User:Rgdem999/HMS Witch (1919)

HMS Witch (D89/I89) was an Admiralty modified W class destroyer built for the Royal Navy. She was one of two destroyers ordered in January 1918 from Thornycroft under the 13th Order for Destroyers of the Emergency War Program of 1918-19. She was the first Royal Navy ship to carry this name.

She was adopted by the community of Norwich, Cheshire after the Warship Week National Savings Campaign in March 1942.

Construction
HMS ''Witch'’s keel was laid on 13th June, 1918 at the Thornycroft Shipyard in Woolston. Her construction was delayed by the end of World War I and she was almost cancelled in 1918, however she was launched on 11th of November, 1919. Her completion was further delayed by the changing economies of the post war budgets and she was towed to HM Dockyard Devonport for completion.

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 screws 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 Witch was commissioned into the Royal Navy in March 1924 with the pennant number D89. After commissioning she was laid-up in Maintenance Reserve at Rosyth. She was reactivated and 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 in Western Approaches Command for convoy defence. Until April 1940 she was employed in the South West Approaches area providing local escort for convoys moving to and from Gibraltar.

In April 1940 she was detached to Scapa Flow after the German invasion of Norway. From April to May she escorted several convoys from the UK to Norway. At the end of May her pennant number was changed to I89 for visual signalling purposes.

In July 1940 she was returned to the Western Approaches for convoy defence and was mainly employed in the South-West Approach sector as a local escort until January 1942.

SRE Conversion
In January 1942 she was withdrawn for conversion to a short-range escort (SRE). To augment the earlier changes, the replacement of the after bank of torpedo tubes with a single QF 12 pounder 12 cwt naval gun and the landing of 'Y' gun for additional space for depth charge gear and stowage, a Type 271 centimetric target indication Radar was added on the bridge.

Final Operations
Upon completion of the conversion, HMS Witch returned to the Western Approaches Command. Her first deployment was escorting Outbound North (ON) 127. She remained in Atlantic convoy defence into March 1943 when she was deployed to Freetown, Sierra Leon on local escort duties.

In 1944 she was withdrawn from the ocean escort role deployed to the English Channel area to counter the threat of snorkel equipped U-Boats being concentrated on convoy formation areas. She remained in this deployment until VE-Day.

Wartime Commanders
Her World War II Commanding Officers are listed at U-Boat.net.

Disposition
HMS Witch was paid off into reserve after VE-Day. She was placed on the disposal list in 1946. On the 12th of July, 1946 she was sold to BISCO for breaking up by G Brunton. She was towed to the breakers yard in Granton on the Forth.