The Dunedin turning into Gardens Reach on the Brisbane River. South Brisbane wharves in background. |
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Career | |
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Class and type: | Danae-class light cruiser |
Name: | HMS Dunedin |
Builder: | Armstrong Whitworth (Newcastle-on-Tyne, UK): Hawthorn Leslie and Company, (Hebburn, UK) |
Laid down: | 5 November 1917 |
Launched: | 19 November 1918 |
Commissioned: | 13 September 1919 |
Fate: | Sunk 24 November 1941 by U-124 |
General characteristics | |
Displacement: | 4,276 tons Full: 5,603 tons After 1924: 4,850 |
Length: | 445 ft (136 m) |
Beam: | 46 ft 6 in (14.17 m) |
Draught: | 14 ft 6 in (4.42 m) |
Propulsion: | Six Yarrow-type water-tube boilers Parsons geared steam turbines Two shafts 40,000 shp (30 MW) |
Speed: | 29 knots (54 km/h) |
Range: | 2,300 nmi (4,300 km) |
Complement: | 462 |
Armament: | 1918: six BL 6 in L/45 Mark XII on single mountings CP Mark XIV (152 mm) two 3 inch (76.2 mm) Mk II AA guns two 40 mm QF two pounder "pom-pom" AA guns 12 x 21 in (530 mm) torpedoes (4 triple launchers) |
Armour: | 3 inch side (amidships) 2, 1¾, 1½ side (bow and stern) 1 inch upper decks (amidships) 1 inch deck over rudder |
HMS Dunedin was a Danae-class light cruiser of the Royal Navy. She was launched from the yards of Armstrong Whitworth, Newcastle-on-Tyne on 19 November 1918 and commissioned on 13 September 1919. So far she has been the only ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name Dunedin.
In 1931 she provided assistance to the town of Napier, New Zealand, after the strong Hawkes Bay earthquake, in a task force with HMS Veronica and HMS Diomede.
Early in the Second World War, HMS Dunedin was involved in the hunt for the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau after the sinking of the armed merchant cruiser HMS Rawalpindi.
In early 1940 Dunedin was operating in the Caribbean Sea, and there she intercepted the German merchant ship Heidelberg west of the Windward Passage. However the Heidelberg's crew scuttled her before the Dunedin could take her. A few days later, the Dunedin, in company with the Canadian destroyer HMCS Assiniboine, intercepted and captured the German merchant ship Hannover near Jamaica. The Hannover later became the first British escort carrier, HMS Audacity. Between July and November, the Dunedin, together with HMS Trinidad, maintained a blockade off Martinique, in part to bottle up three French warships, including the aircraft carrier Bearn.
On 15 June 1941, HMS Dunedin captured the German tanker Lothringen and gathered some highly classified Enigma cipher machines that she carried. The Royal Navy reused the Lothringen as the fleet oiler Empire Salvage. The Dunedin went on to capture three Vichy French vessels, the Ville de Rouen off Natal, the merchant ship Ville de Tamatave east of the St. Paul's Rocks, and finally, the D'Entrecasteaux.
HMS Dunedin was still steaming in the Central Atlantic Ocean, just east of the St. Paul's Rocks, north east of Recife, Brazil, when on 24 November 1941, at 1526 hours, two torpedoes from the German submarine U-124 sank her. Only four officers and 63 men survived out of the Dunedin's crew of 486 officers and men.
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