20-411: Hunt-class may refer to: Hunt-class minesweeper (1916) Hunt-class destroyer (built 1939–1943) Hunt-class mine countermeasures vessel (built 1978–1988) Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Hunt-class . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change
40-530: A QF 12 pounder aft, plus two twin 0.303 inch machine guns. Their counter-mine equipment consisted of Oropesa floats to cut the cables of moored mines . Six ships were completed as survey vessels, and the majority of the Aberdare group arrived too late to see service during the First World War. Thirty-five were cancelled after the armistice. Interwar, eight were sold out of service, one was sold to Siam , one
60-456: The Aberdare group were originally named after coastal towns, watering places and fishing ports, some of which happened to be hunts by coincidence. However, all were soon renamed after inland locations to prevent confusion caused by the misunderstanding of signals and orders. These ships had twin screws and had forced-draught coal burning boilers ; that is they burned pulverised coal in an artificially augmented airstream. One consequence of this
80-626: The Aberdare group. Six of this group were completed as survey ships, while thirty-four of them were cancelled at the end of World War I. Among the cancelled ships, Battle and Bloxham had already been launched. Two more were projected to be ordered from Fleming & Ferguson, but these two were never actually ordered. Many ships were originally assigned different names which were changed while building to avoid use of coastal locations as ship names. Several examples passed on from Royal Navy service for use by other civil and military operators. Halcyon class minesweeper The Halcyon class
100-592: The Malta Convoys , Operation Torch and Operation Corkscrew . Hebe was lost to a mine off Bari , Italy on 22 November 1943. As the Allied armies advanced following the invasion of Normandy , Britomart , Hussar , Jason and Salamander were assigned to the 1st Minesweeping Flotilla (1MF) clearing Axis minefields, north of Normandy, to open ports to supply the advance. On the afternoon of 27 August 1944, they were sweeping off Cap d'Antifer in preparation for
120-514: The Royal Navy had no ships in the area. In a well-executed attack out of the sun at 13:30, the Typhoons sank Britomart (Lt. Cdr. Nash, MBE, RNR) and Hussar (Lt.Cdr. A. J. Galvin, DSC, RNR) and Salamander was damaged so far beyond economical repair she was written off. Eighty-six British sailors were killed and 124 more were injured. 1MF identified the Typhoons as friendly and poor visibility into
140-498: The battleship Warspite and the monitors Erebus and Roberts to engage Le Havre coastal artillery delaying the advance of Canadian troops. The headquarters officer assigning the minesweeping project to 1MF neglected to inform the Flag Officer British Assault Area (Rear‑Admiral James Rivett‑Carnac ), who was responsible for defending the invasion beaches from E-boats operating from Le Havre. 1MF
160-537: The flotilla made a further three trips to Dunkirk in the following days, working at battle-stations virtually round the clock and returning to Margate for the last time from Dunkirk on Saturday, 1 June 1940. Sutton was also present at Dunkirk. Five ships were lost during the war, and a further vessel, Widnes was beached in Suda Bay , Crete in May 1941 after being bombed by German aircraft. The Germans recovered and repaired
180-791: The fore part of the ship and killing the commanding officer and forty of his men. Sphinx remained afloat and was towed by Halcyon , but having taken in too much water, capsized and sank. The wreck washed ashore north of Lybster and was sold for scrap. Skipjack (Lt.Cdr. F. B. Proudfoot, RN) was attacked and sunk by a force of German dive bombers off De Panne , Belgium on 1 June 1940. On board Skipjack were between 250 and 300 soldiers rescued from Dunkirk 's beaches during Operation Dynamo . Eyewitness William Stone said of Skipjack , "She just disappeared". Halcyon s were pressed into service as anti-submarine escorts, performing this task with decreasing frequency as ships specifically designed for this task, such as Flower-class corvettes , came off
200-516: The hull, pressing her into service as 12.V4 . In October 1943, now known as Uj.2109 , she was sunk by the destroyers HMS Eclipse , HMS Faulknor and the Greek destroyer Vasilissa Olga . The first group of twenty ships were ordered in 1916 and were part of the Belvoir group. One hundred and twenty-nine further ships were ordered to this Admiralty design between 1916 and November 1918 as
220-764: The latter. They were generally smaller versions of the Grimsby -class escort sloops. Niger and Salamander of the reciprocating group used vertical triple expansion engines , instead of the vertical compound engines of their sisters. As a result of the increased power they had a half knot speed advantage, even though they used slightly shorter hulls. The turbine ships used the same shorter hulls as Niger and Salamander , but with lower power, speed dropped back to 16.5 knots (31 km/h). Gleaner , Franklin , Jason and Scott were completed as unarmed survey vessels, Sharpshooter and Seagull being converted to follow suit. They were all re-armed and deployed in their original role on
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#1732854618214240-408: The link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hunt-class&oldid=976694327 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Hunt-class minesweeper (1916) The Hunt-class minesweeper
260-534: The newer Halcyon -class Gossamer and Leda sailed from North Shields for Harwich late on 26 May 1940, reaching Harwich nearly 24 hours later. After coaling, the flotilla sailed for Dunkirk in the afternoon of 28 May, and was off the beach by about 21:30 hours the same day. At least two ships from the Flotilla ( Ross and Lydd ) were detailed to collect troops from the harbour mole. Ross alone took on board 353 men and one dog on this first night. The ships of
280-574: The outbreak of war. Seagull had the first all-welded hull built for the Royal Navy. Halcyon s served in Home waters, at Dunkirk , on Arctic convoys and in the Mediterranean Sea . On 3 February 1940, Sphinx (Cdr. J. R. N. Taylor, RN) was sweeping an area 15 miles (24 km) north of Kinnaird Head when it was attacked by enemy aircraft. A bomb pierced the forecastle deck and exploded, destroying
300-626: The slips. Halcyon s accompanied most of the Arctic convoys , serving as minesweepers and anti-submarine escorts. Several spent extended periods based at Soviet naval bases in Northern Russia, such as Murmansk . Four Halcyon s were lost during this period, Hebe and Speedy served in the Mediterranean as part of the 14th/17th Minesweeper Flotilla based in Malta . The minesweepers saw action during
320-568: Was a class of minesweeping sloop built between 1916 and 1919 for the Royal Navy . They were built in two discrete groups, the earlier Belvoir group designed by the Ailsa Shipbuilding Company and the subsequent (and slightly larger) Aberdare group designed by the Admiralty. They were classed as Fleet Minesweeping Sloops, that is ships intended to clear open water. The Belvoir group were named after British fox hunts . Those of
340-576: Was a class of 21 oil-fuelled minesweepers (officially, "fleet minesweeping sloops") built for the British Royal Navy between 1933 and 1939. They were given traditional small ship names used historically by the Royal Navy and served during the Second World War . There were 21 ships in the Halcyon class, built in two groups; the first using reciprocating steam engines , with steam turbines in
360-463: Was converted to an RNVR drillship and 52 were scrapped. The majority of the remainder spent the period from 1919 to 1939 in reserve around the world, with Malta and Singapore having most of them, so that on the outbreak of World War II there were still 27 available for service, to which a further two were added by requisition from mercantile service. The 5th Minesweeping Flotilla, comprising Pangourne , Ross , Lydd , Kellet and Albury as well as
380-467: Was observed on a south-westerly leg of the minesweeping operation and assumed to be German ships proceeding to attack Allied shipping off the invasion beaches. The Admiral's staff requested 263 Squadron and 266 Squadron to attack the ships. The squadrons attacked with 16 Typhoons armed with 20 mm cannon and High Explosive "60 lb" RP-3 unguided rockets. The pilots identified 1MF as probably friendly shipping but upon questioning their orders were told
400-507: Was that they produced a lot of smoke, so much so that they were more usually referred to as Smokey Joes . Another was that if they were fed anything other than the Welsh Steam Coal they were designed for then the fuel consumption was enormous—one ship was bunkered with soft brown Natal coal and burnt 20 tons in a single day. They had a shallow draught (8 ft (2.4 m)). Armament was one QF 4 in (100 mm) gun forward and
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