NRP ''Dão'' was one of five built for the
Portuguese Navy during the 1930s. She remained in service until 1960, being refitted and re-armed several times and taking place in a coup attempt in 1936.
Construction and design
The British shipbuilder
Yarrows's design was based on , a prototype destroyer built for the
Royal Navy in 1926.
[Roberts 1980, p. 397.] On 18 January 1933, a fifth destroyer of the class was ordered from the Lisbon Shipyard, with machinery to be built by Yarrow.
[Whitley 1988, p. 222.] Portuguese Dictator
António de Oliveira Salazar gave a speech to commemorate the beginning of construction, thanking the navy minister for "choosing to name this unit of our fleet after
the river that crosses
my town." ''Dão'' was
launched on 30 July 1934 and
commissioned on 5 January 1935.
[Whitley 1988, p. 221.]
The ''Douro''-class ships were
long overall
__NOTOC__
Length overall (LOA, o/a, o.a. or oa) 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 ...
, with a
beam
Beam may refer to:
Streams of particles or energy
*Light beam, or beam of light, a directional projection of light energy
**Laser beam
*Particle beam, a stream of charged or neutral particles
**Charged particle beam, a spatially localized grou ...
of and a
draught of . They displaced at
standard 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 ...
and at
full load.
[Whitley 1988, pp. 221–222.]
The ''Douro''s were powered by two
Parsons
Parsons may refer to:
Places
In the United States:
* Parsons, Kansas, a city
* Parsons, Missouri, an unincorporated community
* Parsons, Tennessee, a city
* Parsons, West Virginia, a town
* Camp Parsons, a Boy Scout camp in the state of Washingto ...
-Curtis geared
steam turbine
A steam turbine is a machine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work on a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Charles Parsons in 1884. Fabrication of a modern steam turbin ...
s, each driving one
propeller shaft using steam provided by three
Yarrow boilers. The turbines, rated at , were intended to give a maximum speed of . The destroyers carried enough
fuel oil
Fuel oil is any of various fractions obtained from the distillation of petroleum (crude oil). Such oils include distillates (the lighter fractions) and residues (the heavier fractions). Fuel oils include heavy fuel oil, marine fuel oil (MFO), bun ...
to give them a range of at .
Armament was similar to contemporary Royal Navy destroyers, with a gun armament of four 4.7 in (120 mm)
Vickers-Armstrong Mk G guns, and three
2-pounder () Mk VIII anti-aircraft gun
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".AAP-6 It includes surface based, ...
s. Two quadruple banks of 21-inch (533 mm)
torpedo tubes were carried, while two depth charge throwers and 12
depth charges constituted the ships' anti-submarine armament. Up to 20
mines could be carried. The ships complement was 147 officers and men.
History
1936 mutiny
On 9 September 1936 the crews of the
aviso ''Afonso de Albuquerque'' and the ''Dão'' mutinied while anchored in Lisbon harbour. Opposed to the
Salazar dictatorship
The ''Estado Novo'' (, lit. "New State") was the corporatist Portuguese state installed in 1933. It evolved from the ''Ditadura Nacional'' ("National Dictatorship") formed after the ''coup d'état'' of 28 May 1926 against the democratic but ...
's support of the
Nationalists rebels against the pro-government
Republicans
Republican can refer to:
Political ideology
* An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law.
** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...
in the
Spanish Civil War, the sailors confined their officers and declared their solidarity with the Spanish Republic. As the ships were leaving the Tejo estuary they were fired upon by the batteries from the forts and both ''Afonso de Albuquerque'' and ''Dão'' received direct hits and were grounded. Some of the sailors were killed while trying to flee, but most of the sailors were arrested and sent to the penal colony of Tarrafal in
Portuguese Cape Verde. After the mutiny was put down the government claimed that the sailors had prepared to sail to Spain in order to assist the Spanish Republic.
James Maxwell Anderson
James Maxwell Anderson (December 15, 1888 – February 28, 1959) was an American playwright, author, poet, journalist, and lyricist.
Background
Anderson was born on December 15, 1888, in Atlantic, Pennsylvania, the second of eight children to ...
, ''The History of Portugal,'' p. 146
References
Citations
Sources
*
*
*
*
*
External links
*''Jane's Fighting Ships 1938'', p. 398.
Area Militar: the ''Afonso de Albuquerque''Image
Ships built in Portugal
1934 ships
{{1936 shipwrecks