HMS Abdiel (M39)
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| |
| History | |
|---|---|
 United Kingdom | |
| Name | HMS Abdiel |
| Builder | J. Samuel White, Cowes |
| Laid down | 29 March 1939 |
| Launched | 23 April 1940 |
| Commissioned | 15 April 1941 |
| Identification | Pennant number M39 |
| Honours and awards | BISCAY 1941, CRETE 1941, LIBYA 1941, SICILY 1943 |
| Fate | Lost, 10 September 1943 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type | Abdiel-class minelayer |
| Displacement |
|
| Length | 127.4 m (418 ft) (overall) |
| Beam | 12.2 m (40 ft) |
| Draught | 3.4 m (11 ft) |
| Propulsion |
|
| Speed | 40 knots (74 km/h) |
| Range | 5,800 mi (9,334 km) at 15 knots (28 km/h) |
| Complement | 244 |
| Armament |
|
| Armour | Magazine box protection, deck, side-plating, turrets and bulkheads, belt, internal boiler room sides (added 1936–1940). |
HMS Abdiel was an
Service
Channel
On 22 March 1941, Abdiel (Captain Hon. Edward Pleydell-Bouverie) had acceptance trials interrupted and was ordered to lay mines with the objective of preventing the German battleships
From 17 to 30 April 1941 Abdiel attempted to complete her trials programme but this was again abandoned when the ship was ordered to join the cruiser
Mediterranean
On 24 to 28 April 1941 they formed part of "Operation Dunlop". Dido, Abdiel and destroyers Janus, Jervis and Nubian, having discharged naval stores at Malta, proceeded to Alexandria.[1]
On 21 May 1941 Abdiel laid a field of 150 mines off Akra Dhoukaton (Cape Dukato, southern tip of
On the night of 26–27 May, Abdiel, escorted by the destroyer
On 31 May 1941, Abdiel sailed from Alexandria for Sfakia, Crete with the light cruiser Phoebe and three destroyers. During the following night these ships removed 4,000 troops from Crete.
Between December 1942 and April 1943 Abdiel, in cooperation with the minelaying submarine Rorqual and Abdiel's sister ship Welshman, laid several minefields with about 2,000 mines in the Strait of Sicily.
On 9 January 1943, after Abdiel laid a minefield across the Axis evacuation route from Tunisia, the escort of an Italian convoy ran into it and the destroyer Corsaro (1,645 tons) was sunk, while the destroyer Maestrale (1,440 tons) was severely damaged. On 3 February 1943 another Italian convoy's escort fouled another of her minefields south of Marettimo island, off the western tip of Sicily, losing the destroyer Saetta (1,225 tons) and the torpedo boat Uragano (910 tons).
On 8 March 1943, Abdiel again laid a minefield on the Axis evacuation route, 30
Sinking
Abdiel, was sunk by mines in Taranto harbour, Italy on 10 September 1943, during Operation Slapstick. The mines had been laid just a few hours earlier by two German torpedo boats (S-54 and S-61), as they left the harbour. Abdiel, carrying troops of the British 1st Airborne Division (6th (Royal Welch) Parachute Battalion and 204 (Oban) Anti-Tank Battery, Royal Artillery[2]), took the berth which had been declined earlier by the captain of the US cruiser USS Boise. Shortly after midnight, two mines detonated beneath Abdiel and the minelayer sank in three minutes, with great loss of life among both sailors and soldiers. The 1st Airborne Division lost 58 dead and around 150 injured, the Derbyshire Yeomanry lost 1 member of Popskis private army Lt.McGillavray and 48 crew were lost. There is a rumour that the ship's degaussing equipment had been turned off to reduce noise and to allow troops to sleep better.[3] Commander F Ashe Lincoln QC RNVR gives a different cause in his book "Secret Naval Investigator" (Wm Kimber London 1961, and pp132–3 of the 2017 reprint). A naval mine clearance expert, he found in the Germans' Taranto magazine a number of large wooden wheels fitted with depth charges, with a timing clock and explosive charge in the centre. He says that one of these devices had been sunk next to the mooring buoy Abdiel used when the Germans evacuated the previous night.
References
- ^ Source (i) Tom Brown 'No 38 Profile Warship. Abdiel Class Minelayers (ii) Jurgen Rohwer 'Chronology of the War at Sea 1939–1945≠
- ^ 204L A/T Bty at Paradata website.
- ^ "HMS Abdiel (M 39)". Uboat.net. Retrieved 16 July 2007.
Bibliography
- Caruana, Joseph (2012). "Emergency Victualling of Malta During WWII". Warship International. LXIX (4): 357–364. ISSN 0043-0374.
- Nicholson, Arthur (2015). Very Special Ships: Abdiel-Class Fast Minelayers of World War Two. Barnsley, UK: Seaforth Publishing. ISBN 978-1-84832-235-6.
- Warlow, Ben, Lt. Cdr., Royal Navy (2004) Battle Honours of the Royal Navy, Maritime Books: Liskeard, UK ISBN 1-904459-05-6
External links
- "HMS Abdiel, British minelayer, WW2". naval-history.net. Retrieved 5 December 2009.
40°26′35″N 17°15′6″E / 40.44306°N 17.25167°E
