HMS Whaddon (L45)

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HMS Whaddon (L45) was a Type I Hunt-class destroyer of the Royal Navy built by Alexander Stephen & Sons of Linthouse, Govan and launched on 16 July 1940. She was laid down on 27 July 1939 and commissioned 28 February 1941. She was adopted by the civil community of Newport Pagnell in Buckinghamshire, as part of the Warship Week campaign in 1942.

Design

The Hunt-class was meant to fill the Royal Navy's need for a large number of small destroyer-type vessels capable of both convoy escort and operations with the fleet, and were designed with a heavy anti-aircraft armament of six 4-inch anti-aircraft guns and a speed of Template:Convert.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn An error during design, which was only discovered once the first ship of the class Template:HMS was built, meant that the ships as designed were dangerously unstable. To restore stability, the first 23 Hunts, including Whaddon, were modified during construction by removing a twin 4-inch mount, cutting down the ships' superstructure and adding ballast. These ships were known as Type I Hunts.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Later ships in the class had their beam increased, which allowed them to carry the originally intended armament, and were known as Type II Hunts.Template:Sfn

The type I Hunts were Template:Convert long between perpendiculars and Template:Convert overall. The ship's beam was Template:Convert and draught Template:Convert. Displacement was Template:Convert standard and Template:Convert under full load. Two Admiralty boilers raising steam at Template:Convert and Template:Convert fed Parsons single-reduction geared steam turbines that drove two propeller shafts, generating Template:Convert at 380 rpm. This gave a speed of Template:Convert.Template:Sfn

The ship's main gun armament was four 4 inch (102 mm) QF Mk XVI dual purpose (anti-ship and anti-aircraft) guns in two twin mounts, with one mount forward and one aft. Additional close-in anti-aircraft armament was provided by a quadruple 2-pounder "pom-pom" mount.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Type I Hunts were later modified by adding two single Oerlikon 20 mm cannon on the bridge wings.Template:Sfn Up to 40 depth charges could be carried.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn The ship had a complement of 146 officers and men.Template:Sfn

Construction

Whaddon was ordered on 11 April 1939, as part of the second batch of ten Hunts authorised under the 1939 Royal Navy construction programme. The ship was laid down at Alexander Stephen and Sons' Linthouse, Govan shipyard on 27 July 1939,Template:Sfn with the yard number 572. The destroyer was launched on 16 July 1940 and completed on 28 February 1941.Template:Sfn Whaddon, named for the Fox hunt based at the Buckinghamshire village of the same name,Template:Sfn was the first ship of that name to serve with the Royal Navy.Template:Sfn She was allocated the pennant number L45.Template:Sfn

Service history

Following commissioning, Whaddon joined the Rosyth Escort Force, where she was employed as a convoy escort in the North Sea, continuing with these operations for the rest of 1941 and throughout 1942.Template:Sfn On 8 May 1941, Whaddon was alongside at Kingston upon Hull when she was near missed by a bomb during a German air raid, sustaining minor splinter damage.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn

Whaddon was then allocated to the Mediterranean Fleet in March 1943, joining the 60th Destroyer Flotilla where she undertook escort and patrol duties.Template:Sfn In June 1943, Whaddon took part in Operation Corkscrew, the bombardment and invasion of the Italian island of Pantelleria. On 8 June, she took part in a bombardment of the island by a strong British naval force consisting of the cruisers Template:HMS, Template:HMS, Template:HMS, Template:HMS and Template:HMS and the destroyers Template:HMS, Template:HMS, Template:HMS, Template:HMS, Template:HMS, Template:HMS and Whaddon, and on the night of 10/11 June accompanied the invasion force to the island, which surrendered without a fight on 11 June.Template:Sfn Whaddon took part in Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily, escorting an assault convoy that took part in the landings on 10 July,Template:Sfn and in September 1943, took part in Operation Avalanche, the allied landings at Salerno.Template:Sfn

In August 1944, Whaddon took part in Operation Dragoon, the invasion of the South of France, escorting a follow-up convoy from Naples that arrived at the beachhead on 15 August.Template:Sfn In September 1944, Germany started to pull its forces out of Crete and German-occupied Islands in the Aegean Sea, while the British deployed a force of Escort Carriers and destroyers to disrupt the German evacuations. On the night of 21/22 September, Whaddon and Template:HMS were patrolling the Strait of Otranto when they encountered three German torpedo boats , TA38 and TA39, which were being sent from the Adriatic Sea to the Aegean to replace German losses. Whaddon and Belvoir opened fire, but the faster German torpedo boats managed to escape the British destroyers without damage.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn Whaddon was refitted at Alexandria in January–February 1945, and was then deployed in operations in the Adriatic until the end of the war in Europe.Template:Sfn

On 29 September 1945 Whaddon sailed from Gibraltar to Devonport and was placed in reserve.Template:Sfn The ship was towed from Devonport to Cardiff in 1954 and reduced to Extended Reserve (i.e. she was destored, partially de-equipped and not maintained).Template:Sfn She was scrapped at Faslane from April 1959.Template:Sfn She has since had a British Sea Cadet Corps unit named after it, T.S Whaddon, located in Milton Keynes.

External links

• Profile on naval-history.net