Operation Collar (convoy)
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Operation Collar (12–29 November 1940) was a small, fast three-ship convoy during the
Background
British plans
Operation Collar was devised to get the slow battleship
Force F
On 25 November, Force F (Vice Admiral Lancelot Holland) HMS Manchester and Southampton carrying 1,370 Royal Air Force technicians, escorted the merchant ships SS New Zealand Star, SS Clan Forbes and SS Clan Fraser. Force F was reinforced by the destroyer HMS Hotspur and later by the corvettes HMS Peony, Salvia, Gloxinia and Hyacinth, but the corvettes were found to be too slow to keep up with the convoy.[2] The convoy was met off Gibraltar by Force B, the battlecruiser Renown, the aircraft carrier Ark Royal, the cruisers Despatch and Sheffield and the destroyers Faulknor, Firedrake, Forester, Fury, Encounter, Duncan, Wishart, Kelvin and Jaguar.[3]
Mediterranean Fleet
Force D, the battleship Ramillies and the cruisers Berwick and Newcastle sailed from Alexandria. The cruiser Coventry with the destroyers Defender, Gallant, Greyhound, Griffin and Hereward sailed to rendezvous with the Collar convoy south of Sardinia. Force C covered the cruiser and destroyers with the battleships Barham and Malaya and the aircraft carrier Eagle which was to attack Tripoli on 26 November. The Mediterranean Fleet left Alexandria with the battleships Valiant, Warspite and the aircraft carrier Illustrious, the 7th Cruiser Squadron comprising Ajax, Orion and Sydney with destroyers to cover a raid on Suda Bay in Crete. Illustrious attacked Rhodes on 26 November. A Malta convoy sailed with Force E, the 3rd Cruiser Squadron, with Glasgow, Gloucester and York.[3]
Prelude
Force H
The convoy was covered at a distance to the north by Force H (Admiral
Italian fleet
When the departure of Force B from Gibraltar was reported and Force D was seen by an Italian aircraft on 25 November, the submarines Alagi, Aradam, Axum and Diasporo were sent to the south of Sardinia, Dessiè and Tembien to stations off Malta. On 25 November, Admiral
Battle of Cape Spartivento/Cape Teulada
Campioni had orders to avoid a decisive encounter. The Italian destroyer Lanciere and the British cruiser HMS Berwick (65) were seriously damaged during the exchange of fire.[4]
Convoy
After the battle, Force H continued towards Malta until late afternoon on 27 November when, just before
Footnotes
- ^ Woodman 2003, pp. 95–96.
- ^ a b Brown 2015, p. 24.
- ^ a b c d Rohwer & Hümmelchen 2005, p. 50.
- ^ Rohwer & Hümmelchen 2005, pp. 49–50.
References
- Brown, David, ed. (2015) [1956]. The Royal Navy and the Mediterranean: November 1940 – December 1941. Naval Staff Histories. Vol. II. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-138-98555-1. Written anonymously by G. A. Titterton and first published confidentially in 1956
- Rohwer, Jürgen; Hümmelchen, Gerhard (2005) [1972]. Chronology of the War at Sea, 1939–1945: The Naval History of World War Two (3rd rev. ed.). London: Chatham. ISBN 978-1-86176-257-3.
- Woodman, R. (2003). Malta Convoys 1940–1943 (pbk. ed.). London: John Murray. ISBN 978-0-7195-6408-6.
Further reading
- OCLC 602717421.
- Dannreuther, Raymond (2005). Somerville's Force H: The Royal Navy's Gibraltar-based Fleet, June 1940 to March 1942. London: Aurum Press. ISBN 1-84513-020-0.
- Greene, Jack; Massignani, Alessandro (2002) [1998]. The Naval War in the Mediterranean, 1940–1943. Rochester: Chatham. ISBN 978-1-86176-057-9.
- Jordan, Roger W. (2006) [1999]. The World's Merchant Fleets 1939: The Particulars and Wartime Fates of 6,000 Ships (2nd ed.). London: Chatham/Lionel Leventhal. ISBN 978-1-86176-293-1.
- Llewellyn-Jones, Malcolm, ed. (2007). The Royal Navy and the Mediterranean Convoys: A Naval Staff History. Naval Staff Histories. Abingdon: Whitehall History Publishing with Routledge. ISBN 978--0-415-86459-6.
- Mitchell, William Harry; Sawyer, Leonard Arthur (1990) [1965]. The Empire Ships: A Record of British-built Ships and acquired Merchant Ships during the Second World War (2nd ed.). London: Lloyd's of London Press. ISBN 1-85044-275-4.
- O'Hara, Vincent (2009). Struggle for the Middle Sea: The Great Navies at War in the Mediterranean Theater, 1940–1945. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-61251-408-6.
- Playfair, I. S. O.; et al. (2004) [1st. pub. HMSO:1960]. Butler, Sir James (ed.). The Mediterranean and Middle East: British Fortunes Reach Their Lowest Ebb (September 1941 to September 1942). History of the Second World War, United Kingdom Military Series. Vol. III. Uckfield, UK: Naval & Military Press. ISBN 978-1-84574-067-2.
- OCLC 881709135.
- Smith, Peter; Walker, Edwin (1974). The Battles of the Malta Striking Forces. Sea Battles in Close-up (No. 11). Shepperton: Ian Allan. ISBN 0-7110-0528-1.
- Stegemann, B.; Schreiber, G.; Vogel, D. (2015) [1995]. Falla, P. S. (ed.). The Mediterranean, South-East Europe and North Africa, 1939–1941: From Italy's Declaration of non-Belligerence to the Entry of the United States into the War. ISBN 978-0-19-873832-9.
See also
- Battle of the Mediterranean
- Malta Convoys
- Battle of Cape Spartivento