HMS Tenedos (H04)

HMS Tenedos in 1921
Career (United Kingdom)
Name: HMS Tenedos (H04)
Ordered: 9 April 1917
Builder: Hawthorn Leslie
Laid down: 6 December 1917
Launched: 21 October 1918
Commissioned: 1919
Motto: Alteri aut utrumque
(latin: "With either or both")
Fate: Sunk by Japanese aircraft 5 April 1942
General characteristics
Class and type:Admiralty 'S' class destroyer

HMS Tenedos was an Admiralty 'S' class destroyer. Laid down on 6 December 1917, she was constructed by Hawthorn Leslie of Tyne, and was completed in 1918. She was commissioned in 1919 and served throughout the interwar period.

On December 10, 1941, she became part of the Force Z British Eastern Fleet task force, tasked with disrupting invading Japanese convoys. She was one of the escorts of the capital ships assigned to the mission, HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse. During the pre-emptive attack against the Japanese convoy, both the Prince of Wales and Repulse were overwhelmed and sunk by Japanese land-based bomber aircraft. Tenedos supported in the rescue of the survivors of both ships.

She was sunk at Colombo Harbour (Ceylon, now Sri Lanka) by Japanese carrier-borne aircraft on 5 April 1942 during the Indian Ocean air raid of 1942, which also saw the losses of the carrier HMS Hermes (95), HMS Dorsetshire (40), HMS Cornwall (56), among other Royal Navy Eastern Fleet vessels attacked and sunk there.

References

  1. Martin Middlebrook and Patrick Mahoney, Battleship: The Sinking of the Prince Of Wales and the Repulse - Page 321, (Classic Penguin, 2001) ISBN 0-14-139119-7
  2. Naval-History.net - HMS Tenedos

Coordinates: 6°57′17″N 79°51′20″E / 6.95472°N 79.85556°E