HMS Curlew (D42)

HMS ''Curlew'' was a light cruiser built for the Royal Navy during World War I. She was part of the ''Ceres'' sub-class of the C class. The ship survived World War I to be sunk by German aircraft during the Norwegian Campaign in 1940.

Design and description

The ''Ceres'' sub-class was redesigned to move one of the amidships guns to a superfiring position in front of the bridge to improve its arcs of fire. This required moving the bridge and tripod mast further aft and rearranging the compartments forward of the aft boiler room. The ships were long overall, with a beam of and a mean draught of . Displacement was at normal and at deep load. ''Curlew'' was powered by two Parsons steam turbines, each driving one propeller shaft, which produced a total of . The turbines used steam generated by six Yarrow boilers which gave her a speed of about . She carried tons of fuel oil. The ship had a crew of about 460 officers and ratings.Preston, p. 61

The armament of the ''Ceres'' sub-class was identical to that of the preceding ''Caledon'' sub-class and consisted of five BL 6-inch (152 mm) Mk XII guns that were mounted on the centreline. One superfiring pair of guns was forward of the bridge, one was aft of the two funnels and the last two were in the stern, with one gun superfiring over the rearmost gun. The two QF 20-cwt anti-aircraft guns were positioned abreast of the fore funnel. The ''Ceres''s were equipped with eight torpedo tubes in four twin mounts, two on each broadside.

Construction and career

She was laid down by Vickers Limited on 21 August 1916, and launched on 5 July 1917, being commissioned into the navy on 14 December 1917.

During the 1920s, she served with the 8th Light Cruiser Squadron on the America and West Indies Station, based at the Royal Naval Dockyard, on Ireland Island in the Imperial fortress colony of Bermuda.

She was hove to offshore, outside Bermuda's encircling reefline, when the 1926 Havana–Bermuda hurricane reached Bermuda on 22 October 1922. Vessels in the Bermudian dockyard at the time included Admiralty Floating Dock No. 1 (AFD1), the cruisers HMS ''Calcutta'', flagship of the America and West Indies Station, and HMS ''Capetown'', the sloop HMS Wistaria (which was in the submerged AFD1 in the South Yard), RFA Serbol, the tugboats St. Abbs, St. Blazey, and Creole, and No. 5 Battle Practice Target. The dockface (or 'the wall') in the South Yard and old North Yard of the dockyard are on the eastern ( Great Sound) shore of the island of Ireland (with the western shore on the open North Atlantic). ''Calcutta'' was torn free of the wharf, with all forty hawsers that had tethered her snapping, when the windspeed reached 138 mph (the highest speed recorded before the storm destroyed the dockyard's anemometer) and was saved only by the most desperate actions of her crew and other personnel, including Sub-Lieutenants Stephen Roskill of ''Wistaria'' and Conrad Byron Alers-Hankey of ''Capetown'', who swam to attach new lines to the oil wharf.

Meanwhile, ''Curlew'', which had sustained damage to her upper deck ("No. 1 gun, bent shield and stay Forecastle Deck torn and supporting stanchions bent. Other slight damage to material, fittings etc. Motor Boat badly damaged. Both whalers and 3 Carley Floats lost") while she rode out the storm offshore, was instructed at 16:10 on the 22nd to attempt to make contact with HMS ''Valerian'', which had signalled "Am hove-to 5 miles south of Gibb's Hill" at 08:30 (and which had already gone down at 13:00). The dockyard received wireless SOS transmission from ''Eastway'' at 17:52. SS ''Luciline'' and SS ''Fort George'' made way to the position of ''Eastway''. Although a wireless signal was sent to ''Curlew'' at 18:40 by the Commander-in-Chief, America and West Indies, to continue searching for ''Valerian'' as the two merchant ships were going to aid ''Eastway'', ''Curlew'' signalled the Commander-in-Chief a minute later that she was heading towards ''Eastway''. ''Eastway'' signalled at 18:45, "W/T signals are weak. Am shorting with water here. Cannot last long old man. Am listing more every few minutes. Port lifeboats gone. Urgent assistance required. Radio giving out and stokehold flooding". The Commander-in-Chief signalled ''Curlew'' at 18:54 to cancel the previous instruction and go to the aid of ''Eastway''. At 19:00, this message was cancelled and ''Curlew'' ordered to resume the search for ''Valerian''. ''Capetown'' was ordered to put to sea to join the search for ''Valerian'' at 20:03. The following day, 23 October, ''Capetown'' signalled that two men had been sighted on a raft at 31.59 North, 64.45 West. These were the first survivors from ''Valerian'' to be rescued. Two officers and seventeen men would be plucked from the ocean by 11:33. ''Luciline'' rescued twelve survivors from the crew of the ''Eastway'' by 12:34 and took them to Bermuda.

In common with most of her sisters ''Curlew'' was rearmed to become an anti-aircraft cruiser in 1935–36.

On the outbreak of war, she served with the Home Fleet. She participated in the Norwegian Campaign, and whilst operating off the Norwegian coast on 26 May 1940, she came under attack from German Junkers Ju 88 bombers of ''Kampfgeschwader'' 30 and was sunk in Lavangsfjord, Ofotfjord near Narvik. Nine sailors were lost with the ship.

Notes

Footnotes

Bibliography

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External links

HMS Curlew in WW2 at Naval-History.net

{{DEFAULTSORT:Curlew
C-class cruisers
Ships built in Barrow-in-Furness
1917 ships
World War I cruisers of the United Kingdom
World War II cruisers of the United Kingdom
World War II shipwrecks in the Norwegian Sea
Maritime incidents in May 1940
Cruisers sunk by aircraft
Ships sunk by German aircraft