HMS Edinburgh (16)

HMS "Edinburgh" was one of the final sub-class of two Town-class light cruiser of Britain's Royal Navy. Along with the nine other vessels of the Town class, "Edinburgh" saw a great deal of combat service during World War II, especially in the North Sea and the disastrous Norwegian campaign.

Construction and Specifications

"Edinburgh" was built in Newcastle-upon-Tyne by Swan Hunter and Wigham Richardson, her keel laid down on 30 December 1936. She was a fast cruiser, displacing 10,635 tonnes, and with an intended sea speed of 32.25 knots, reaching a maximum speed of thirty-three knots.

Her armament was fairly substantial, with twelve 6 inch guns, twelve (later eight) 4 inch guns, sixteen 2 pdr pom pom guns, sixteen Vickers anti-aircraft guns of varying calibres. Also, she carried six 21 inch torpedoes in a pair of triple racks, giving her an added punch.

"Edinburgh" was designed as a very modern vessel, equipped with an impressive radar array and fire-control systems, and the ability to carry up to three Supermarine Walrus seaplanes for reconnaissance, though she usually carried only two.

Her armour was fairly light (4.88 inches on the main belt, and 1.5 inches at its thinnest), but it was deemed adequate nonetheless. As with battlecruisers, light cruisers were intended to be fast enough to avoid being hit, negating the need for immensely thick armour like that found on the battleships of the day.

War Service

"Edinburgh" was launched on 31 March 1938, and was immediately attached to the 18th Cruiser Squadron at Scapa Flow, in Scotland, as part of the British Home Fleet. For a time, she was assigned to patrol between Iceland and the Faroe Islands, but in 1939, she was transferred to the 2nd Cruiser Squadron, serving with the Humber Force.

However, "Edinburgh" was still in the Firth of Forth when the Luftwaffe made their first raid on the naval bases at Rosyth on 16 October 1939. She sustained minor damage from the attack, but no direct hits.

She left Rosyth on 23 October, on escort duties with the convoys heading to and from Narvik, in Norway. When the armed merchant cruiser HMS "Rawalpindi" was attacked and sunk defending her convoy on 23 November, "Edinburgh" was among the flotilla detached to search for the German commerce raider, the battlecruiser "Scharnhorst", responsible. However, the search was unsuccessful, and "Edinburgh" returned to escort duties.

On 18 March 1940, she arrived in the Tyne for a lengthy refit which lasted until 28 October. After these repairs, she was re-attached to the 18th Cruiser Squadron, and on 18 November left Faslane Naval Base, on the Clyde, escorting the troop convoy WS4B as far as Freetown (now Sierra Leone) before returning to Scapa Flow on 12 November. Shortly before Christmas, "Edinburgh" participated in a hunt for a German surface raider that had been reported as breaking out into the North Atlantic. The force consisted of the battlecruiser HMS "Hood", "Edinburgh", and the destroyers "Electra", "Echo", "Escapade", and "Cossack". After spending a week at sea, including Christmas Day, after the report turned out to be false, she returned to port on New Year's Eve.

During the winter of 1940, "Edinburgh" took part in several minor operations with the Home Fleet, including the provision of support for Operation Claymore, the successful Allied raid on the German-occupied Lofoten Islands, on 4 May 1941. Later in 1941, assigned to escort duties once more, she accompanied convoy WS7 to the Middle East, before refuelling at Gibraltar, and returning to Scapa Flow on 15 April. Finally, the cruiser supported several mine-laying operations off the Danish coast.

"Edinburgh" also played a minor role in the hunt for the roaming German battleship "Bismarck". After serving on patrol in the Bay of Biscay, where she intercepted the German vessel SS "Lech" on 22 May 1941, she was ordered to set a course for the estimated position of the "Bismarck", and wait there, as a standby for the task of shadowing her. However, "Edinburgh" never sighted the enemy, and played no further role in the search and destruction of the "Bismarck".

On 1 June, she was ordered to depart Scapa Flow, and relieve the "Dido" class light cruiser HMS "Hermione" on the Denmark Strait patrol route. After an uneventful assignment, she was ordered to cover another Middle East-bound convoy, WS9B, and docked in Gibraltar again in early July. Later that month, "Edinburgh" took part in Operation Substance, arriving in Malta on 24 July. The next day, she had a close call when a German torpedo bomber attacked her. However, the ship sustained no damage, and continued on her course back to the Clyde.In August 1941, "Edinburgh" escorted convoy WS10 to Simonstown, South Africa, and later sailed to Malta once more, this time as part of Operation Halberd, entering port in Malta on 28 September. She returned to Gibraltar shortly afterwards, departing from there on 1 October 1941, with supplies and prisoners of war aboard, and bound once more for the Clyde. After repairs at Faslane, she rejoined the Home Fleet on Iceland Forces Patrol during November.

In December 1941, she provided cover to Arctic convoys bringing aid to the Soviet Union. From January 1942, she refitted in the Tyne, until 4 March, when she was once again placed on the Iceland-Faroes patrol.

She escorted two convoys working the route to the Soviet Union (QP4 and PQ13), returning to Scapa Flow on 28 March, ready for what would be her penultimate mission before her sinking. On 6 April, she left Scapa Flow for a routine convoy patrol, escorting convoy PQ14 to Russia. Of the 24 ships that made up the convoy, sixteen were forced by unseasonal ice and bad weather to return to Iceland, and another was sunk by a German U-Boat. Along with the remaining seven convoy vessels, "Edinburgh" arrived in Murmansk on 19 April. She then left, on 29 April, to cover the return convoy QP11.

HMS "Edinburgh's" Final Voyage

"Edinburgh's" final journey was to be escorting the return convoy QP-11 of 17 ships, which left Kola Peninsula on 28 April, as the flagship of Rear-Admiral Stuart Bonham-Carter. [ [http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/18/a2076518.shtml Eyewitness account on BBC People's History] ] On 30 April, the German submarine U-456 (under the command of "Kapitänleutnant" Max-Martin Teichert) fired a torpedo into the starboard side of the cruiser. The U-boat, on her fifth patrol, had been alerted to the convoy by German aerial reconnaissance. [ [http://uboat.net/men/teichert.htm UBoat.net on Max-Martin Teichert] ] The ship began to list heavily, but the crew reacted quickly and competently, and closed watertight bulkheads, preventing the ship from sinking immediately. Soon after, Teichert launched a second torpedo, which struck the ship's stern wrecking her steering equipment and effectively crippling her.

Taken in tow, she attempted to limp back to Murmansk with another destroyer, HMS "Foresight", and three minesweepers, HMS "Gossamer", HMS "Harrier", and HMS "Hussar". Along the way she was hounded constantly by German torpedo-bombers. On 2 May, as she progressed at a snail's pace under her own steam, off Bear Island (Norway) she was attacked by three German destroyers , including the large "Hermann Schoemann". Casting off the tow, so that she started to sail in circles, and although the "Edinburgh's" guns were in studied disarray, when the Germans attacked the cruiser's main batteries aimed at them and opened fire. The cruiser's second salvo straddled the "Schoemann" and disabled her severely enough that her crew scuttled her. [David Irving: "Destruction of Convoy PQ-17" (1968), reprint (1989), St. Martins Mass Market Paper, ISBN 0-312-91152-1] While the small ships with the "Edinburgh" drove off the attackers, she was struck by a torpedo that had missed another ship. [ [http://www.halcyon-class.co.uk/quotes%26comments.htm Quotes Halcyon Minesweepers ] ] The torpedo struck the ship amidships exactly opposite the first torpedo hit from U-456. As the ship was only being prevented from breaking in two by the deck plating and keel, which was likely to fail at any time, the crew abandoned the ship. They transferred to fleet minesweepers escorting the convoy, 440 men to HMS "Gossamer" and about 400 to HMS "Harrier". Fifty-six ratings and two officers had been killed in the attacks. The vigorous action of the minesweepers led the Germans to mistake the power of the force they were facing. [suppose they were destroyers arriving to supplement the British force and probably restrained them from mounting further attacks.]

To encourage the ship to sink, "Harrier" was ordered to fire her 4 inch gun at the ship, but after 20 shells the ship has failed to sink. An attempt to sink the vessel using depth charges dropped alongside also failed. Finally, the destroyer HMS "Foresight" fired her last torpedo at the ship (the others having been expended against the German destroyers) which sank the wreck.

The Gold

At the time of "Edinburgh"'s sinking she was carrying a 4.5 ton consignment of gold bullion, which formed part of Stalin's payment for the supplies that the Allies were shipping to the USSR. The 465 gold ingots, carried in ninety-three wooden boxes, were being transported in the armoured bomb-rooms situated on the starboard side of the vessel, not far from the original torpedo's impact point. At the time, the estimated worth of the bullion was somewhere in the region of £1,547,080 sterling.

In 1954, the British Government offered the salvage rights to the "Edinburgh" to Risdon Beazley Ltd., a salvage company operating out of the UK, but the project was put on hold, due to strained political relations between the West and the Soviet Union. In 1957, the wreck was designated as a war grave, which complicated any salvage attempts still further.

In the late 1970s, interest in the "Edinburgh" was reawakened, and the British Government was becoming increasingly anxious to recover the gold. This was not only because it would provide further valuable revenue for the Exchequer, but because there was also a growing fear of the wreck being pirated by unscrupulous salvagers, or, worse, salvaged by the Soviet Union, in whose waters it lay.

In the early 1980s, a company called Jessop Marine, run by seasoned diver Keith Jessop, won the contract for the salvage rights to the wreck of the "Edinburgh". Jessop won the contract because his methods, involving complex cutting machinery and divers, were deemed more appropriate for a war grave, compared to the explosives-oriented methods of other companies.

In April 1981, the survey ship "Dammtor" began searching for the wreck in the Barents Sea, on behalf of Jessop Marine. After only ten days, they discovered the ship's final resting place at an approximate position of 72°N, 35°E, at a depth of 245 metres (800 ft). Using specialist camera equipment, the "Dammtor" took detailed film of the wreck, which allowed Jessop and his divers to carefully plan the salvage operation.

Later that year, on 30 August, the dive-support vessel "Stephaniturm" journeyed to the site, and salvage operations began in earnest. Several divers were injured during the operation, but on 15 September 1981, a diver finally penetrated the bomb room and recovered a bar of gold. On 7 October, bad weather finally forced the suspension of diving operations, but by that time, 431 of 465 ingots had been recovered, now worth in excess of £43,000,000 sterling.

References

*Colledge
* [http://uboat.net/allies/warships/ship/1237.html HMS Edinburgh at Uboat.net]
* [http://www.world-war.co.uk/index.php3 HMS Edinburgh - WWII cruisers]

External links

* [http://www.hmsedinburgh.co.uk/ HMS Edinburgh memorial site]