Greek destroyer Aetos
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 Destroyer Aetos |
|
| Career (Greece) |  |
|---|---|
| Name: | Aetos Α/Τ Άετός |
| Namesake: | eagle |
| Ordered: | 1912 |
| Laid down: | 1911 |
| Launched: | September 19, 1912 |
| Commissioned: | 1912 |
| Decommissioned: | 1945 |
| Fate: | broken up |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 880 tons standard |
| Length: | 89.4 m (293 ft) |
| Beam: | 8.3 m (27 ft) |
| Draft: | 3 m (9.8 ft) |
| Propulsion: | 5 × Foster Wheeler boilers (4 coal-fired and 1 oil-fired), replaced by Yarrow oil-fired boilers in 1925 5 funnels combined Parsons and Curtis steam turbines |
| Speed: | 31 knots (57 km/h) maximum (32 knots (59 km/h) after 1925) |
| Complement: | 58 |
| Armament: | As completed: 4 × Bethlehem 4-inch (102 mm) guns 1 × 75 mm anti-aircraft gun 6 × 21-inch (533 mm)torpedo tubes 3 × electric search lights 1925: 75 mm gun removed 37 mm anti-aircraft gun added four-barrel 40 mm gun added 2 mortars added Modified for laying 40 mines 1942: 3rd and 4th stern torpedo launchers removed 1 × 3-inch (76 mm) anti-aircraft gun added 1 × 20 mm Oerlikon gun added A/S type 123A detection device added |
Aetos (Greek: Α/Τ Άετός "Eagle") served in the Royal Hellenic Navy from 1912–1945.
The ship, along with her three sister ships of Wild Beast class destroyers Ierax, Panthir and Leon, was ordered from England. They were purchased in 1912, ready for delivery, each for the sum of £148,000, from the English shipyards Camell Laird in Liverpool, when the Balkan Wars seemed likely. These ships had originally been ordered by Argentina; Aetos was originally named San Luis. The four ships were sailing with a non-Greek crew to Algiers, to meet the requisitioned personnel transport ship Ionia which contained the Greek crews for the ships. When Aetos entered the Mediterranean she went adrift due to a serious engine breakdown. By pure coincidence one of the other destroyers passed nearby and towed Aetos to Algiers.
During the Balkan Wars, the Royal Hellenic Navy purchased only the minimum amount of ammunitions, 3,000 rounds of torpedoes. Torpedoes were not available for this class of ship, and for this reason these ships were initially named 'scouts' rather than 'destroyers'. She was under the command of Commander A. Douroutis, RHN.
During World War I, Greece belatedly entered the war on the side of the Triple Entente and, due to Greece's neutrality the four Beast Class ships were seized by the Allies in October, 1916, taken over by the French in November, and served in the French Navy from 1917-18. By 1918, they were back on escort duty under Greek colors, mainly in the Aegean Sea.
Aetos participated in the evacuation of Greeks from Russia during the Russian Civil War in 1918 and saw action in the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922) in the Sea of Marmara and the Aegean Sea.
After the war, Aetos was refurbished from 1925–1927. She also participated in the Second World War, after surviving the German invasion of April, 1941, Aetos served in conjunction with the Royal Navy based in the Indian Ocean, where despite her age she served with distinction. After the end of World War II, Aetos was stricken in 1945.
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