HMS Shikari

HMS ''Shikari'' (D85) was an Admiralty S-class destroyer of the Royal Navy. She was built by William Doxford & Sons, Sunderland and launched on 14 July 1919. She was one of the destroyers that took part in the Invergordon Mutiny. In 1933, she was briefly commanded by Frederic John Walker, who was to rise to fame as the foremost Allied submarine hunter of World War II.

On 4 June 1940, ''Shikari'' was the last ship to leave Dunkirk.

Construction and design

''Shikari'' was ordered from Doxford Shipyard in April 1917 as part of the first batch of 24 S-class destroyers.Friedman 2009, p. 311. The S class were intended as a fast destroyer for service that would be cheaper than the large V-class destroyers that preceded them and so able to be ordered in large numbers.Friedman 2009, pp. 168–169. The ships were long overall and between perpendiculars, with a beam of and a draught of . They displaced standard and full load. Three Yarrow boilers fed Brown-Curtiss single-reduction steam turbines which drove two propeller shafts, and generated at 360 rpm, giving the required 36 knot speed. of oil could be carried, giving a range of at .Whitley 2000, p. 83.Lenton 1970, p. 15. The design gun armament of the S class was three guns and a single 2-pounder (40 mm) "pom-pom" anti-aircraft gun. Torpedo armament was four torpedo tubes in two twin rotating mounts and two tubes.

''Shikari'' was laid down on 15 January 1918, but construction was slowed by the end of the First World War in November 1918, and she was not launched until 14 July 1919. After launching, ''Shikari'' was towed to Chatham Dockyard for fitting out. It was decided to use ''Shikari'' as a control ship for the old battleship and target ship . As a control ship, ''Shikari'' was unarmed, with a large deckhouse for the radio-control equipment fitted between the ship's funnels.Parkes 1931, p. 65. She was finally commissioned in February 1924.

Early in the Second World War, ''Shikari'', along with several other S-class destroyers based in the UK, was modified as a dedicated anti-submarine escort. After conversion, armament consisted of a single 4-inch gun forward, with a 12-pounder anti-aircraft gun amidships. Close-in anti-aircraft armament consisted of two quadruple Vickers .50 machine gun mounts. Both sets of torpedo-tubes were removed, allowing a heavy depth charge armament, with 112 depth charges carried, with sufficient depth charge throwers and racks to allow 14-charge patterns of charges to be used. Type 286 radar and Type 133 Sonar was fitted.Whitley 2000, pp. 83–84.Brown 2007, p. 17. Later in the war, the depth charge armament was reduced, with a 10-charge pattern substituted (as this was found to be as effective as the earlier 14-charge pattern).Friedman 2009, p. 237. The .50 machine guns were eventually replaced by four single Oerlikon 20 mm cannon, and the 12 pounder anti-aircraft gun removed to allow Type 271 radar to be fitted on a lattice mast aft.Whitley 2000, p. 84.Friedman 2009, pp. 242–243.

Service

''Shikari'' continued as a control ship for the remainder of the inter war period, first for ''Agamemnon'' and then for . ''Shikari'' was present at Invergordon in September 1931 during the Invergordon Mutiny, although there was little trouble on board. Amongst ''Shikari''s commanding officers during the inter-war period was Commander Frederic John Walker, who became a notable anti-submarine warfare commander during the Second World War. On 15 January 1938, ''Shikari'' was escorting ''Centurion'' from Devonport to Gibraltar across the Bay of Biscay when the heavy weather caused a fault in her port engine, forcing the destroyer to put into Lisbon. On 2 February 1939, ''Shikari'' was involved in a collision with the destroyer off Malta, with ''Griffin''s hull being damaged near the stern.English 1993, p. 100.

On the outbreak of the Second World War, ''Shikari'' was re-armed and from January 1940 carried out convoy escort operations. At the end of May 1940, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) was trapped by German forces at Dunkirk, and it was decided to launch Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of the BEF from Dunkirk, and ''Shikari'' was one of the destroyers that took part in the operation,Rohwer and Hümmelchen 1992, p. 21. carrying out her first evacuation trip on 28 May, making a second trip on 29 May. On 29 May, Admiral of the Fleet Dudley Pound, First Sea Lord, ordered the withdrawal of modern destroyers from the Dunkirk operations owing to the high losses, putting greater pressure on old destroyers such as ''Shikari''.Barnett 2000, p. 150. On 1 June, the steamer was badly damaged by near misses from German artillery and bombing. ''Shikari'', along with the sloop and the paddle minesweeper ''Queen of Thanet'', took off ''Prague''s load of 3,000 French troops before ''Prague'' beached herself on the Sandwich Flats. ''Shikari'' herself was damaged by German bombing on 1 June.Barnett 2000, p. 156. ''Shikari'' continued to make evacuation runs and at 03:40 on the night of 3/4 June 1940 was the last ship to leave Dunkirk.Barnett 2000, pp. 160–161. In total, ''Shikari'' made seven trips to Dunkirk during Operation Dynamo, embarking 3349 troops.

After Dunkirk, ''Shikari'' returned to escort work, and on 4 July, when the cargo ship was damaged by German dive bombers and then collided with , ''Shikari'' took off the crew of ''Dallas City'' before the cargo ship sank, surviving unscathed when attacked by German bombers. On 24 July, the French troopship , repatriating French sailors after the French armistice with Germany, was torpedoed by the German Schnellboot ''S.27'', and ''Shikari'', together with the destroyers , and rescued the survivors.

On 9 September 1940, Convoy HX 72 left Halifax, Nova Scotia, bound for the UK. The convoy was escorted most of the way across the Atlantic by the armed merchant cruiser , with an escort of destroyers and corvettes (including ''Shikari'') to protect the convoy for the dangerous final stages through the Western Approaches. ''Jervis Bay'' left the convoy on 20 September, before the escort group had rendezvoused with the convoy. The German submarine spotted the unescorted convoy shortly after ''Jervis Bay'' had left, and shadowed the convoy allowing a "wolfpack" of U-boats to be assembled against the convoy. U-boats sank four merchant ships before the escort group, consisting of the sloop , the corvettes , and and ''Shikari'' arrived. ''Shikari'' was tasked with rescuing the crews from the torpedoed merchant ships, while the remaining four escorts stayed with the convoy. ''Shikari'' picked up survivors from , and . Attacks on the convoy continued, with seven ships being sunk by on the night of 21/22 September.Rohwer and Hümmelchen 1992, p. 34.

''Shikari'' continued in the convoy escort role in the Western Approaches area, serving with the 2nd Escort Group based at Londonderry in Northern Ireland, and along with sister ship attacked a suspected submarine on 22 December 1940 when escorting Convoy OB 262. On 24 October 1941, ''Shikari'' sustained serious damage in high seas south of Iceland, losing a funnel, and was under repair at Belfast until December that year, joining the 21st Escort Group, based at Iceland. ''Shikari'' continued in the convoy escort role into 1944, entering reserve and being used for training from September 1944.

''Shikari'' was sold for scrap in September 1945, arriving at Cashmore's shipbreaking yard on 4 November 1945.Dittmar and Colledge 1972, p. 74.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Shikari
S-class destroyers (1917) of the Royal Navy
1919 ships
World War I destroyers of the United Kingdom
Ships built on the River Wear