HMIS ''Bihar'' (J247) was a built for the
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...
. It transferred to the
Royal Indian Navy
The Royal Indian Navy (RIN) was the naval force of British India and the Dominion of India. Along with the Presidency armies, later the Indian Army, and from 1932 the Royal Indian Air Force, it was one of the Armed Forces of British India.
F ...
(RIN) during the Second World War.
Design and description
The ''Bangor'' class was designed as a small minesweeper that could be easily built in large numbers by civilian shipyards; as
steam turbines were difficult to manufacture, the ships were designed to accept a wide variety of engines. ''Bihar'' displaced at
standard Standard may refer to:
Symbols
* Colours, standards and guidons, kinds of military signs
* Standard (emblem), a type of a large symbol or emblem used for identification
Norms, conventions or requirements
* Standard (metrology), an object th ...
load and at
deep load
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 wei ...
. The ship had an
overall length
The overall length (OAL) of an ammunition cartridge is a measurement from the base of the brass shell casing to the tip of the bullet, seated into the brass casing. Cartridge overall length, or "COL", is important to safe functioning of reloads i ...
of , a
beam of and a
draught of .
[Lenton, pp. 253–54] The ship's complement consisted of 60 officers and
ratings.
[Chesneau, p. 64]
She was powered by two
vertical triple-expansion steam engines (VTE), each driving one shaft, using steam provided by two
Admiralty three-drum boilers. The engines produced a total of and gave a maximum speed of . The ship carried a maximum of of
fuel oil that gave her a range of at .
[Lenton, p. 254]
The VTE-powered ''Bangor''s were armed with a QF 12-pounder (7.62 cm)
anti-aircraft gun and a single
QF 2-pounder (4 cm) AA gun or a quadruple mount for the
Vickers .50 machine gun. In some ships the 2-pounder was replaced a single or twin
20 mm Oerlikon
The Oerlikon 20 mm cannon is a series of autocannons, based on an original German Becker Type M2 20 mm cannon design that appeared very early in World War I. It was widely produced by Oerlikon Contraves and others, with various models empl ...
AA gun, while most ships were fitted with four additional single Oerlikon mounts over the course of the war.
[ For escort work, their minesweeping gear could be exchanged for around 40 depth charges.][
]
Construction and career
HMIS ''Bihar'' was ordered in 1940 and built at Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers
Garden Reach Shipbuilders & Engineers Ltd, abbreviated as GRSE, is one of India's leading shipyards, located in Kolkata. It builds and repairs commercial and naval vessels. GRSE also builds export ships.
Founded in 1884 as a small privately-o ...
in Kolkata
Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...
, India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
. She was commissioned into the RIN in 1944. ''Bihar'' was a part of the Eastern Fleet
Eastern may refer to:
Transportation
*China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai
* Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways
* Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991
* Eastern Air ...
, and escorted numerous convoys between Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
, British India
The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...
and Australia in 1944-45.
On 15 July 1944, the British merchant ship ''Tanda'' was torpedoed and sunk by in the Arabian Sea
The Arabian Sea ( ar, اَلْبَحرْ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Bahr al-ˁArabī) is a region of the northern Indian Ocean bounded on the north by Pakistan, Iran and the Gulf of Oman, on the west by the Gulf of Aden, Guardafui Channel ...
at position northwest of Mangalore
Mangalore (), officially known as Mangaluru, is a major port city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It is located between the Arabian Sea and the Western Ghats about west of Bangalore, the state capital, 20 km north of Karnataka–Ke ...
. HMIS ''Bihar'' with rescued 197 surviving crew of the ''Tanda''. She was scrapped in 1949.
References
Bibliography
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*
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Bihar (J247)
Bangor-class minesweepers of the Royal Indian Navy
1942 ships
British ships built in India
World War II minesweepers of India