HNoMS Draug

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).

Plan of Draug.

Torpedojageren Draug at some point before WW2. Note QF guns in blisters along the side to allow forward fire.
Career Norwegian State and Navy Flag
Ordered:
Laid down:
Launched: 18 March 1908
Commissioned:
Fate: Scrapped 1943
General characteristics
Displacement: 578 tons
Dimensions: 69.20 m x 7.30 m x 2.9 m
Armament: 6 x 7.6 cm (3 inch) guns
3 x trainable torpedo tubes
Propulsion: 8,000 hp, 26.5 knop
Crew: 76

The destroyer HNoMS Draug, known localy as Torpedojager Draug (litt.: torpedohunter), was the first destroyer built for the Royal Norwegian Navy, and the lead ship of her class of three vessels. This four-stacked destroyer was kept in service long after she was obsolete, and took part in the defence of Norway after the German invasion in 1940.

When the Second World War broke out T/J Draug had been mothballed for a number of years as part of pre-war savings on the Norwegian military budget before being reactivated to take part in guarding Norwegian neutrality on September 3, 1939. When the reactivation order came it took well over a month for workers to find and repair all the cracks and leaks in the ships' steam boilers and make her sea worthy again.

Contents

[edit] Draug and the invasion

The beginning of April 1940 saw Draug based in the small south western port of Haugesund, carrying out escort missions along the coast. The day before the invasion, on April 8 Draug escorted the German merchant vessel Seattle, a ship that would be sunk outside Kristiansand the next day as it got caught in the crossfire between the German invasion fleet and Norwegian coastal artillery. As she was finishing her escort mission Draug received orders from the Norwegian Naval Command to return at full speed to Haugesund and refuel her coal stores. When Draug arrived in Haugesund at about 1500 hours the ships' commander, captain Thore Horve, was told of the German naval advance through danish waters and of the sinking of the German troop transport Rio de Janeiro by the Polish submarine Orzeł outside the southern port of Lillesand.

Shortly after receiving this information Captain Horve had a personal telephone conversation with Admiral Carsten Tank-Nielsen, the commander of the Royal Norwegian Navy, who told him that he had ordered the navy's ships in Bergen to open fire at any and all foreign warships that might try to force their way into that port. As regarding Horve and his ship the admiral gave him permission to use his own judgement in his actions the coming hours. The conversation with the admiral left Horve in no doubt that war was coming and he therefore ordered his ship to be made ready for war, guards to be posted and all lights on the ship and in the harbour area to be blacked out.

During the night to April 9 Draug was patrolling and surveiling shipping in the Karmsund. At about 2 am Horve was notified that Oslofjord Fortress was engaging an unknown enemy force in the Oslofjord, this leading to the crew being ordered to full combat stations. At 4 am a unknown ship, flying no national flag was observed sailing northwards through the Karmsund. The ship refused to stop after both flares and warning shots had been fired and Draug had to give chase and capture the vessel. After leading the unknown ship into Haugesund its identity was found to be the German vessel Main, with papers claiming it was carrying a cargo of 7000 tons of coke. When Draug's second-in-command, lieutenant Østervold, wished to inspect the cargo, however, he was refused to do so by the German captain, all entrances to the cargo hold also being blocked off to make a proper search impossible. In response to this the inspecting officer decided to take the ship under arrest.

While Østervold was attempting to inspect the Main's cargo, captain Horve had a telephone conversation with captain Aarstad at the Navy Command at Marineholmen in Bergen. Aarstad informed him that he had been taken prisoner and was could not give Horve any orders. Soon after the conversation a Royal Norwegian Navy Air Service MF. 11 patrol bomber seaplane landed in the harbour and its pilot reported that German ships, uboats and airplanes were in the area and that the city of Stavanger had probably been occupied.

Making his own judgement of the situation captain Horve decided on taking the enemy ship as a prize and bringing it to a British port. Since Draug had no real anti-aircraft weapons to speak of, and the skies were full of enemy aircraft, the destroyer could do little good by remaining where it was. By doing this he ignored a order from Naval Command to go to the Hardangerfjord and block German naval forces from gaining access to the fjord. As Horve knew that the Naval Command headquarters in Bergen had benn captured by the German invaders he assumed that the order was false, although it later turned out, it was not. When ordered to stear his ship towards Britain the captain of the Main refused, only yielding after the Norwegian warship fired several warning shots and threatened to torpedo him.

As the two ships were leaving Haugesund at about 9 am on April 9 they soon came under Luftwaffe air attack. Having only one 12,7 mm. anti-aircraft machine gun with which to defend his ship, and manuvering furiously to avoid large numbers of bombs, captain Horve was forced to sink the Main by firing 8-10 rounds into its water line and move off at full speed to get out of effective bomber range. Now bringing 67 German sailors along as POWs Draug sped away towards Sullom Voe in the Shetland Islands. Before the Norwegian destroyer got that far, however, she was met by three of the Royal Navy's Tribal-class destroyers. One of the British ships, the HMS Sikh followed Draug into Sullom Voe where the German POWs were handed over to British authorities. Thereafter Draug sailed to Scapa Flow.

After arriving in the UK many members of Draug's crew were transferred to Royal Navy ships and would serve aboard them during the rest of the Norwegian campaign. Draug's second-in-command, Lieutenant Østervold served as a liaison officer aboard the British light cruiser HMS Manchester during the April-May 1940 Namsos landings in Mid-Norway.

[edit] Service in Britain

For the rest of her war service Draug would be escorting coastal convoys and providing local defense in the south of England, operating from first Portsmouth and later from Lowestoft and Grimsby. During her southern English service Draug repeatedly came under attack from German air and naval forces. In addition to her coastal duties Draug also carried out more unusual operations, such as towing Norwegian motor torpedo boats to and from the coast of Southern Norway. This vastly increased the range of the minute MTBs, thus allowing them to carry out attacks on German-controlled convoys in the occupied homeland. The first attack made by a Norwegian MTB happened in October 1941 when MTB no. 56 was towed in position by Draug and preceeded to torpedo and sink a Norwegian tanker carrying aircraft fuel for the Germans.

While in England, she was slightly rebuilt - a number of her QF guns was replaced with anti-aircraft guns - making her better able to defend herself from air attacks until being scrapped in 1943.

Draug was built at the naval shipyard in Horten, and her buildnumber was 103

[edit] External links

[edit] References


Norwegian destroyers
Draug class: Draug, Troll, Garm
Sleipner class: Sleipner, Gyller, Æger, Odin, Balder, Tor
S class: Svenner, Stord
Town class: Lincoln, St Albans, Mansfield, Bath, Newport
All Town class vessels was loaned from the Royal Navy
C class: Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim, Stavanger
Hunt class: Arendal, Haugesund, Tromsø

Destroyers of the Royal Norwegian Navy
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../h/n/o/HNoMS_Draug_1178.html"