User:Rgdem999/HMS Volunteer (1919)

HMS Volunteer(D71/I71) was an Admiralty modified W class destroyer built for the Royal Navy. She was one of seven destroyers ) ordered in April 1918 from Denny under the 14th Order for Destroyers of the Emergency War Program of 1917-18 . Five destroyers were cancelled at the end of World War I and one in September 1919 . She was the fourth Royal Navy ship to carry the name first introduced for the prize Voluntaire taken in 1806.

Warship Week National Savings campaign in December 1941 she was adopted by the city of Hereford.

Construction
HMS  Volunteer ’s keel was laid on 16th of April, 1918 at Denny Shipyard in Dumbarton, Scotland. She was launched on 17th of April, 1919. She was 300 feet overall (312 ft between the perpendiculars) in length with a beam of 29.5 feet. Her mean draught was 9 feet, and would reach 11.25 feet under full load. She had a displacement of 1,140 tons standard and up to 1,550 full load.

She was propelled by three Yarrow type water tube boilers powering Curtis-Brown geared steam turbines developing 27,000 SHP driving two shafts for a maximum designed speed of 34 knots. She was oil-fired and had a bunkerage of 320 to 370 tons. This gave a range of between 3500 nautical miles at 15 knots and 900 nautical miles at 32 knots.

She shipped four BL 4.7 in (120-mm) Mk.I guns, mount P Mk.I naval guns in four single center-line turrets. The turrets were disposed as two forward and two aft in super imposed firing positions. She also carried two QF 2 pdr Mk.II "pom-pom" (40 mm L/39) mounted abeam between funnels. Abaft of the 2nd funnel, she carried six 21-inch Torpedo Tubes in two triple mounts on the center-line.

Inter-War years
HMS  Volunteer  was commissioned into the Royal Navy on the 7th of November, 1919 with pennant number D71. After commissioning she was assigned to the 4th Destroyer Flotilla of the Atlantic Fleet. The Flotilla served in Home waters in the early 1920s. The 4th Flotilla was assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet in 1925.

In the early 1930s she underwent a refit and was placed in reserve as more modern destroyers came into service. Volunteer was laid-up in Maintenance Reserve at Rosyth. She was reactivated manned by Reservists for a Royal Review at Weymouth in August 1939. With war looming she was retained in service and brought to war readiness.

Early Operations
In September 1939 the ship was allocated to the 15th Destroyer Flotilla (October transferred to the 17th) in Western Approaches Command for convoy defence. Up to April 1940 she was employed in the North West Approaches area providing local escort for convoys leaving Liverpool (OB series) to a dispersal point in the Atlantic approximately 750 nautical miles west of Lands End. Periodically an OA (sailing from Southend)series convoy would sail and join up with the OB series. The merged convoy would change to an OG series (UK to Gibraltar). During this period she escorted 19 convoys, for a total of 429 ships with no losses.

In April 1940 she was detached to Scapa Flow after the German invasion of Norway. From the 11th to 15th of April she escorted military convoy NP001 to Narvik then supported military operations. At the end of May her pennant number was changed to I71 for visual signalling purposes. In June she provided escort while the damaged destroyer HMS Eskimo was towed from Skelfjord to the UK for repair.

In July 1940 she was returned to the Western Approaches for convoy defence and was mainly employed in the North-West Approach sector as a local escort until February 1942. During this time she escorted 3 Outbound North (ON replaced OB in July 41 ) mercantile convoys to the dispersal point 750 nautical miles from Lands End. She also provided local escort for several Slow Inbound (SC), Gibraltar Inbound (HG) and OG series convoys.

5th Escort Group
In January 1941 she was assigned to the 5th Escort Group under the command of LtCdr D MacIntyre. In March 1941, Halifax Inbound (HX) 112 would be the 5th's baptism of fire. In the morning of the 16th veteran commander Fritz-Julius Lemp in U-110 made contact and sank a 6200 ton tanker. His sighting report brought U-99 (Kretschmer), U-100 (Schepke) and U-37 into contact with HX112. U-99 sank five ships for 43,000 tons but HMS Vanoc and HMS Walker sank both U-100 and U-99 on the night of 16-17 March. The remaining two U-Boats could not penetrate the screen set up by the 5th and broke contact. HX112 lost 6 ships (36 ships in convoy) for approx. 40,000 tons and Germany lost her two best U-Boat commanders.

In April she was rammed by destroyer HMS Newark and was under repair at a commercial dockyard in Belfast until October when she rejoined the 5th. She was part of the escort for Outbound North (ON) 27 and returned with Halifax Inbound (HX) 155. HX155 had been escorted to the Mid-Atlantic Meeting Point by an US Navy escort group and they returned to the East Coast of North America with ON27.

By mid December she was detached to provide local escort to military convoys of the Winston Specials Troop Convoy series. On the 27th of March 1942 while escorting WS17 with 60,000 British troops on 30 transports, in concert with HMS Grove, HMS Leamington and HMS Aldenham she sank U-587 at position 47o 21’N 21o 39’W. U-587 had been located through the use of High Frequency Direction Finding equipment on HMS Keppel.

In May she was deployed on Reykjavik to Murmansk run for PQ16 and returning with QP13. PQ16 lost six of the 36 ships due to air attack. QP13 lost five ships when they sailed into a British mine field. At the end of July she was selected for conversion to a long range escort.

1942 LRE Conversion
In August 1942 she was in dockyard hands for conversion to a long range escort (LRE). She had her small, single-unit boiler room removed along with the forward funnel. This lowered her maximum speed to around 24.5 kn (45.4 km/h; 28.2 mph). 'A' turret was replaced with a Hedgehog anti-submarine mortar and 'Y' turret was landed to increase depth charge stowage and launchers, respectively. The aft torpedo tube mount was replaced with a QF 12 pounder 12 cwt naval gun. She retained her 2pdr gun platforms. She was fitted with a Type 271 Target Indication Radar on the bridge and Type 286P Air Warning Radar was added at the masthead.

4th Escort Group
Upon completion she was assigned to the 4th Escort Group at Greenock, she sailed on the 22nd of February with Outbound North (ON) 168 to the Western Ocean Meeting Point (WOMP) where she picked up her return convoy Halifax Inbound (HX) 229 on the 14th of March. The convoy was under sustained attack during the night of 16-17 March by 5 U-Boats of the Raubgraf Group, 2 U-Boats of the Sturmer Group and one U-Boat transiting to home port. There was no rescue ship assigned to HX229, therefore the escorts were rescuing the survivors of the ten merchant ships that were sunk. HMS Volunteer rescued 66 survivors. Only two escorts were constantly with the convoy further exposing the convoy to attack.

End of May she provided escort for Outbound North Slow (ONS) 9 returning with Slow Convoy (SC) 132, June 1943 provided local escort for Convoy KMS18 for Operation Husky, October employed in Operation Alacrity – the establishment of airbases on the Azores to close the mid-ocean air gap, November employed in the Bay of Biscay on anti-submarine patrols to intercept U-Boats transiting from their bases in France to the Atlantic and December provided escort for inbound Slow Convoy (SC) 149.

Channel Operations
April 1944 she was transferred to the English Channel for local coastal convoy defence. She was assigned to Escort Group 144 of Task Force B for Operation Neptune – the escort of convoys to the Normandy Beachhead. In 1945 she was transferred to Nore Command to counter the threat of snorkel equipped U-Boats being concentrated or convoy formation areas. She remained in this deployment until VE-Day.

Wartime Commanders
A list of her World War II Commanding Oficers can be found at U-Boat.net

Disposition
HMS Volunteer was paid off into reserve in May 1945. She was placed on the disposal in 1947 and sold to BISCO for breaking up by Granton Shipbreaking on the 3rd of March. She arrived at the breaker’s yard in April 1948.