HMS Glasgow (C21)
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| Career (UK) |  |
|---|---|
| Class and type: | Town-class light cruiser |
| Name: | HMS Glasgow |
| Builder: | Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, Greenock |
| Laid down: | 16 April 1935 |
| Launched: | 20 June 1936 |
| Commissioned: | 9 September 1937 |
| Decommissioned: | November 1956 |
| Fate: | Sold for scrap July 1958 |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 9,100 tons standard 11,350 tons full load |
| Length: | 558 ft (170 m) |
| Beam: | 61 ft 8 in (18.8 m) |
| Draught: | 21 ft 6 in (6.6 m) |
| Propulsion: | Four-shaft Parsons geared turbines Four Admiralty 3-drum boilers 75,000 shp |
| Speed: | 32 knots (59 km/h) |
| Complement: | 748 |
| Armament: | Original Configuration: Twelve 6 inch (150 mm) guns in triple turrets (one aft turret later removed for eight 40 mm Bofors guns) Eight 4 inch (105 mm) guns Eight 40.5 mm guns Eight 0.5 inch (13 mm) machine-guns Six 21 inch (530 mm) torpedo tubes (later removed) |
| Aircraft carried: | Two Supermarine Walrus aircraft (Removed in the latter part of WWII) |
| Notes: | Pennant number C21 |
The seventh HMS Glasgow (21) was built on the Clyde, and was a Southampton-class light cruiser, a sub-class of the Town-class, commissioned in September 1937. She displaced 11,930 tons with a top speed of 32 knots (59 km/h). She was part of the 2nd Cruiser Squadron of the Home Fleet, and escorted the King and Queen to Canada in 1939. She also took a large quantity of gold to Fort Knox as an emergency reserve.[citation needed]
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[edit] Norwegian Campaign
Captain F. H. Pegram was commanding officer of Glasgow from July, 1939 to April, 1940. On the outbreak of war, she operated off the Scandinavian coast, and in November was off the coast of Norway with two destroyers in the hope of intercepting the German passenger ship SS Bremen which had sailed from Murmansk. This was unsuccessful, but on 12 February 1940, she captured the German trawler Herrlichkeit off Tromsø.[1] On April 9, she was attacked by Ju 88s and He 111s and was damaged by near misses off Bergen. On April 11, 1940, during the Allied campaign in Norway in World War II Glasgow, along with HMS Sheffield and six Tribal class destroyers landed troops near Harstad, and three days later on April 14, again in company with Sheffield and ten destroyers, landed an advance force of Royal Marines at Namsos to seize and secure the wharves and approaches to the town, preparatory to the landing of a larger Allied force. On the 23rd Glasgow, Sheffield, HMS Galatea and six destroyers landed the first part of the 15th Infantry Brigade in Åndalsnes.
Later in the campaign, on 29 April, she transferred King Haakon and Crown Prince Olav of Norway and part of the Norwegian gold reserves when they fled from Molde to Tromsø, escaping the advancing German forces in their country.[2]
[edit] The Mediterranean
Whilst operating in home waters after the withdrawal from Norway, Glasgow accidentally rammed and sank the destroyer HMS Imogen in thick fog off Duncansby Head on July 16.
Glasgow was then employed as a convoy escort in the Mediterranean Sea and as a reinforcement of the 3rd Cruiser Squadron based at Alexandria. She took part in the Fleet Air Arm raid that crippled the Italian Fleet at Taranto, and on the 14 November Glasgow, along with HMS Berwick, HMAS Sydney and HMS York, landed 3,400 troops from Alexandria in Piraeus. On the 26th, Glasgow, HMS Gloucester and HMS York escorted a supply convoy from Alexandria to Malta. On 3 December Glasgow was attacked by Italian aircraft while anchored at Suda Bay, Crete. She was hit by two torpedoes and badly damaged. She was able to return to Alexandria, where temporary repairs were carried out. During this period she was temporarily replaced by HMS Southampton.
[edit] The Far East
In January 1941 Glasgow was assigned to the Eastern Fleet and sailed for Singapore. Upon arrival she underwent more repairs. In February the German pocket battleship Admiral Scheer sank the freighters Canadian Cruiser and Rantaupandjang in the Indian Ocean. Both managed to transmit distress signals, that were picked up by Glasgow, which deployed in search of the German ship. On 22 January, the Admiral Scheer was sighted by the spotter aircraft from Glasgow, and the East Indies Task Force was deployed to the reported area. The Admiral Scheer had escaped however by turning away to the south east, and further searches were in vain. In March Glasgow in company with HMS Caledon, two auxiliary cruisers, two destroyers and two anti submarine trawlers of the Indian navy, escorted two troop transport vessels containing two Indian Battalions and one Somali commando detachment, who were landed both sides of Berber, in Somaliland, which had previously been occupied by the Italians. The town was taken against only slight Italian resistance, which was soon broken by naval gunfire from Glasgow and the other escorts. At midnight on 9 December, 1941, Glasgow sank the RIN patrol vessel HMIS Prabhavati with two lighters in tow en route for Karachi, with 6 inch shells at 6000 yards. The Prabhavati was alongside the lighters and was mistaken for a large Japanese submarine on the surface. Glasgow picked up the survivors and took them to Bombay, arriving there later that day.
On 19 March 1942, Glasgow escorted convoy WS-16 from the U.K. to South Africa. In April Glasgow again underwent temporary repairs, this time in Simonstown, South Africa. She then sailed to the USA for permanent repairs, which were completed in August. She then returned to the U.K. and joined the 10th Cruiser Squadron at Scapa Flow, where she was assigned to the covering forces of the Arctic convoys.
[edit] In the Arctic and home waters
Glasgow escorted Arctic convoys between January and February 1943. In March she intercepted the German blockade runner Regensburg in the Denmark Strait. Her crew managed to scuttle the ship and Glasgow recovered six survivors. During June and July she supplied cover for escort groups in the Bay of Biscay. After this she joined the Plymouth Command.
In December she formed part of Operation Stonewall. and in late December, Glasgow and the cruiser Enterprise fought a three-hour battle with eleven enemy destroyers of which three were sunk and four damaged with gunfire. After this engagement Glasgow returned to Plymouth in spite of several air raids by glider bombs.
On June 6, 1944 Glasgow was part of Operation Neptune. Along with the battleships USS Texas and USS Arkansas, the French cruisers Montcalm, Georges Leygues, nine U.S. destroyers and three Hunt-class destroyers, she made up the Gunfire Bombardment Support Force C for Omaha Beach. On the 25-26th of June, in support of the attack by the 7th US Corps on Cherbourg, she shelled the German batteries near Querqueville. During this exchange of fire Glasgow was hit and damaged. In August 1945 she set sail for the East Indies, where she was the flagship of the Commander in Chief.
[edit] Postwar
In 1948 Glasgow was transferred to the West Indies and was again the flagship of the fleet, returning to the UK in 1950. In 1951 she was the flagship of the Mediterranean Fleet based at Malta under Admiral the Earl Mountbatten of Burma. In August 1954 Glasgow and HMS Gambia participated in the withdrawal of the Royal Marine Commandos. In 1955 Glasgow returned to the U.K. where she rejoined the Home Fleet as Flag Officer D, but was later paid off. The Suez crisis in 1956 caused Glasgow to be temporarily recommissioned, but later that year was paid off again. It was then decided that she was surplus to requirements and was placed on the disposal list in November 1956. In July 1958 Glasgow was broken up at Blyth by Hughes Bolckow.
[edit] References
- Colledge, J. J. and Warlow, Ben (2006). Ships of the Royal Navy: the complete record of all fighting ships of the Royal Navy, Rev. ed., London: Chatham. ISBN 9781861762818. OCLC 67375475.
- Chesneau, Roger (ed.) (1980). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships, 1922-1946. London: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 0-85177-146-7.
- HMS Glasgow at Uboat.net
- HMS Glasgow - WWII cruisers
- BBC.co.uk
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