HMS Onslow (G17)


Onslow in 1943
Career (UK)
Name: HMS Onslow
Ordered: 3 September 1939
Builder: John Brown & Company, Clydebank
Cost: £416,942
Laid down: 1 July 1940
Launched: 31 March 1941
Commissioned: 8 October 1941
Decommissioned: April 1947
Motto: Festina Lente
(Latin:"Make Haste Slowly")
Honours and
awards:
Norway 1941-45
Arctic 1941-45
Atlantic 1942
Malta Convoys 1942
Barentst Sea 1942
North Africa 1942
Normandy 1944
Biscay 1944
Fate: Transferred to Pakistan, 1949
Badge: On a Field White an Eagle Black preying on an anchor gold.
Career (Pakistan)
Name: PNS Tippu Sultan
Namesake: Tippu Sultan
Commissioned: 1949
Decommissioned: 1979
Out of service: 1957
Reinstated: 1960
Homeport: Karachi
Fate: Scrapped, 1980
General characteristics
Class and type: O-class destroyer flotilla leader
Displacement: 1,550 long tons (1,570 t)
Length: 345 ft (105 m) o/a
Beam: 35 ft (11 m)
Draught: 13 ft 6 in (4.11 m)
Propulsion: 2 × Parsons geared steam turbines, 40,000 shp
2 Admiralty 3-drum boilers
2 shafts
Speed: 37 knots (43 mph; 69 km/h)
Range: 3,850 nmi (7,130 km) at 20 kn (23 mph; 37 km/h)
Endurance: 472 tons oil
Complement: 176+
Armament:

• 4 × single 4.7-inch (120-mm) QF Mark IX guns on mounting CP Mk.XVIII
• 1 × single QF 4 in gun Mk.V on mounting HA Mk.III
• 1 × quad QF 2-pdr "pom-pom" mount Mk.VII
• 6 × single 20 mm Oerlikon guns
• 1 × quad 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes for Mk.IX torpedoes

• 4 × throwers and 2 × racks for 70 depth charges
Service record
Part of: Home Fleet
Commanders: Captain Robert St Vincent Sherbrooke
Operations: Battle of the Barents Sea (1942)
Battle of North Cape (1943)
Exercise Tiger (1944)
Normandy Landings (1944)

HMS Onslow was an O-class destroyer flotilla leader of the Royal Navy She was ordered from John Brown & Company at Clydebank, Glasgow on 3 September 1939. The ship was laid down on 1 July 1940 and launched on 31 March 1941. She was completed on 8 October 1941 at a cost of £416,942.[1]

Attached to the Home Fleet, Onslow served mostly as an escort to Arctic Convoys. She also saw detached service in the Mediterranean during "Operation Harpoon" in 1942, and in the English Channel before and after the Normandy landings in mid-1944. Her most notable action was at the Battle of the Barents Sea in 1942, while escorting Convoy JW 51B to Russia. The convoy escorts held off attacks from the powerful German cruiser Admiral Hipper, with Onslow being heavily damaged and her Captain, Robert St Vincent Sherbrooke severely injured.

Decommissioned in 1947, the ship was procured by the Pakistan Navy in 1949 and commissioned as PNS Tippu Sultan. She served in the Pakistan Navy until 1979.

Contents

Service history

See also

Notes

  1. ^ "HMS Onslow". naval-history.net. http://www.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono-10DD-46O-Onslow.htm. Retrieved 27 July 2010. 

References