HMS Kempenfelt (I18)

Kempenfelt displaced 1,390 long tons (1,410 t) at standard load and 1,901 long tons (1,932 t) at deep load. The ship had an overall length of 329 feet (100.3 m), a beam of 33 feet (10.1 m) and a draught of 12 feet 6 inches (3.8 m). She was powered by Parsons geared steam turbines, driving two shafts, which developed a total of 36,000 shaft horsepower (27,000 kW) and gave a maximum speed of 36 knots (67 km/h; 41 mph). Steam for the turbines was provided by three Yarrow water-tube boilers. Kempenfelt carried a maximum of 473 long tons (481 t) of fuel oil that gave her a range of 5,500 nautical miles (10,200 km; 6,300 mi) at 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph). The ship's complement was 175 officers and men.^[2]

Unidentified personnel firing a two-pounder anti-aircraft gun aboard Assiniboine, which is escorting a troop convoy from Halifax to Britain, 10 July 1940.

The ship mounted four 45-calibre 4.7-inch Mark IX guns in single mounts, designated 'A', 'B', 'X', and 'Y' from front to rear. For anti-aircraft (AA) defence, Kempenfelt had a single QF 3-inch 20 cwt^{[Note 1]} AA gun between her funnels, and two 40-millimetre (1.6 in) QF 2-pounder Mk II AA guns mounted on the aft end of her forecastle deck. The 3-inch (76 mm) AA gun was removed in 1936 and the 2-pounders were relocated to between the funnels. She was fitted with two above-water quadruple torpedo tube mounts for 21-inch torpedoes.^[3] Three depth-charge chutes were fitted, each with a capacity of two depth charges. After World War II began this was increased to 33 depth charges, delivered by one or two rails and two throwers.^[4]

Late-war picture of Assiniboine. Note the cylindrical Type 271 radar above the bridge, the Hedgehog mortar shells to the right of 'A' gun and the 20 Oerlikon mount on the bridge wing.

The changes made to Assiniboine's armament during the war (dates can only be roughly assigned) were first the replacement of the ship's rear torpedo tube mount by a 12-pounder AA gun and the 2-pounders were exchanged for quadruple Mark I mounts for the QF 0.5-inch Vickers Mk III machine gun. Later, 'Y' gun was also removed to allow her depth charge stowage to be increased to at least 60 depth charges. 'X' gun was later removed and the 12-pounder was resited in its place to further increase her depth charge capacity. Later changes included fitting a split Hedgehog anti-submarine spigot mortar on each side of 'A' gun, exchanging her two quadruple .50-calibre Vickers machine guns mounted between her funnels for two Oerlikon 20 mm AA guns, and the addition of two Oerlikon guns to her searchlight platform. The ship's director-control tower and rangefinder above the bridge were removed in exchange for a Type 271 target indication radar. A Type 286 short-range surface search radar was also added as was an HF/DF radio direction finder on a short mainmast.^[5]

The ship was ordered on 15 July 1930 from J. Samuel White at Cowes under the 1929 Programme. Kempenfelt was laid down on 18 October 1930, launched on 30 September 1931,^[6] as the 2nd ship to carry the name,^[7] and completed on 30 May 1932.^[6] Built as a flotilla leader, she displaced 15 long tons more than the rest of her class and carried an extra 30 personnel. These personnel formed the staff of the Captain (D) of the flotilla.^[2]

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Displacement (ship)

Displacement (ship)

The displacement or displacement tonnage of a ship is its weight. As the term indicates, it is measured indirectly, using Archimedes' principle, by first calculating the volume of water displaced by the ship, then converting that value into weight. Traditionally, various measurement rules have been in use, giving various measures in long tons. Today, tonnes are more commonly used.

Length overall

Length overall

Length overall is the maximum length of a vessel's hull measured parallel to the waterline. This length is important while docking the ship. It is the most commonly used way of expressing the size of a ship, and is also used for calculating the cost of a marina berth.

Beam (nautical)

Beam (nautical)

The beam of a ship is its width at its widest point. The maximum beam (BMAX) is the distance between planes passing through the outer extremities of the ship, beam of the hull (BH) only includes permanently fixed parts of the hull, and beam at waterline (BWL) is the maximum width where the hull intersects the surface of the water.

Draft (hull)

Draft (hull)

The draft or draught of a ship's hull is the vertical distance between the waterline and the bottom of the hull (keel). The draught of the vessel is the maximum depth of any part of the vessel, including appendages such as rudders, propellers and drop keels if deployed. Draft determines the minimum depth of water a ship or boat can safely navigate. The related term air draft is the maximum height of any part of the vessel above the water.

Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company

Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company

Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company was a British engineering company based on the River Tyne at Wallsend, North East England.

Knot (unit)

Knot (unit)

The knot is a unit of speed equal to one nautical mile per hour, exactly 1.852 km/h. The ISO standard symbol for the knot is kn. The same symbol is preferred by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), while kt is also common, especially in aviation, where it is the form recommended by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). The knot is a non-SI unit. The knot is used in meteorology, and in maritime and air navigation. A vessel travelling at 1 knot along a meridian travels approximately one minute of geographic latitude in one hour.

Fuel oil

Fuel oil

Fuel oil is any of various fractions obtained from the distillation of petroleum. Such oils include distillates and residues. Fuel oils include heavy fuel oil, marine fuel oil (MFO), bunker fuel, furnace oil (FO), gas oil (gasoil), heating oils, diesel fuel and others.

Nautical mile

Nautical mile

A nautical mile is a unit of length used in air, marine, and space navigation, and for the definition of territorial waters. Historically, it was defined as the meridian arc length corresponding to one minute of latitude. Today the international nautical mile is defined as exactly 1,852 metres. The derived unit of speed is the knot, one nautical mile per hour.

Caliber (artillery)

Caliber (artillery)

In artillery, caliber or calibre is the internal diameter of a gun barrel, or, by extension, a relative measure of the barrel length.

Anti-aircraft warfare

Anti-aircraft warfare

Anti-aircraft warfare, counter-air or air defence forces is the battlespace response to aerial warfare, defined by NATO as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action". It includes surface based, subsurface, and air-based weapon systems, associated sensor systems, command and control arrangements, and passive measures. It may be used to protect naval, ground, and air forces in any location. However, for most countries, the main effort has tended to be homeland defence. NATO refers to airborne air defence as counter-air and naval air defence as anti-aircraft warfare. Missile defence is an extension of air defence, as are initiatives to adapt air defence to the task of intercepting any projectile in flight.

Funnel (ship)

Funnel (ship)

A funnel is the smokestack or chimney on a ship used to expel boiler steam and smoke or engine exhaust. They are also commonly referred to as stacks.

Forecastle

Forecastle

The forecastle is the upper deck of a sailing ship forward of the foremast, or, historically, the forward part of a ship with the sailors' living quarters. Related to the latter meaning is the phrase "before the mast" which denotes anything related to ordinary sailors, as opposed to a ship's officers.

Kempenfelt was assigned to the 2nd Destroyer Flotilla, of the Home Fleet, after her commissioning.^[6] The ship briefly mounted an experimental 5.1-inch (130 mm) gun on 'B' mount for evaluation purposes during this time; it was replaced by the standard 4.7-inch gun.^[8] She was based at Rosyth for most of the rest of 1932, but visited the Mediterranean between January and March 1933 before returning home. The ship was given a refit at Devonport that ended in January 1934. Shortly afterwards, Kempenfelt participated in the Home Fleet's tour of the West Indies that ended in March. The ship visited various Scandinavian ports during the remainder of the year.^[6] She participated in King George V's Silver Jubilee Fleet Review at Spithead on 16 July 1935.^[9] Following the Italian invasion of Abyssinia, Kempenfelt was sent in August to the Red Sea with the other ships of the 2nd Flotilla to monitor Italian warship movements until April 1936. She was given a brief refit at Devonport that lasted until June upon her return to the UK. During the first stages of the Spanish Civil War in late 1936, the ship evacuated British nationals from several different Spanish ports.^[10]

In December, Kempenfelt began a more thorough refit at Devonport that lasted until 10 April 1937 and returned to Spanish waters afterwards to intercept shipping carrying contraband goods to Spain and to protect British-flagged ships.^[10] On 6 March, the ship and the destroyer Boreas, rescued survivors from the Nationalist heavy cruiser Baleares after she had been sunk by Republican destroyers during the Battle of Cape Palos.^[11] She was refitted at Chatham in May–June 1938 and made a number of port visits in Scandinavia the following month. Kempenfelt was transferred to the Portsmouth Local Flotilla and remained there until the war began in September 1939.^[10]

Wartime service and transfer

The ship was transferred to the 18th Destroyer Flotilla, based at the Isle of Portland, where she escorted shipping and conducted anti-submarine patrols.^[10] Kempenfelt had been purchased before the war began by the Canadian government, but it agreed to allow the British to retain her until the Royal Navy could compensate for her loss by requisitioning enough auxiliary anti-submarine vessels. By the time that the British were ready to turn her over to the RCN, the ship was under repair after a collision and the hand over was delayed until 19 October. She was renamed Assiniboine and arrived at Halifax, Nova Scotia on 17 November. The ship had not yet been fitting with the steam heating necessary to operate in a Canadian winter and she was transferred to the Caribbean in exchange for the destroyer HMCS Saguenay. Assiniboine arrived at Kingston, Jamaica, on 8 December.^[12]

Assigned to the North America and West Indies Station, the highlight of the ship's service in the Caribbean was the capture of the German blockade runner MV Hannover in the Mona Passage between the islands of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico on the night of 8/9 March 1940. Initially intercepted by the light cruiser Dunedin, the crew of Hannover disabled their steering gear and set the ship on fire. Assiniboine took the burning ship under tow to prevent her from entering the waters of the neutral Dominican Republic while the cruiser sprayed water on the fire. The two ships swapped roles in the morning and the destroyer put some of her crew aboard Hannover to help Dunedin's boarding party fight the fire while the cruiser towed the freighter to Kingston. Assiniboine arrived in Halifax on 31 March for a refit.^[13]

After the completion of her refit, the ship escorted local convoys in and around Halifax until 15 January 1941 when she was transferred to Greenock and assigned to the 10th Escort Group of the Mid-Ocean Escort Force that was based there. Assiniboine rescued survivors from SS Anchises on 28 February and was damaged in a collision with MV Lairdswood on 5 April. Her repairs were not completed until 22 May and she was transferred to St. John's, Newfoundland in June to reinforce escort forces in the Western Atlantic.^[10] In early August, Assiniboine, her sister Restigouche and the ex-American destroyer HMS Ripley, escorted the battleship Prince of Wales to Placentia Bay where Prime Minister Winston Churchill met President Franklin Roosevelt for the first time.^[14]

U-210 photographed from Assiniboine's deck, 6 August 1942

Whilst escorting Convoy SC 94 in early August 1942 as part of Escort Group C1, Assiniboine's Type 286 radar spotted U-210 in a heavy fog on 6 August. The destroyer closed on the contact and briefly spotted the submarine twice before losing her in the fog. The submarine reappeared crossing the destroyer's bow at a range of 50 yards (46 m), and both ships opened fire. The range was too close for Assiniboine's 4.7-inch guns to engage, but her .50-calibre machine guns shot up the submarine's deck and conning tower. This kept the Germans from manning their 88-millimetre (3.5 in) deck gun, but the 20-millimetre (0.79 in) flak gun was already manned and firing. The gun punched holes through the destroyer's plating that set some petrol tanks on the deck afire and disabled 'A' gun. It also claimed the only Canadian casualty during the engagement: Ordinary Seaman Kenneth "Wiley" Watson from Revelestoke, British Columbia. The destroyer was unable to ram U-210 until the rear 4.7-inch gun hit the conning tower, killing the entire bridge crew and the .50-caliber machine guns were able to silence the flak gun. This caused Lieutenant Sorber, the senior surviving officer, to order the submarine to dive, but this meant that she had to hold a straight course while doing so. Assiniboine was able to take advantage of this and rammed U-210 abaft the conning tower whilst she was diving. This caused the electric motors to fail, damaged her propellers and led to water entering the submarine, as a result of which Sorber ordered the ballast tanks to be blown and the submarine abandoned. The destroyer rammed her again when U-210 resurfaced, dropped a pattern of depth charges set to detonate at shallow depth and hit her one more time with a 4.7-inch shell before the submarine finally sank.^[15] A number of survivors were rescued by Assiniboine and the British corvette Dianthus, before the former ship had to head home for repairs as she was taking on water below the waterline.^[15] She required nearly two months of repairs at Halifax and was assigned to Escort Group C3 when they were completed on 20 December.^[10][16]

Whilst en route to Londonderry, Assiniboine dropped a shallow pattern of depth charges on a submarine contact and badly damaged her stern on 2 March 1943. The ship was repaired at Liverpool between 7 March and 13 July and then assigned to Escort Group C1. She continued her escort work until April 1944 when she began a refit at Shelburne, Nova Scotia. Upon its completion in July, Assiniboine was assigned to the Western Approaches Command.^[10] The following month, the 12th Support Group, including Assiniboine, engaged three German minesweepers on 12 August, without sinking any.^[17] She remained in British waters for the rest of the war; the ship was damaged in a collision with SS Empire Bond on 14 February 1945 and was under repair until early March.^[10]

Assiniboine returned to Canada in June and was briefly used as a troop transport before a boiler room fire on 4 July effectively ended her career. She was paid off on 8 August and placed on the disposal list. Whilst on tow to the breakers in Baltimore, she ran aground near East Point, Prince Edward Island. Attempts to get her off failed, and she was left to rust until eventually being broken up in place in 1952.^[10]

Trans-Atlantic convoys escorted

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2nd Destroyer Flotilla

2nd Destroyer Flotilla

The British 2nd Destroyer Flotilla was a naval formation of the Royal Navy from 1909 to 1943 and again from 1945 to 1946.

Rosyth

Rosyth

Rosyth is a town on the Firth of Forth, three miles south of the centre of Dunfermline. According to the census of 2011, the town has a population of 13,440.

HMNB Devonport

HMNB Devonport

His Majesty's Naval Base, Devonport is one of three operating bases in the United Kingdom for the Royal Navy and is the sole nuclear repair and refuelling facility for the Royal Navy. The largest naval base in Western Europe, HMNB Devonport is located in Devonport, in the west of the city of Plymouth, England.

Spithead

Spithead

Spithead is an area of the Solent and a roadstead off Gilkicker Point in Hampshire, England. It is protected from all winds except those from the southeast. It receives its name from the Spit, a sandbank stretching south from the Hampshire shore for 5 km (3.1 mi). Spithead is 22.5 km (14.0 mi) long by about 6.5 km (4.0 mi) in average breadth. Spithead has been strongly defended since 1864 by four Solent Forts, which complement the Fortifications of Portsmouth.

Red Sea

Red Sea

The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez. It is underlain by the Red Sea Rift, which is part of the Great Rift Valley.

Spanish Civil War

Spanish Civil War

The Spanish Civil War was a civil war in Spain fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republicans and the Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the left-leaning Popular Front government of the Second Spanish Republic, and consisted of various socialist, communist, separatist, anarchist, and republican parties, some of which had opposed the government in the pre-war period. The opposing Nationalists were an alliance of Falangists, monarchists, conservatives, and traditionalists led by a military junta among whom General Francisco Franco quickly achieved a preponderant role. Due to the international political climate at the time, the war had many facets and was variously viewed as class struggle, a religious struggle, a struggle between dictatorship and republican democracy, between revolution and counterrevolution, and between fascism and communism. According to Claude Bowers, U.S. ambassador to Spain during the war, it was the "dress rehearsal" for World War II. The Nationalists won the war, which ended in early 1939, and ruled Spain until Franco's death in November 1975.

HMS Boreas (H77)

HMS Boreas (H77)

HMS Boreas was a B-class destroyer built for the Royal Navy around 1930. Initially assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet, she was transferred to the Home Fleet in 1936. She then patrolled Spanish waters, enforcing the arms blockade during the first year of the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939. She spent most of World War II on convoy escort duties in the English Channel and the North Atlantic, based at Dover, Gibraltar, and Freetown, Sierra Leone. Boreas also participated in Operation Husky and was later loaned to the Royal Hellenic Navy the next year after conversion into an escort destroyer. She was renamed Salamis and served in the Aegean for the rest of the war. Salamis became a training ship after the war until she was returned to Britain and scrapped in 1952.

Heavy cruiser

Heavy cruiser

The heavy cruiser was a type of cruiser, a naval warship designed for long range and high speed, armed generally with naval guns of roughly 203 mm (8 inches) in calibre, whose design parameters were dictated by the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 and the London Naval Treaty of 1930. The heavy cruiser is part of a lineage of ship design from 1915 through the early 1950s, although the term "heavy cruiser" only came into formal use in 1930. The heavy cruiser's immediate precursors were the light cruiser designs of the 1900s and 1910s, rather than the armoured cruisers of the years before 1905. When the armoured cruiser was supplanted by the battlecruiser, an intermediate ship type between this and the light cruiser was found to be needed—one larger and more powerful than the light cruisers of a potential enemy but not as large and expensive as the battlecruiser so as to be built in sufficient numbers to protect merchant ships and serve in a number of combat theatres.

Spanish cruiser Baleares

Spanish cruiser Baleares

Baleares was a Canarias-class heavy cruiser of the Spanish Navy whose control was taken by the Nationalist side during the Spanish Civil War. The two ships of the class were built upon a British design and were a modified version of the Royal Navy′s County class. Baleares was constructed in Spain by the Vickers-Armstrongs subsidiary Sociedad Española de Construcción Naval, and saw service during the Spanish Civil War, when she was torpedoed and sunk by destroyers of the Spanish Republican Navy during the Battle of Cape Palos.

Battle of Cape Palos (1938)

Battle of Cape Palos (1938)

The Battle of Cape Palos, also known as the Second Battle of Cape Palos, was the biggest naval battle of the Spanish Civil War, fought on the night of March 5–6, 1938, east of Cape Palos near Cartagena, Spain.

Chatham Dockyard

Chatham Dockyard

Chatham Dockyard was a Royal Navy Dockyard located on the River Medway in Kent. Established in Chatham in the mid-16th century, the dockyard subsequently expanded into neighbouring Gillingham.

Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia

Nova Scotia is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland".