HMS Vimiera (1917)

For other ships with the same name, see HMS Vimiera.

300px Vimiera circa 1918
History
United Kingdom
Name:	HMS Vimiera
Builder:	Swan Hunter, Tyne and Wear, United Kingdom
Laid down:	October 1917
Launched:	22 June 1918
Completed:	19 September 1918
Motto:	Sicut clin: ‘Victory as formerly’
Fate:	Sank on 9 January 1942 after striking a mine in the Thames estuary.
General characteristics
Class & type:	Admiralty V-class destroyer
Displacement:	1,272-1,339 tons
Length:	300 ft (91.4 m) o/a, 312 ft (95.1 m) p/p
Beam:	26 ft 9 in (8.2 m)
Draught:	9 ft (2.7 m) standard, 11 ft 3 in (3.4 m) deep
Propulsion:	3 Yarrow type Water-tube boilers Brown-Curtis steam turbines 2 shafts, 27,000 shp
Speed:	34 kn
Range:	320-370 tons oil, 3,500 nmi at 15 kn, 900 nmi at 32 kn
Complement:	110
Armament:	4 × QF 4 in Mk.V (102mm L/45), mount P Mk.I 2 × QF 2 pdr Mk.II "pom-pom" (40 mm L/39) or; 1 z QF 12 pdr 20 cwt Mk.I (76 mm), mount HA Mk.II 4 (2x2) tubes for 21 in torpedoes
Notes:	Pennant number: L29

HMS Vimiera was V-class destroyer ordered as part of the 1917-18 Program.

Early activity

One of her early missions was a trip to Reval, conveying Leonid Krasin and Viktor Nogin back to the Russian Socialist Federal Soviet Republic, following the first stage of negotiations in the Anglo-Soviet Trade Agreement.

Second World War

She was chosen for conversion to an escort destroyer (WAIR) with an enhanced anti-aircraft and anti-submarine capability as part of the naval rearmament programme preceding the outbreak of war in September 1939. Conversion was complete, whereon in January 1940 she joined the Nore Command for coastal convoy escort duty in the North Sea and English Channel. Her company was formed largely of men from the Clyde Division of the Royal Naval Reserve, HMS Graham.

In April 1940 she was transferred to Dover Command to support military operations in France. This included the Battle of Dunkirk to providing additional anti-aircraft defence in Dunkirk (Operation FA) and assisting in the evacuation of allied personnel from Flushing. With HMS Wolsey she provided naval gunfire support for military operations at Escault. On 19 May she rescued survivors from HMS Whitley and in the following days assisted in the both taking reinforcements to Boulogne and evacuating wounded soldiers and medical staff. Alongside HMS Wessex, ORP Burza, HMS Whitshed, and HMS Wolfhound she saw action around Boulogne and Calais, during which Wessex was sunk and Vimiera sustained substantial damage. She was taken into repair on 25 May 1940, and so was not involved in the evacuation from Dunkirk. She was subsequently redeployed to the North Sea in defence of East Coast convoys.

In December 1941, she was adopted by the civil community of Sandbach, Cheshire, following the successful Warship Week National Saving campaign. Vimiera, under the command of Lieutenant-Commander Angus Alexander Mackenzie, RNR, was sunk by a mine in the Thames estuary off East Spile Buoy on 9 January 1942 with the loss of 96 hands. Her loss was commemorated on a memorial within HMS Graham.

External links

• HMS Vimiera