ORIGINAL: Don Bowen
We are looking at late-war DDs in several groups:
1. Those that were completed pre-VJ Day and were sent to the Eastern/Pacific Fleets. These will arrive at the historical dates (as best we can determine).
2. Those that were nominated for service in the Pacific but had not left (mostly working up). These will be allocated at an approximate date (using the time honored SWAG principle).
3. Those that were nearly complete on VJ day. We assume that those that could reasonably be completed between VJ day and Olympic would be sent to the Pacific. More of that SWAG stuff on completion and arrival dates.
4. Those completed but not allocated to the Pacific. Here is a major problem. The Royal Navy was concentrating the majority of it’s modern fleet in the Pacific, but at the same time had to retain some modern ships in the Home Fleet. If anyone has any sources with details of late war plans, it would be wonderful…
Sorry, no plans. But looked into Whitley, and on
http://www.naval-history.net
and found the following:
(EF= Eastern Fleet, BPF= British Pacific Fleet, DF=Destroyer Flotilla)
Group 1
Eskimo, Nubian, Tartar (10th DF): EF from April 1945
Paladin, Pathfinder, Penn, Petard: EF from early 1944. Pathfinder CTL on 11 Feb 1945 off Ramree Island
Quilliam, Quadrant, Quality, Queenborough, Quiberon, Quickmatch (4th DF): BPF from 22 Nov 1944
R class (11th DF): all eight EF from Jan 1944
Saumarez: EF from 10 Mar 1945 as flotilla leader for 26th DF
T class (24th DF): all ships BPF from Feb/Mar 1945
U class (25th DF): all ships BPF from Mar 1945
Venus, Verulam, Vigilant, Virago, Volage (26th DF): EF from Mar 1945
Sioux, Algonquin of this class with RCN since early 1944
W class (27th DF): all ships BPF from Jan 1945
Battle class:
Barfleur BPF July 1945. (Planned completion date had been March 1944, Mk VI director not available. Ship commissioned on 14 Sept 1944 for first-of-class trials, director installed Nov 1944.)
Remaining in European waters were all surviving J, K; L, M, N class, eight O class, four S class, eight Z class (Zenith was nominated for Far East and modified for tropical service, but deployment was cancelled after VJ-Day)
Group 2/3:
Zenith (see above)
Ca class nominated for Far East Apr 1945 (apparently for EF), transferred Aug 1945
Co class:
Constance BPF deployment Aug 1945
Cossack BPF deployed Oct 1945
Contest BPF nominated commissioned in 1946. Waiting for gunnery director since Jan 1945.
Probably safe to assume whole Co flotilla destined for BPF.
Ch class: haven't found anything to contradict your assumption
Cr class: actually four of them were transferred to Norway in 1945/46 but have not found anything about original plans.
1942 Battle class:
Armada nominated BPF. Arrived Melbourne 24 Jan 1946. Possibly delayed by manning problems.
Hogue BPF (19th DF) Oct 1945
Flotilla also comprised Camperdown, Trafalgar, Lagos, all of which could have been in Pacific by Feb 1946
Solebay, Finisterre stayed in home waters but would have fit timeframe (ships of the class usually took about 3-4 months after completion of acceptance trials to work-up and deploy to Pacific)
1943 Battle class:
Pure conjecture, but apparently Battle class units were planned to complete about five months after launch. The original group was delayed by the director problem, later ships by post-war slowdown, but as the 1943 group used the US Mk 37 director that should have been available without delay, one might speculate that those ships might have been in the PTO 9-10 months after launch (assuming 5-6 months launch to completion, 3-4 months working-up and transfer), had they been built under continued wartime schedules. Assuming nine months, this would deliver
Agincourt Oct 1945
Aisne Feb 1946
Alamein Mar 1946
Barrosa Oct 1945
Corunna Mar 1946
Matapan Jan 1946
These are all ships lsaunched up to May 1945.
Beyond this, things get murky. Quite a number of ships could have been completed in time but for availability of the Mk VI director, including almost all of the 1942 Battles except St. James and Vigo which were built by Fairfield, Glasgow, the slowest-building yard of the lot (most of the yards took about 12 months from laying-down to launch, but Fairfield needed 17-24 months, and that mainly in 1943, when the yard should still have worked flat-out). The 1943 Battles had no director troubles, but were caught in the end-of-war slowdown, and a total of 18 were cancelled, nine after being launched. Albuera and Belleisle were in principle laid down early enough, Albuera actually as the second 1943 Battle, but the yards took their time (Fairfield for Belleisle, so no surprise, but Albuera was built by Vickers-Armstrong Newcastle who should have done better, most other yards would have launched the ship in late 1944). Namur, Navarino, and Omdurman would have been barely possible given a very fast builder, but all the others were definitely laid down too late.
It's interesting to note that, had those ships been built by a US yard like Federal Shipbuilding, most of them would have been completed by the end of 1945, and several of them might even have been present for D-Day.