HMS Lightning (G55)
Encyclopedia
HMS Lightning was an L-class
destroyer of the Royal Navy
. She was launched on 22 April 1940 and sunk on 12 March 1943 by German
Motor Torpedo Boat
S-55.
Ordered under the 1937 Programme and laid down as Job No J4502, Hawthorn Leslie & Co
of Newcastle Upon Tyne
were awarded the contract to build her with machinery supplied by Parsons. She would be the 10th Royal Navy ship to bear the name Lightning. Build was completed on 28 May 1941 but had been delayed by late delivery of the three twin 4.7 mountings required meeting the original design. The Tender cost was £440.807 which excluded items such as weapons and communications equipment supplied by the Admiralty.
On 25 March 1942, Lightning was adopted by the Borough of Doncaster
as part of a Warship Week
National Savings
plan. Doncaster and the surrounding Boroughs raised over £800,000 in National Savings and effectively paid for the ship. At the same time T/S Lightning was formed in Doncaster for Sea Cadets, that continues to this day.
The book Struck by Lightning by Eric Gilroy was privately published in 1993 (50th anniversary of the ship's sinking) by the son of George Gilroy a former member of the ship’s company and gives details of the service of the ship. Some dates in the book are at variance with other sources. A revised and expanded edition containing some previously unpublished material (2007-11), is being prepared for publication by Eric Gilroy and John Dann.
. She was joined by her sister ship . Her other two sister ships and were not ready for combat. She was however joined by four half-sister ships , , and . All four would later be lost during their first year of operational service.
was the first real operation HMS Lightning was part of. She formed part of the Home Fleet escort for convoys WS 9C and MG 1 to the island of Malta
. The convoy comprised ships , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and . The convoy left Derry
on 13 July, and arrived at Gibraltar
two weeks later on 27 July.
Her next operation was Operation Style in which Lightning escorting a small convoy of Royal Air Force
reinforcements. She did not escort the convoy all the way and arrived back in Gibraltar on 4 August, just as the main convoy arrived in Malta. On 22 August 1941 Lightning sailed from Scapa with and to search for the crippled Free French submarine Rubis, which had been attacked by a German aircraft off the coast of Norway
. She was later met by the cruiser and eventually found Rubis near the Skagerrak
and escorted her into Dundee
for repairs.
for the first major Malta convoy of the war on 17 September 1941, crossing the Clyde Boom at 0530. Lightning joined the convoy with many of the capital ships from the Home Fleet. These included , , , , , , Cossack, Fury, and . She then passed through the Straits of Gibraltar and met up with Force H
. Throughout the operation HMS Lightning would see some of her heaviest fighting. She and the rest of the convoy were attacked by German bombers who used a mixture of high altitude bombing, dive bombing and low level torpedo bombing. At 1340 on 27 September 1941 Lightning was very nearly hit. A torpedo from an aircraft missed the ship by 20 yards.
On 25 October Lightning left the Clyde and was transferred from the Home Fleet, based at Scapa Flow, to Force H based at Gibraltar. During November and December 1941, as part of Force H, Lightning had a mainly escort role. Escorting convoys that were from the UK, picking them up in the Bay of Biscay
and often taking them through the western part of the Mediterranean towards Malta. She also escorted aircraft carriers carrying Spitfires. Lightning was one of the escorts of the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal when she was sunk by a torpedo on 13 November 1941.
On 14 March 1942 Lightning was taking part in an anti-submarine ASDIC sweep in the Gibraltar Straits when her rudder was badly damaged, one of the depth charge
s exploded underneath her prematurely. She had to return to Gibraltar for repairs in number two dry dock.
. HMS Lightning played her part without any action during this opening stage. However at 1710 on 5 May 1942, Lightning bombarded a hill position that was being used by the enemy. The next day Lightning again bombarded enemy positions, this time a castle on a hilltop and an ammunition dump. At 1530 Lightning along with Laforey and Lookout escorted the battleship out to sea to search for a reported enemy battleship which was not found, although Laforey sank an enemy submarine during night.
On 7 May 1942 at 1030 Lightning bombarded an enemy shore battery, on the far side of the peninsular, that would not surrender. Within half an hour of cease fire the battery surrendered.
After Operation Ironclad, Between May and July Lightning was temporary transferred to the Far East Fleet, sailing to Colombo in Ceylon, for a boiler clean. Completed by 11 July, the following day, at 0600, Lightning put to sea as 'A Force' with Warspite, Indomitable, Illustrious, Gambia and four destroyers including Laforey and Lookout. The task was to sweep the area to the Chagos islands to try to bring the Japanese to battle, and then proceed to Addu Atoll to oil. The Monsoon season had arrived and no Japanese were found. Lightning returned to Colombo, and ordered to proceed to the Mediterranean.
Returning from the Indian Ocean Lightning arrived at Freetown. On the 1 August, departing in company with Laforey ,Phoebe; Lookout and the aircraft carrier Indomitable. That same evening, at 2100, the ship's lookouts sighted three small boats and, after investigating, picked up all the crew of 35 plus 4 gunners and a dog (given to Lightning as a gift, and named ‘Flash’) from the 10,095 ton Norwegian merchant vessel Tankexpress,. She had been sunk by a U-boat a week earlier (25 July 1942). The merchant crew together with their Captain, Anders Skånberg, were landed in Gibraltar, on 8 August whilst Lightning was refuelling.
that were supplying the Axis
armies in North Africa
. Further more, it was realised that an Allied North Africa campaign could not begin until the Axis armies had been weakened by lack of supplies. A huge escorting force from the Home Fleet and Force H from Gibraltar was assembled to escort fourteen merchant ships from the UK to Malta. Many capital ships were damaged in the desperate air and submarine attacks. Only six merchantmen got through but Malta was never under pressure again and so the Allied invasion of north Africa (Operation Torch
) was made possible in November 1942.
Lightning joined Force Z
comprising aircraft carrier , cruiser , and sisters HMS Laforey and HMS Lookout. On 3 August 1942 Force Z met up with the main Force X from the UK just off Gibraltar and refuelled alongside Indomitable the next day. On 5 August 1942 the convoy passed through the straits en-route to Malta. On 11 August 1942 Lightning along with Lookout was screening the aircraft carrier , when the nearby carrier was hit by four torpedoes from U-73. In only eight minutes she had sank. On the 12 August 1942 Lightning came under attack from bombers and had several near misses during the raid.
and Bône
in the day and attacking enemy convoys at night. When in harbour she was attacked every day by enemy aircraft and acted as an anti-aircraft ship. On her last voyage, Lightning left Bône alone at 1745 hours on the evening of Friday 12 March 1943 with nearly 230 weary young men aboard. After joining HMS Loyal, Lightning provided flanking screening cover to the cruisers and . The plan was to attack a German convoy out of Sicily bound for Tunisia. But when the convoy heard HMS Lightning had left port, they returned to harbour. At 1851 hours Lightning was attacked by twelve German torpedo bombers. Lightning shot down one of the bombers and the attack itself failed to do any damage.
At about 2200 hours interpreters on board Lightning intercepted a radio message in German, stating that they were about to attack HMS Lightning. At about 2215 hours the German Torpedo Boat (Schnellboot) S-158 7th S Boat Flotilla - (First Lieutenant at Sea Schultze-Jena) fired the first torpedo disabling Lightning. The ships company had no time to return fire, they were not operating RDF
, ASDIC or HF-DF and were not at full fighting condition due to heavy fighting that had been almost continuous during the past few days. The Captain turned the ship hard to port to comb the track of the torpedo, but Lightning was too slow and was hit on the port bow, blowing it clean off. Then a second E-boat, S-55 3rd S-boot flotilla, (Kommandant Horst Weber
) circled the ship and moved round to the starboard side. The German torpedo boat fired a second torpedo that hit beneath the funnel, destroying both boiler rooms, the pom pom
and forward torpedo tubes on the upper deck. Moments later HMS Lightning was abandoned, she had begun sinking almost immediately after the second torpedo hit. One survivor was picked up by Schnellboot S-158 and the remaining 180 survivors (including the Captain, Commander Hugh Greaves Walters DSC,) were picked up some hours later by sister ship HMS Loyal, arriving Bone 0500 13 March. Survivors transferred to HMS Sirius. Ship's company disbanded, transferred to other ships and shore base HMS Hannibal
in Algiers.
L and M class destroyer
The L and M class was a class of sixteen destroyers which served in the British Royal Navy during World War II. The ships of the class were launched between 1939 and 1942.-Design details:...
destroyer of the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
. She was launched on 22 April 1940 and sunk on 12 March 1943 by German
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
Motor Torpedo Boat
E-boat
E-boats was the designation for Motor Torpedo Boats of the German Navy during World War II. It is commonly held that the E stood for Enemy....
S-55.
Ordered under the 1937 Programme and laid down as Job No J4502, Hawthorn Leslie & Co
Hawthorn Leslie and Company
R. & W. Hawthorn Leslie and Company, Limited, usually referred to as Hawthorn Leslie, was a shipbuilding and locomotive manufacturer. The Company was founded on Tyneside in 1886 and ceased building ships in 1982.-History:...
of Newcastle Upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle upon Tyne is a city and metropolitan borough of Tyne and Wear, in North East England. Historically a part of Northumberland, it is situated on the north bank of the River Tyne...
were awarded the contract to build her with machinery supplied by Parsons. She would be the 10th Royal Navy ship to bear the name Lightning. Build was completed on 28 May 1941 but had been delayed by late delivery of the three twin 4.7 mountings required meeting the original design. The Tender cost was £440.807 which excluded items such as weapons and communications equipment supplied by the Admiralty.
On 25 March 1942, Lightning was adopted by the Borough of Doncaster
Doncaster
Doncaster is a town in South Yorkshire, England, and the principal settlement of the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster. The town is about from Sheffield and is popularly referred to as "Donny"...
as part of a Warship Week
Warship Week
Warship Weeks were British National savings campaigns during the Second World War, with the adoption of a Royal Navy warship by a civil community. A level of savings would be set to raise enough money to provide the cost of building a particular naval ship...
National Savings
National savings
In economics, a country's national savings is the sum of private and public savings. It is generally equal to a nation's income minus consumption and government purchases.- Economic model of national savings :...
plan. Doncaster and the surrounding Boroughs raised over £800,000 in National Savings and effectively paid for the ship. At the same time T/S Lightning was formed in Doncaster for Sea Cadets, that continues to this day.
The book Struck by Lightning by Eric Gilroy was privately published in 1993 (50th anniversary of the ship's sinking) by the son of George Gilroy a former member of the ship’s company and gives details of the service of the ship. Some dates in the book are at variance with other sources. A revised and expanded edition containing some previously unpublished material (2007-11), is being prepared for publication by Eric Gilroy and John Dann.
Operational history
On Wednesday 28 May HMS Lightning was assigned to the 19th Destroyer Flotilla with the Home Fleet at Scapa FlowScapa Flow
right|thumb|Scapa Flow viewed from its eastern endScapa Flow is a body of water in the Orkney Islands, Scotland, United Kingdom, sheltered by the islands of Mainland, Graemsay, Burray, South Ronaldsay and Hoy. It is about...
. She was joined by her sister ship . Her other two sister ships and were not ready for combat. She was however joined by four half-sister ships , , and . All four would later be lost during their first year of operational service.
Operation Substance
Operation SubstanceOperation Substance
Operation Substance was a British naval operation in July 1941 during the Second World War to escort a convoy from Gibraltar to Malta.The convoy was escorted by six destroyers and covered by aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal, the battlecruiser HMS Renown and the battleship HMS Nelson along with...
was the first real operation HMS Lightning was part of. She formed part of the Home Fleet escort for convoys WS 9C and MG 1 to the island of Malta
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...
. The convoy comprised ships , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , and . The convoy left Derry
Derry
Derry or Londonderry is the second-biggest city in Northern Ireland and the fourth-biggest city on the island of Ireland. The name Derry is an anglicisation of the Irish name Doire or Doire Cholmcille meaning "oak-wood of Colmcille"...
on 13 July, and arrived at Gibraltar
Gibraltar
Gibraltar is a British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranean. A peninsula with an area of , it has a northern border with Andalusia, Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the major landmark of the region...
two weeks later on 27 July.
Her next operation was Operation Style in which Lightning escorting a small convoy of Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
reinforcements. She did not escort the convoy all the way and arrived back in Gibraltar on 4 August, just as the main convoy arrived in Malta. On 22 August 1941 Lightning sailed from Scapa with and to search for the crippled Free French submarine Rubis, which had been attacked by a German aircraft off the coast of Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
. She was later met by the cruiser and eventually found Rubis near the Skagerrak
Skagerrak
The Skagerrak is a strait running between Norway and the southwest coast of Sweden and the Jutland peninsula of Denmark, connecting the North Sea and the Kattegat sea area, which leads to the Baltic Sea.-Name:...
and escorted her into Dundee
Dundee
Dundee is the fourth-largest city in Scotland and the 39th most populous settlement in the United Kingdom. It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firth of Tay, which feeds into the North Sea...
for repairs.
Operation Halberd
Lightning and Laforey left GreenockGreenock
Greenock is a town and administrative centre in the Inverclyde council area in United Kingdom, and a former burgh within the historic county of Renfrewshire, located in the west central Lowlands of Scotland...
for the first major Malta convoy of the war on 17 September 1941, crossing the Clyde Boom at 0530. Lightning joined the convoy with many of the capital ships from the Home Fleet. These included , , , , , , Cossack, Fury, and . She then passed through the Straits of Gibraltar and met up with Force H
Force H
Force H was a British naval formation during the Second World War. It was formed in 1940 to replace French naval power in the western Mediterranean that had been removed by the French armistice with Nazi Germany....
. Throughout the operation HMS Lightning would see some of her heaviest fighting. She and the rest of the convoy were attacked by German bombers who used a mixture of high altitude bombing, dive bombing and low level torpedo bombing. At 1340 on 27 September 1941 Lightning was very nearly hit. A torpedo from an aircraft missed the ship by 20 yards.
On 25 October Lightning left the Clyde and was transferred from the Home Fleet, based at Scapa Flow, to Force H based at Gibraltar. During November and December 1941, as part of Force H, Lightning had a mainly escort role. Escorting convoys that were from the UK, picking them up in the Bay of Biscay
Bay of Biscay
The Bay of Biscay is a gulf of the northeast Atlantic Ocean located south of the Celtic Sea. It lies along the western coast of France from Brest south to the Spanish border, and the northern coast of Spain west to Cape Ortegal, and is named in English after the province of Biscay, in the Spanish...
and often taking them through the western part of the Mediterranean towards Malta. She also escorted aircraft carriers carrying Spitfires. Lightning was one of the escorts of the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal when she was sunk by a torpedo on 13 November 1941.
On 14 March 1942 Lightning was taking part in an anti-submarine ASDIC sweep in the Gibraltar Straits when her rudder was badly damaged, one of the depth charge
Depth charge
A depth charge is an anti-submarine warfare weapon intended to destroy or cripple a target submarine by the shock of exploding near it. Most use explosives and a fuze set to go off at a preselected depth in the ocean. Depth charges can be dropped by either surface ships, patrol aircraft, or from...
s exploded underneath her prematurely. She had to return to Gibraltar for repairs in number two dry dock.
Operation Ironclad
During Operation Ironclad Lightning played a key role in the taking of a naval base at Diégo SuarezAntsiranana
Antsiranana , named Diego-Suarez prior to 1975, is a city at the northern tip of Madagascar.Antsiranana is the capital of Diana Region.-Transports:...
. HMS Lightning played her part without any action during this opening stage. However at 1710 on 5 May 1942, Lightning bombarded a hill position that was being used by the enemy. The next day Lightning again bombarded enemy positions, this time a castle on a hilltop and an ammunition dump. At 1530 Lightning along with Laforey and Lookout escorted the battleship out to sea to search for a reported enemy battleship which was not found, although Laforey sank an enemy submarine during night.
On 7 May 1942 at 1030 Lightning bombarded an enemy shore battery, on the far side of the peninsular, that would not surrender. Within half an hour of cease fire the battery surrendered.
After Operation Ironclad, Between May and July Lightning was temporary transferred to the Far East Fleet, sailing to Colombo in Ceylon, for a boiler clean. Completed by 11 July, the following day, at 0600, Lightning put to sea as 'A Force' with Warspite, Indomitable, Illustrious, Gambia and four destroyers including Laforey and Lookout. The task was to sweep the area to the Chagos islands to try to bring the Japanese to battle, and then proceed to Addu Atoll to oil. The Monsoon season had arrived and no Japanese were found. Lightning returned to Colombo, and ordered to proceed to the Mediterranean.
Returning from the Indian Ocean Lightning arrived at Freetown. On the 1 August, departing in company with Laforey ,Phoebe; Lookout and the aircraft carrier Indomitable. That same evening, at 2100, the ship's lookouts sighted three small boats and, after investigating, picked up all the crew of 35 plus 4 gunners and a dog (given to Lightning as a gift, and named ‘Flash’) from the 10,095 ton Norwegian merchant vessel Tankexpress,. She had been sunk by a U-boat a week earlier (25 July 1942). The merchant crew together with their Captain, Anders Skånberg, were landed in Gibraltar, on 8 August whilst Lightning was refuelling.
Operation Pedestal
By mid 1942 the strategically important island of Malta was being starved by the German and Italian blockade. Without the island fortress the Allies could not strike at convoys from ItalyItaly
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
that were supplying the Axis
Axis Powers
The Axis powers , also known as the Axis alliance, Axis nations, Axis countries, or just the Axis, was an alignment of great powers during the mid-20th century that fought World War II against the Allies. It began in 1936 with treaties of friendship between Germany and Italy and between Germany and...
armies in North Africa
North Africa
North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
. Further more, it was realised that an Allied North Africa campaign could not begin until the Axis armies had been weakened by lack of supplies. A huge escorting force from the Home Fleet and Force H from Gibraltar was assembled to escort fourteen merchant ships from the UK to Malta. Many capital ships were damaged in the desperate air and submarine attacks. Only six merchantmen got through but Malta was never under pressure again and so the Allied invasion of north Africa (Operation Torch
Operation Torch
Operation Torch was the British-American invasion of French North Africa in World War II during the North African Campaign, started on 8 November 1942....
) was made possible in November 1942.
Lightning joined Force Z
Force Z
Force Z was an Allied naval detachment consisting of the battleship , the battlecruiser , and four destroyers, , , , and . Initially an aircraft carrier HMS Indomitable was included, but she ran aground in the Caribbean, and was not replaced by HMS Hermes which was regarded as too slow.A renamed...
comprising aircraft carrier , cruiser , and sisters HMS Laforey and HMS Lookout. On 3 August 1942 Force Z met up with the main Force X from the UK just off Gibraltar and refuelled alongside Indomitable the next day. On 5 August 1942 the convoy passed through the straits en-route to Malta. On 11 August 1942 Lightning along with Lookout was screening the aircraft carrier , when the nearby carrier was hit by four torpedoes from U-73. In only eight minutes she had sank. On the 12 August 1942 Lightning came under attack from bombers and had several near misses during the raid.
The sinking of HMS Lightning
During late February and March 1943 HMS Lightning was escorting troop and supply ships between AlgiersAlgiers
' is the capital and largest city of Algeria. According to the 1998 census, the population of the city proper was 1,519,570 and that of the urban agglomeration was 2,135,630. In 2009, the population was about 3,500,000...
and Bône
Annaba
Annaba is a city in the northeastern corner of Algeria near the river Seybouse. It is located in Annaba Province. With a population of 257,359 , it is the fourth largest city in Algeria. It is a leading industrial centre in eastern Algeria....
in the day and attacking enemy convoys at night. When in harbour she was attacked every day by enemy aircraft and acted as an anti-aircraft ship. On her last voyage, Lightning left Bône alone at 1745 hours on the evening of Friday 12 March 1943 with nearly 230 weary young men aboard. After joining HMS Loyal, Lightning provided flanking screening cover to the cruisers and . The plan was to attack a German convoy out of Sicily bound for Tunisia. But when the convoy heard HMS Lightning had left port, they returned to harbour. At 1851 hours Lightning was attacked by twelve German torpedo bombers. Lightning shot down one of the bombers and the attack itself failed to do any damage.
At about 2200 hours interpreters on board Lightning intercepted a radio message in German, stating that they were about to attack HMS Lightning. At about 2215 hours the German Torpedo Boat (Schnellboot) S-158 7th S Boat Flotilla - (First Lieutenant at Sea Schultze-Jena) fired the first torpedo disabling Lightning. The ships company had no time to return fire, they were not operating RDF
Radio direction finder
A radio direction finder is a device for finding the direction to a radio source. Due to low frequency propagation characteristic to travel very long distances and "over the horizon", it makes a particularly good navigation system for ships, small boats, and aircraft that might be some distance...
, ASDIC or HF-DF and were not at full fighting condition due to heavy fighting that had been almost continuous during the past few days. The Captain turned the ship hard to port to comb the track of the torpedo, but Lightning was too slow and was hit on the port bow, blowing it clean off. Then a second E-boat, S-55 3rd S-boot flotilla, (Kommandant Horst Weber
Horst Weber
Horst Weber was a German Schnellboot commander in World War II and recipient of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross.-Awards:*Iron Cross **2nd Class **1st Class...
) circled the ship and moved round to the starboard side. The German torpedo boat fired a second torpedo that hit beneath the funnel, destroying both boiler rooms, the pom pom
QF 2 pounder naval gun
The 2-pounder gun, officially designated the QF 2-pounder and universally known as the pom-pom, was a 1.575 inch British autocannon, used famously as an anti-aircraft gun by the Royal Navy. The name came from the sound that the original models make when firing...
and forward torpedo tubes on the upper deck. Moments later HMS Lightning was abandoned, she had begun sinking almost immediately after the second torpedo hit. One survivor was picked up by Schnellboot S-158 and the remaining 180 survivors (including the Captain, Commander Hugh Greaves Walters DSC,) were picked up some hours later by sister ship HMS Loyal, arriving Bone 0500 13 March. Survivors transferred to HMS Sirius. Ship's company disbanded, transferred to other ships and shore base HMS Hannibal
HMS Hannibal
HMS Hannibal was a 74-gun third-rate ship of the line of the British Royal Navy, launched on 15 April 1786, named after the Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca. She is best known for having run aground during the first part of the Battle of Algeciras Bay on 5 July 1801, which resulted in her capture...
in Algiers.