Mk II made in single, quad and eight-barrel mountings and capable of a high rate of fire; like the Mark II commonly referred to as a pom-pom from the noise it made when firing.

Radar Originally called RDF – Range and Direction Finding – but the acronym came from RAdio Detection And Ranging (which it wasn’t). It uses radio waves to determine the range, angle or velocity of objects via a transmitter producing electromagnetic waves through an emitting antenna and a receiving antenna to capture any returns from objects in the path of the emitted signal plus a receiver and processor to determine the properties of the object.

RAF Royal Air Force.

RCN Royal Canadian Navy.

RDF Radio Direction Finder.

RN Royal Navy.

RNR Royal Naval Reserve; during World War II it was a volunteer reserve force formed mainly from professional merchant seaman officers.

RNVR Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve; this was a ‘hostilities only’ volunteer force of officers formed mainly from volunteers with some form of seagoing experience, however slight.

SHP Shaft Horsepower, the power delivered to the propeller shafts of a steamship. This measure is not commonly used in the automobile industry, because in that context drivetrain losses can become significant.

Signal Projector Signalling lamp, usually 10in (25cm) in diameter for signalling by light using Morse but the larger ones (20in, 24in) were primarily used as searchlights on Towns.

Splinter Matting A protection of limited value consisting, mainly, of a canvas envelope containing compressed coir (or similar material) designed to stop the penetration of shell splinters. Used to protect exposed gun positions, navigation bridges and so on.

Standard Standard Displacement, the weight of the water displaced by the vessel complete, fully manned, engined and equipped ready for sea, including all armament and ammunition, equipment, outfit, provisions and fresh water for crew, miscellaneous stores, and implements of every description that are intended to be carried in war, but without fuel or reserve boiler feed water on board.

SW Surface Warning – as in surface-warning radar.

SW1C/SW2C A Canadian radar with an antenna characterized by a Y-shaped antenna with a horizontal bar projecting forward over the top. Developed at the same time in ignorance of the parallel development of centimetric Type 271.

Tumblehome A term used to describe a ship’s hull where the beam at the waterline is wider than the deck in such a way that the sides of the hull slope inwards towards the deck. In the days of timber construction, it provided greater strength.

Type 271 The first naval centimetric target indication radar, made possible by the invention of the cavity magnetron. This British-designed surface-warning radar’s antenna was readily recognizable in a drum-shaped, teak-framed ‘lantern’. The first Royal Navy radar to use a PPI (Plan Position Indicator).

Type 286 Metric target-indication radar based upon the RAF’s ASV (Air to Surface Vessel) Mark II set. The Type 286M had fixed antennae: a central transmitter and a receiver on either side to give some indication of contact bearing. It received echoes from a target over an arc covering about 50 degrees on each side of the bow and over a similar arc astern at considerably shorter ranges (back echoes); effective scanning was achieved by turning the ship in a weaving course. The aerial had to be very high above the surface of the sea before a useful range could be obtained on small objects. This limited the effectiveness against U-boats of early radar sets, but it was more effective against aircraft and was officially regarded as an Air Warning (AW) radar. It was useful for escorts regaining a convoy and for station-keeping in convoys. Type 286PU and Type 286W were fixed-antenna sets for coastal vessels and submarines, respectively. Type 286PQ had a steerable combined transmitting/receiving antenna from the Type 291 set.

Type 291 A derivative of the Type 286 radar. The original Type 291 had a hand-steered antenna, replaced in the Type 291M with power training and a plan position indicator.

USN United States Navy.

NOTE ON THE DRAWINGS

The drawings in this book have all been prepared by the author using AutoCAD 2004. The drawings were originally reproduced at 1:350 scale to fit the dimensions of the printed A4 landscape book; coincidentally, 1:350 is a scale favoured by model-makers. I should state at this point that the purpose of the drawings is not to provide a definitive set of drawings, or a reference work for such model-makers. The drawings are a means of making comparisons of one Town with another and to identify what basic changes occurred. As such the amount of detail on the drawings, while constant between drawings, is by no means all-embracing. At 1:350 scale, a lot is lost anyway.

Having established a base drawing – starboard profile and deck layout – the beauty of CAD is that one can save this and then add and subtract detail from it to form a drawing of another version based on the same ship. Unfortunately, all I have to rely on are photographs of many – but not all – of the various Towns at different times during their service with the Royal Navy or Royal Canadian Navy. Even more unfortunately, not being the glamour ships of either navy, such photographs are not only not plentiful but also largely of poor quality.

On the other hand, and by way of offering an excuse in advance of any criticism readers may have, one thing that did become abundantly apparent when I embarked on this project was that no two Towns were identical. Two or more may look identical at first glance, but closer inspection always reveals differences occasioned by the simple fact that there were inherent differences in the ships in the first place because of the different builders’ practices and the somewhat loose interpretation of the plans and specifications in the urgency to get them built. These differences became more variable and complicated when the Towns underwent initial modifications to get them into action, when Stage 1 and Stage 2 modifications took place. The materials and equipment that was available at the particular time was one factor and dockyard practice was another. Also, what ‘might do’ in one ship needed replacement in another. There is also the problem of undated photographs to consider. One photograph may show, say, Carley floats in one location, while another photograph shows them in a different location. Which one predated the other? Who can tell?

There are conflicting views as to whether the torpedo tubes that were retained on the centreline were always the original USN model. The only Town I was able to definitely establish having the USN torpedo tubes replaced by the British ones was HMS Montgomery in April to July 1941 during a Stage 2 refit at Barrow – aft on the centreline. Therefore, I have chosen to illustrate all of the Towns with centreline torpedo tubes as the original US model. At 1:350 scale the apparent difference would be difficult to discern anyway.

Similarly, there are contradictions as to the ASDIC fitted and, therefore, the style and type of dome. I have been guided by the drawing in Friedman’s book, British Destroyers, page 255. A Type 141A was, apparently the more common ASDIC fitted and is shown on the larger 1:175 scale drawing of HMS Georgetown, but no accurate drawing of this type of dome was found so readers should accept this as indicative rather than definitive.

There were several marks of Oerlikon used. I have chosen to illustrate all drawings with the US Mark 2 and 4 mounting with the basic Mark 4 Mod 1 sight and the shield Mark 5. In RN service, these were designated Mks I and II. They all had a mechanical height adjustment via a hand-wheel on the left-hand side. Fixed pedestal mountings were US Marks 5, 9. 10 and 20 and British Mk IIA, IIIA, VIIA. The tall Mk IIA mounting relied on octagonal stepped surrounds for the gunner to cope with the raised trunnion height to elevate or depress the gun. Some aerial photographs hint at Towns fitted with this type of mount, but at 1:350 scale this sort of detail is not visible anyway.

One area I was unable to properly represent was the exact forms of lettering used for the pennant numbers on the ships sides. Unfortunately, of all the very many fonts available to me there were some styles used that simply did not correspond so I had to use what I felt was the closest font applicable.

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

My interest in this subject was piqued some sixty-plus years ago by the black-and-white film The Gift Horse, a dramatization of the St Nazaire Raid and, particularly, the role of the Town class destroyer HMS Campbeltown – all at about the same time as my parents dissuaded me from a career in the Royal Australian Navy via the cadet midshipman course at the RAN’s college, HMAS Cresswell at Jervis Bay. Somehow, that film and the books I subsequently read remained in my psyche until one day, just a few years ago, I happened upon The Destroyer Campbeltown by Al Ross. That led to more books on the subject, and the idea to write my own. The fifty Town class destroyers that are the subject of this work were transferred from the United States of America to Britain in September 1940 in a ‘destroyers for bases’ deal that morphed into the better-known Lend Lease agreement in 1941 which was, in its own right, one of the most significant factors in deciding the outcome of World War II in Europe.

HMS Castleton (ex-USS Aaron Ward) and HMS Campbeltown (ex-USS Buchanan) photographed, apparently, in Devonport upon arrival from Halifax, Nova Scotia after transfer to the Royal Navy on 9 September 1940. Note that the topmast of Campbeltown is missing; the ship alongside appears to be a French Elan-class minesweeper/sloop.