HMS Douglas (1918)

HMS ''Douglas'' was an Admiralty type flotilla leader (also known as the ''Scott''-class) of the British Royal Navy. Built by Cammell Laird, ''Douglas'' commissioned in 1918, just before the end of the First World War. During the Second World War, ''Douglas'' served with Force H out of Gibraltar and as a convoy escort. She was sold for scrap in March 1945.

Design and construction

In December 1916, the British Admiralty placed orders for two large flotilla leaders, and ''Douglas'' from Cammell Laird as a follow on to the prototype of the class, , which had been ordered in April that year.Gardiner and Gray 1985, p. 83. The ship was long between perpendiculars and overall,Friedman 2009, p. 298. with a beam of and a draught of . Design displacement was normal and full load. The ship's machinery consisted of four Yarrow boilers that fed steam at to two sets of Parsons single-reduction geared- steam turbines, rated at . This gave a design speed of light, which corresponded to about at full load.Lenton 1970, p. 43.

''Douglas'' main gun armament consisted of five 4.7 in (120 mm)/45 calibre BL Mark I guns, on CP VI mountings capable of elevating to 30 degrees.Preston 1971, pp. 99, 101. These guns could fire a shell to at a rate of 5–6 rounds per minute per gun. 120 rounds per gun were carried. Anti-aircraft armament consisted of a single 3 inch (76 mm) 20 cwt gun.Gardiner and Gray 1985, pp. 82–83. Torpedo armament consisted of six 21 inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes in two triple mounts.

''Douglas'' was laid down at Cammell Laird's Birkenhead shipyard on 30 June 1917, launched on 8 June 1918 and commissioned on 30 August 1918.Preston 1971, p. 101.Whitley 2002, p. 85.

Modifications

While ''Douglas'' had only limited modifications between the wars,Whitley 2000, p. 86. an early change during the Second World War was the replacement of the amidships 4.7-inch gun by two 2-pounder (40 mm) "pom-pom" autocannon, with the aft funnel shortened to improve the field of fire for the 3 inch anti-aircraft gun.Friedman 2009, p. 242. Three Oerlikon 20 mm cannon later supplemented the short-range anti-aircraft armament, while a further two Oerlikons finally replaced the 2-pounders. Radar ( Type 286, later replaced by Type 290 and Type 271) was fitted during the war, as was HF/DF radio direction-finding gear.Preston 1971, plate 13 caption, between p. 64 and 65.

Conversion to a short-range escort involved removal of two more 4.7 inch guns and a bank of torpedo tubes, with the forward gun replaced by a Hedgehog anti-submarine mortar, and the aft gun and tubes removed to allow a heavy depth charge armament of 70 charges.Friedman 2009, p. 252.

Service history

On commissioning ''Douglas'' joined the 6th Destroyer Flotilla, part of the Dover Patrol, as leader. On 16 September 1918, ''Douglas'' boats helped to pick up survivors from the monitor , which was scuttled in Dover harbour following a magazine fire and explosion. In October, ''Douglas'' was employed escorting monitors off the Belgian coast, taking part in the bombardment of Ostend on 17 October 1918 and rescuing survivors from when the monitor was mined and sunk off Ostend on 20 October.English 2019, p. 26. On 25 October that year ''Douglas'' transferred to the Grand Fleet, joining the 11th Destroyer Flotilla at Scapa Flow.

By March 1919, ''Douglas'' had moved to the 7th Destroyer Flotilla, but by May 1919, ''Douglas'' was in reserve at Rosyth. On 18 March 1920, ''Douglas'' recommissioned as leader for the 4th Destroyer Flotilla of the Atlantic Fleet. On 2 December, she was damaged by a collision at Queenstown in the south of Ireland, and was under repair at Pembroke Dock until 26 January 1921. ''Douglas'' reduced to reserve (with a reduced complement) on 26 June 1921, and was still laid up at Rosyth at the end of 1921.Preston 1971, p. 36. In March 1922, ''Douglas'', still under reserve, moved to Devonport, and from June to November that year was employed testing cradles for new slipways at Pembroke, before returning to reserve at Devonport.

''Douglas'' was refitted at Sheerness dockyard in January to March 1928, and then commissioned as leader of the 1st Submarine Flotilla of the Mediterranean Fleet, based at Malta on 7 April 1928. ''Douglas'' was again refitted at Sheerness from October 1933 to May 1934, where her boilers were retubed, before returning to the 1st Submarine Flotilla. ''Douglas'' was refitted at Malta in August 1935, and in September that year, as a result of the Abyssinia Crisis, reinforcing the 1st Destroyer Flotilla.English 2019, p. 27 In July 1936, following the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, the Royal Navy sent ships to Spanish harbours to evacuate British subjects, with ''Douglas'' being one of several ships sent to Barcelona. ''Douglas'' returned to the 1st Destroyer Flotilla in September 1936, and remained part of that flotilla in March 1939. ''Douglas'' was refitted at Gibraltar from March to July 1939.

Second World War

In September 1939, at the start of the Second World War, ''Douglas'' was a member of the 13th Destroyer Flotilla, based at Gibraltar, having joined the flotilla on 22 August. On 24 October, ''Douglas'', along with the leader and the destroyers and , set out to hunt the German submarine , which had sunk three merchant ships. ''Douglas'' picked up the survivors from one of the ships, the . A Saro London flying boat from Gibraltar-based No. 202 Squadron RAF alighted in an attempt to rescue survivors, but was unable to take-off again, and was towed back to Gibraltar by ''Douglas'' as she returned the survivors to land. On 21 January 1940, ''Douglas'' was escorting the Gibraltar bound convoy OG.15F off the coast of Portugal when she spotted a German submarine and attacked. ''U-44'' sustained only minor damage.

On 8 July 1940, ''Douglas'' sortied as part of the escort for Force H, which had left Gibraltar to act as a distraction while the British Mediterranean Fleet escorted two convoys between Malta and Alexandria. While the Mediterranean Fleet clashed briefly with Italian forces at the Battle of Calabria, Force H's movements caused Italian submarines, one of which sank the destroyer , to be redeployed away from the convoy, and attracted heavy air attacks.Rohwer and Hümmelchen 1992, p. 28. Later that month, ''Douglas'' returned to Britain, undergoing condenser repairs before joining to the Home Fleet, based at Scapa Flow, carrying out patrol duties, as well as escorting the fleet and minelaying operations. On 2 November, ''Douglas'' rescued twelve survivors from the naval trawler , which had been sunk by a mine on 31 October.

In February 1941, ''Douglas'' was transferred from the Home Fleet to Western Approaches Command, joining the 2nd Escort Group. On 28 April, Convoy HX 121 came under heavy U-boat attack, and the 2nd Escort Group, including ''Douglas'', was detached from Convoy OB 314 to reinforce HX 121. On approaching the convoy, ''Douglas'' rescued 18 survivors from the tanker , which had been torpedoed by , but failed in an attempt to sink ''Capulet''s abandoned wreck with gunfire. ''Douglas'' then depth-charged and sank the submarine . In all four ships were lost from HX 121, with one U-boat being sunk.Blair ''Hitler's U-Boat War: The Hunters 1939–1942'' 2000, pp. 271–272. On 11 September, the 2nd Escort Group, led by Commander W. E. Banks aboard ''Douglas'', left Convoy ON 13F to reinforce Convoy SC 42 under heavy attack off the east coast of Greenland from the U-boats of the wolfpack ''Markgraf'', which had sunk 15 ships from the convoy already. Banks took charge of the convoy's defence, ordering the destroyers and to investigate a sighting by an aircraft of a submarine ahead of the Convoy, which resulted in the two destroyers sinking , and managing to drive off several attacking U-boats over the next few days.Blair ''Hitler's U-Boat War: The Hunters 1939–1942'' 2000, pp. 363–364.Rohwer and Hümmelchen 1992, p. 82.

On 15 January 1942, ''Douglas'' was part of the escort of Convoy ON 55 off Iceland in a severe storm (described as the worst seen in Iceland for 15 years), when the American destroyer , part of an American escort group attempting to relieve the 2nd Escort Group, collided with ''Douglas'', badly damaging both ships, with one seaman lost from ''Douglas''.Blair ''Hitler's U-Boat War: The Hunters 1939–1942'' 2000, p. 342. After temporary repair by the depot ship at Iceland and returning to the United Kingdom, it was decided to convert ''Douglas'' to a Short-Range Escort while she was under repair at Palmers in Jarrow. This involved reducing the ship's gun and torpedo armament to accommodate better anti-submarine weaponry.

''Douglas'' was under repair and refit until April 1942, joining the Home Fleet in May. ''Douglas'' formed part of the ill-fated Arctic Convoy Convoy PQ 17, but left the convoy to join Convoy QP-13, which was returning from the Soviet Union at the same time as PQ 17 was sailing to the Soviet Union, on 2 July 1942, before PQ 17 had come under serious attack.Ruegg and Hague 1993, pp. 39, 41. The ship continued in escort operations, and in November 1942, rescued 29 survivors from the merchant ship , sunk by on 13 November south-east of Durban. On 11 July 1943, ''Douglas'', together with the destroyer and the frigate , were escorting a convoy consisting of the troopships and and the munitions ship , when the convoy was attacked by three Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condors of Kampfgeschwader 40 off Vigo. Both ''California'' and ''Duchess of York'' were badly hit, with 46 killed aboard ''California'' and 27 aboard ''Duchess of York'', and the blazing ships were sunk by the convoy's escorts early the next day after the survivors were rescued, in order to avoid the attentions of U-boats.Rohwer and Hümmelchen 1992, p. 222.

On 31 October 1943, the naval trawler depth-charged the German submarine west of Gibraltar, forcing the submarine to the surface, and scored several gun hits before ''U-732'' managed to submerge, which resulted in ''Imperialist'' subjecting ''U-732'' to another heavy depth-charging. After dark, ''U-732'' attempted to escape on the surface but was spotted by an aircraft. On being spotted, the commanding officer of ''U-732'' ordered that the submarine be scuttled, but before the submarine sank, ''Douglas'' attacked with 10 more depth charges. Eighteen of ''U-732''s crew were rescued, eight by ''Douglas'', with 31 killed. ''Imperialist'' and ''Douglas'' were jointly credited with the sinking of ''U-732''.Blair ''Hitler's U-Boat War: The Hunted 1942–1945'' 2000, pp. 455–456.Preston 1971, p. 271.

''Douglas'' continued in use as a convoy escort until February 1945 when she was paid off into reserve. She was sold for scrap on 20 March 1945 to the British Iron & Steel Corporation (BISCO) who passed the ship on to TW Ward.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Douglas
Ships built on the River Mersey
1918 ships
Admiralty type flotilla leaders