HMS Effingham (D98)
Encyclopedia : H : HM : HMS : HMS Effingham (D98)
| Career |
|
|---|---|
| Ordered: | |
| Laid down: | 6 April 1917 |
| Launched: | 8 June 1921 |
| Commissioned: | 2 July 1924 |
| Fate: | Wrecked off Bodø, Norway, May 18, 1940 |
| Struck: | |
| General Characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 12,800 tons |
| Length: | 605 ft (184.4 m) |
| Beam: | 65ft (19.8 m) |
| Draught: | |
| Propulsion: | |
| Speed: | 29.5knts |
| Range: | |
| Complement: | 690 (standard), 800+ (wartime) |
| Armament | 9x6", 6x 21" TT |
| Armor: | 11.5" main belt |
| Motto: | |
HMS Effingham was a Hawkins-class heavy cruiser of the Royal Navy. She was commissioned at Portsmouth in 1925, having had her construction halted for several years following the end of the First World War in 1918. She was named after Lord Howard of Effingham, one of the leaders of the fleet that defeated the Spanish Armada in 1587.
She had a displacement of 12,800 tons, was 605 feet long with a 65ft beam, and carried a complement of 690 officers and men. She carried seven 7.5" guns, along with anti-aircraft weaponry and six torpedo tubes. This was later modified to nine 6" guns.
Effingham served as flagship of the Far Eastern Squadron between 1925 and 1932, before being placed as the flagship for the reserves on her return. Following the outbreak of the Second World War she patrolled the Northern Atlantic, in the Iceland region, and also transported £2 million in gold reserves to Halifax, Nova Scotia in Canada. She hunted German surafe raisers on her return, and this led her to be in Norwegian waters during the German invasion. During this period, she was attacked by a submarine but not hit, continuing to bombard German positions in the hills around Narvik until May, when she escorted a troop convoy to Bodø.
It was whilst she was on transport escort duties that she was lost on the 18 May, when she stuck on a large rock in the area of Bodø (Bliksvær). The rock was well known and marked on the ship's charts, but when the navigator had drawn the ships passage onto the map, his pencil mark had obscured the obstacle directly in the ship's path. Happily, no one died in the wreck, which was destroyed by the gunfire of accompanying cruisers on the 21 May after all her crucial papers and equipment had been removed. The remains of the wreck sank nearby.
During her brief war service, she was awarded the battle honours:
- Atlantic 1939-1940
- Norway 1940
References
- Whitley, M. J., Cruisers of World War Two, Brockhampton Press, Great Britain: 1995. ISBN 1860198740
| Hawkins-class cruiser |
| Effingham | Frobisher | Hawkins | Raleigh | Vindictive |
| List of cruisers of the Royal Navy |
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.