HMS Vimiera (1917)
{{Short description|V-class destroyer of the British Royal Navy}}
{{other ships|HMS Vimiera}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2017}}
{{Use British English|date=March 2017}}
| {{Infobox ship begin}}
{{Infobox ship image |Ship image= HMS Vimiera (1917) IWM SP 000080.jpg |Ship caption= Vimiera circa 1918 }} {{Infobox ship career |Hide header= |Ship country= United Kingdom |Ship flag= {{shipboxflag|United Kingdom|naval}} |Ship name= HMS Vimiera |Ship namesake=Battle of Vimeiro (1808) |Ship builder=Swan Hunter, Tyne and Wear |Ship yard number= |Ship ordered= |Ship laid down= October 1916 |Ship launched= 22 June 1917 |Ship completed= 19 September 1917 |Ship commissioned= |Ship decommissioned= |Ship in service= |Ship out of service= |Ship struck= |Ship reinstated= |Ship homeport= |Ship motto= Sicut clin{{disputed inline|date=May 2020}}: ‘Victory as formerly’ |Ship nickname= |Ship Badge= On a Field Black a lion's head Red, rising out of an Eastern crown, Gold. |Ship honours= |Ship fate=Sank on 9 January 1942 after striking a mine in the Thames estuary, off Warden, Kent. |Ship notes= }} {{Infobox ship characteristics |Hide header= |Header caption= |Ship class= Admiralty V-class destroyer |Ship displacement= 1,272-1,339 tons |Ship length= {{convert|300|ft|m|1|abbr=on}} o/a, {{convert|312|ft|m|1|abbr=on}} p/p |Ship beam= {{convert|26|ft|9|in|m|1|abbr=on}} |Ship draught= {{convert|9|ft|m|1|abbr=on}} standard, {{convert|11|ft|3|in|m|1|abbr=on}} deep |Ship propulsion=*3 Yarrow type Water-tube boilers
|Ship speed=34 kn |Ship range= 320-370 tons oil, 3,500 nmi at 15 kn, 900 nmi at 32 kn |Ship complement= 110 |Ship armament=
|Ship notes= Pennant number: L29 }} |
HMS Vimiera was a V-class destroyer ordered as part of the 1917–18 programme.
Early activity
One of her early missions was a trip to Reval, conveying Leonid Krasin and Viktor Nogin back to the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic, following the first stage of negotiations in the Anglo-Soviet Trade Agreement.[http://www.mrfaught.org/angsovtrade1921.pdf 'The Anglo-Soviet Trade Agreement, March 1921] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110727095428/http://www.mrfaught.org/angsovtrade1921.pdf |date=27 July 2011 }} by M. V. Glenny, Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 5, No. 2. (1970), pp. 63-82.
Second World War
Vimiera was chosen for conversion to an escort destroyer (WAIR) with an enhanced anti-aircraft and anti-submarine capability as part of the naval rearmament programme preceding the outbreak of war in September 1939. Conversion was complete, whereon in January 1940 she joined the Nore Command for coastal convoy escort duty in the North Sea and English Channel. Her company was formed largely of men from the Clyde Division of the Royal Naval Reserve, HMS Graham.
In April 1940 she was transferred under the Commander-in-Chief, Dover to support military operations in France. This included the Battle of Dunkirk to providing additional anti-aircraft defence in Dunkirk (Operation FA) and assisting in the evacuation of allied personnel from Flushing. With {{HMS|Wolsey||6}} she provided naval gunfire support for military operations at Escault. On 19 May she rescued survivors from {{HMS|Whitley|L23|6}} and in the following days she assisted both in taking reinforcements to Boulogne and in evacuating wounded soldiers and medical staff. (One soldier she evacuated was the actor Arnold Ridley.) Alongside {{HMS|Wessex|D43|6}}, {{ship|ORP|Burza||6}}, {{HMS|Whitshed|D77|6}}, and {{HMS|Wolfhound|L56|6}} she saw action around Boulogne and Calais, during which Wessex was sunk and Vimiera sustained substantial damage. She was taken into repair on 25 May 1940, and so was not involved in the evacuation from Dunkirk. She was subsequently redeployed to the North Sea in defence of East Coast convoys.
In December 1941, she was adopted by the civil community of Sandbach, Cheshire, following the successful Warship Week National Saving campaign. Vimiera, under the command of Lieutenant-Commander Angus Alexander Mackenzie, RNR, was sunk by a mine in the Thames estuary off East Spile Buoy, near the Isle of Sheppey on 9 January 1942 with the loss of around 96 hands. 92 or 93 went down with the ship, and a further four of the 38 survivors died of wounds.{{Cite web|url=http://www.roll-of-honour.com/Durham/TowLaw.html|title=Roll of Honour - Co. Durham - Tow Law}}{{Cite web|url=http://www.naval-history.net/xDKCas1942-01JAN.htm|title = Royal Navy casualties, killed and died, January 1942}}{{Cite web|url=http://vandwdestroyerassociation.org.uk/HMS_Vimiera/survivors.html|title=Casualties and Survivors}} The survivors were brought to shore and tended to at Sheerness.{{cite web |title=HMS Vimiera |url=http://vandwdestroyerassociation.org.uk/HMS_Vimiera/survivors.html |website=vandwdestroyerassociation |access-date=25 August 2024}}
Eight of her nine officers survived, and Lt. Cdr. Mackenzie, having been found blameless in the sinking, was put in command of {{HMS|Liddesdale|L100|6}}.{{Cite web|url=http://vandwdestroyerassociation.org.uk/HMS_Vimiera/index.html|title = HMS Vimiera}} Vimiera's loss was commemorated on a memorial within {{HMS|Graham}}.{{citation needed|date=June 2020}}
Notes
{{reflist}}
Bibliography
- {{cite book|last=Campbell|first=John|title=Naval Weapons of World War II|year=1985|publisher=Naval Institute Press|location=Annapolis, Maryland|isbn=0-87021-459-4}}
- {{cite book|title=Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1922–1946|editor1-last=Chesneau|editor1-first=Roger|publisher=Conway Maritime Press|location=Greenwich, UK|year=1980|isbn=0-85177-146-7}}
- {{Cite Colledge2006}}
- {{cite book |first1=Maurice |last1=Cocker |publisher=Ian Allan |title=Destroyers of the Royal Navy, 1893–1981 |year=1981 |isbn=0-7110-1075-7}}
- {{cite book|last=Friedman|first=Norman|title=British Destroyers From Earliest Days to the Second World War|publisher=Naval Institute Press|location=Annapolis, Maryland|year=2009|isbn=978-1-59114-081-8}}
- {{cite book |editor1-last=Gardiner|editor1-first=Robert|editor2-last=Gray|editor2-first=Randal|title=Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906–1921|year=1985|location=Annapolis, Maryland|publisher=Naval Institute Press|isbn=0-85177-245-5|name-list-style=amp}}
- {{cite book|last=Lenton|first=H. T.|authorlink=Henry Trevor Lenton|title=British & Empire Warships of the Second World War|publisher=Naval Institute Press|location=Annapolis, Maryland|year=1998|isbn=1-55750-048-7}}
- {{cite book|last=March|first=Edgar J.|title=British Destroyers: A History of Development, 1892–1953; Drawn by Admiralty Permission From Official Records & Returns, Ships' Covers & Building Plans|year=1966|publisher=Seeley Service|location=London |oclc=164893555}}
- {{cite book |last=Preston |first=Antony |title='V & W' Class Destroyers 1917–1945 |publisher=Macdonald |location=London |year=1971 |oclc=464542895}}
- {{cite book |last1=Raven |first1=Alan |last2=Roberts|first2=John |title='V' and 'W' Class Destroyers |publisher=Arms & Armour |location=London |year=1979 |series=Man o'War |volume=2 |isbn=0-85368-233-X|name-list-style=amp }}
- {{cite book|last=Rohwer|first=Jürgen|title=Chronology of the War at Sea 1939–1945: The Naval History of World War Two|publisher=Naval Institute Press|location=Annapolis, Maryland|year=2005|edition=Third Revised|isbn=1-59114-119-2}}
- {{cite book |last=Whinney |first=Bob |title=The U-boat Peril: A Fight for Survival |publisher=Cassell |year=2000 |isbn=0-304-35132-6 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/uboatperilfightf0000whin }}
- {{cite book|last=Whitley|first=M. J.|title=Destroyers of World War 2|publisher=Naval Institute Press|date=1988|isbn=0-87021-326-1|location=Annapolis, Maryland}}
- {{cite book|last=Winser|first=John de D.|title=B.E.F. Ships Before, At and After Dunkirk|publisher=World Ship Society|location=Gravesend, Kent|year=1999|isbn=0-905617-91-6}}
External links
- [http://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono-10DD-09VW-Vimiera.htm HMS Vimiera]
- [http://vandwdestroyerassociation.org.uk/HMS_Vimiera/index.html V&W Destroyer Association (HMS Vimiera)]
- [http://vandwdestroyerassociation.org.uk/HMS_Vimiera/survivors.html "For Whom the Bell Tolls" - The Living and the Dead - V&W Destroyer Association (HMS Vimiera) ]
{{coord missing|North Sea}}
{{V and W class destroyer}}
{{January 1942 shipwrecks}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vimiera (1917)}}
Category:V and W-class destroyers of the Royal Navy
Category:Ships built by Swan Hunter
Category:Ships built on the River Tyne
Category:World War I destroyers of the United Kingdom
Category:World War II destroyers of the United Kingdom