HMAS ''Success'' was an Admiralty

destroyer In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast, maneuverable, long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy, or carrier battle group and defend them against a wide range of general threats. They were conceived i ...

of the

Royal Australian Navy The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) is the navy, naval branch of the Australian Defence Force (ADF). The professional head of the RAN is Chief of Navy (Australia), Chief of Navy (CN) Vice admiral (Australia), Vice Admiral Mark Hammond (admiral), Ma ...

(RAN). Built for the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...

during World War I, the ship was not completed until 1919, and spent less than eight months in British service before being transferred to the RAN at the start of 1920. The destroyer's career was uneventful, with almost all of it spent in Australian waters. ''Success'' was decommissioned in 1930, and was sold for

ship breaking Ship breaking (also known as ship recycling, ship demolition, ship scrapping, ship dismantling, or ship cracking) is a type of ship disposal involving the breaking up of ships either as a source of Interchangeable parts, parts, which can be sol ...

in 1937.

Design and construction

''Success'' was built to the Admiralty design of the S-class destroyer, which was designed and built as part of the British emergency war programme.Cassells, ''The Destroyers'', p. 113 The destroyer had a displacement of 1,075 tons, a length of

overall Overalls or bib-and-brace overalls, also called dungarees in British English, are a type of garment usually used as protective clothing when working. The garments are commonly referred to as a "pair of overalls" by analogy with "pair of trousers ...

and

between perpendiculars Length between perpendiculars (often abbreviated as p/p, p.p., pp, LPP, LBP or Length BPP) is the length of a ship along the summer load line from the forward surface of the stem, or main bow perpendicular member, to the after surface of the ster ...

, and a beam of . The propulsion machinery consisted of three Yarrow boilers feeding Brown-Curtis turbines, which supplied to the ship's two propeller shafts.Cassells, ''The Destroyers'', p. 114 ''Success'' had a maximum speed of , and a range of at .Cassells, ''The Destroyers'', pp. 113–4 The ship's company was made up of 6 officers and 93 sailors. The destroyer's primary armament consisted of three QF 4-inch Mark IV guns. These were supplemented by a

2-pounder pom-pom The 2-pounder gun, officially the QF 2-pounder ( QF denoting "quick firing") and universally known as the pom-pom, was a British autocannon, used as an anti-aircraft gun by the Royal Navy.British military of the period traditionally denoted s ...

, two 9.5-inch howitzer bomb throwers, five .303 inch machine guns (a mix of

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and

Maxim gun The Maxim gun is a Recoil operation, recoil-operated machine gun invented in 1884 by Hiram Maxim, Hiram Stevens Maxim. It was the first automatic firearm, fully automatic machine gun in the world. The Maxim gun has been called "the weapon most ...

s), two twin 21-inch torpedo tube sets, two

depth charge A depth charge is an anti-submarine warfare (ASW) weapon designed to destroy submarine A submarine (often shortened to sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. (It differs from a submersible, which has more limited ...

throwers, and two depth charge chutes. ''Success'' was laid down by

William Doxford and Sons William Doxford & Sons Ltd, often referred to simply as Doxford, was a British shipbuilding and marine engineering company. History William Doxford founded the company in 1840. From 1870 it was based in Pallion, Sunderland, on the River Wear ...

Limited at their

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. It is a port at the mouth of the River Wear on the North Sea, approximately south-east of Newcastle upon Tyne. It is the most p ...

shipyard in 1917. The destroyer was launched on 29 June 1918, and completed on 15 April 1919. The ship was briefly commissioned into the

in April 1919, but was quickly marked for transfer to the RAN, along with four

sister ship A sister ship is a ship of the same Ship class, class or of virtually identical design to another ship. Such vessels share a nearly identical hull and superstructure layout, similar size, and roughly comparable features and equipment. They o ...

s. ''Success'' was commissioned into the RAN on 27 January 1920.

Operational history

''Success'' and three of her sister ships sailed for Australia on 20 February, visiting ports in the Mediterranean, India, Singapore, and the Netherlands East Indies before reaching Sydney on 29 April. ''Success'' operated in Australian waters until 6 October 1921, when she was placed in reserve. The destroyer was reactivated on 1 December 1925. In late May 1926, ''Success'' visited Port Moresby.

Decommissioning and fate

''Success'' paid off on 21 May 1930. She was sold to Penguins Limited for

in 1937.

Citations

References

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Success (H02) S-class destroyers (1917) of the Royal Australian Navy Ships built on the River Wear 1918 ships