In 2005 a miniature sheet of 5 stamps, showing warships ( HMS KING GEORGE V, HMS
WOLVERINE, USS MISSOURI, USS YORKTOWN and BISMARCK), was issued under the name
of the Republic of Congo. In the margins of the sheet are line drawings of 3
further warships – HMS BLACK PRINCE, HMS EURYALUS & IJS KUMANO.
Launched at HM Dockyard Chatham, on 6 June 1939, HMS EURYALUS commissioned on 26
June 1941 as a light cruiser with 10 recently designed 5.25-in guns mounted in
five turrets, a number of light AA guns and six anti-surface 21-in torpedo
tubes. The 5.25-in dual purpose anti-aircraft and anti-surface guns showed a
shift in cruiser design to counter the growing threat from the air.
After working up at Scapa Flow, HMS EURYALUS joined Force H temporarily in
September to help escort a convoy from Gibraltar to Malta. She then transferred
to the Mediterranean Fleet via Capetown, arriving at Alexandria on 1 November
1941 to join the 15th Cruiser Squadron. When the 8th Army began its advance in
Libya on 18 November 1941, HMS EURYALUS and sister ship Naiad bombarded enemy
positions in the Halfaya area that night in support.
In January and February 1942, HMS EURYALUS and other warships escorted no less
than four fast small convoys to Malta and back. In mid-March, HMS EURYALUS, with
three other light cruisers and eleven destroyers, escorted another convoy to
Malta. This was intercepted by a strong Italian force - the battleship Littorio,
two heavy and three light cruisers and seven destroyers. There followed the
brilliant action of the second Battle of Sirte on 22 March 1942, led by
Rear-Admiral Vian (CS15) and fictionalised by C S Forester in 'The Ship'. The
enemy force was driven off without damaging the convoy.
Errors or Omissions We have been as thorough as possible with our research but
if you see any errors or omissions or if you have any additional information we
could include please click here and let us know. Further convoys followed; these
escort duties (known ironically as 'Club Runs' were highly stressful work as the
convoys and escorts were under near continuous daylight air attack and frequent
submarine attack, as well as facing the surface threat; sadly nearly all the
merchant ships and their vital cargoes were lost, mainly to air attack in Malta.
Between convoys, HMS EURYALUS and her sisters bombarded enemy coastal positions
in North Africa and Rhodes.
Meanwhile the 8th Army had been driven back into Egypt by the German Afrika
Korps, leading to even heavier air attacks against Malta convoys. HMS EURYALUS
had commissioned with some of the first naval radars, Type 279 and 281; these
early devices provided welcome early warning of air attack, but little more.
With the fitting of improved voice radios in 1942 however, HMS EURYALUS was able
to control supporting fighters and join in co-ordinated fleet air defence.
When the 8th Army began their great advance from El Alamein in October 1942, the
situation in the Mediterranean improved. In November, a large convoy reached
Malta on 19 November 1942; HMS EURYALUS led the convoy in to raise the siege.
The cruisers HMS EURYALUS, Cleopatra and Dido and four destroyers then formed
Force K, based in Malta, attacking enemy shipping bound for Libya and bombarding
Pantellaria prior to its surrender. In June 1943, HMS EURYALUS joined the 12th
Cruiser Squadron and participated in the invasion of Sicily.
On 27 August 1943, HMS EURYALUS hoisted the flag of Rear-Admiral Vian, in
command of Force V, consisting of five escort carriers and three cruisers. Force
V provided co-ordinated air cover for the assault on Salerno on 9 September
1943. By 12 September 1943, an airfield had been established ashore and the
force withdrew. A powerful German counter-offensive was mounted on 14 September
1943 and HMS EURYALUS, Cleopatra and Dido were ordered to Tripoli, to embark
troops and transport them at high speed to Salerno, arriving on the afternoon of
16 September 1943.
Italy having now dropped out of the war, HMS EURYALUS took Admiral Sir Andrew
Cunningham, the Allied Naval Commander-in-Chief, to Taranto on 23 September 1943
for a meeting onboard with the Italian Minister of Marine to settle the
surrender of the Italian Fleet.
HMS EURYALUS left Bizerta on 29 September 1943, for the United Kingdom and
arrived in the Clyde on 6 October 1943 to begin a major refit at John Brown's
Dockyard, She had steamed 80,271 miles in her first commission, and had been
very lucky in the Mediterranean coming through some of the bitterest fighting
with no more than some minor 15-in shrapnel damage from Littorio. Much of this
luck had been made by the skill of her captain, Captain EW Bush, DSO**, DSC, who
successfully manoeuvred the ship away from all enemy bombs.
During her refit, Q turret (third from the bows) was removed, partly to improve
her sea-keeping, and replaced with a short range AA mounting. The ship was
partly tropicalised and improved aircraft detection and control radar systems
were fitted. HMS EURYALUS was recommissioned on 28 June 1944 and after working
up at Scapa Flow, she joined the Home Fleet. In October 1944, she formed part of
the force providing cover for two carrier-based operations against
German-occupied Norway. In November, she went to Rosyth to prepare for service
in the East.
On 15 December 1944, HMS EURYALUS went to Liverpool and left the next day with
two destroyers, escorting SS Rimutaka which had on board the then Duke of
Gloucester (and his family, which included Prince Richard, now HRH the Duke of
Gloucester and Patron of the HMS EURYALUS Association) to take up his
appointment as Governor-General of Australia. The Royal Australian Navy took
over the escort duties at Colombo, HMS EURYALUS joining the 4th Cruiser Squadron
in the East Indies Fleet.
En route to Australia to join the British Pacific Fleet (BPF), on 24 January
1945, HMS EURYALUS took part in a carrier-launched air strike on the oil
refineries at Pladjoe and Palembang in Sumatra.
Leaving Sydney on 28 February 1945, with the battleship King George V and other
units of the BPF, she arrived at Manus in the Admiralty Islands. Leaving on 8
March 1945, the fleet sailed for Ulithi, Caroline Islands, to join the huge US
Fleet and take part in the assault on the Ryukyu Islands in Japan. For the next
32 days HMS EURYALUS remained at sea, escorting British fleet carriers engaged
in preliminary strikes on Formosa (now Taiwan) and adjoining islands, and
subject to kamikaze attacks. The task assigned to the BPF in the assault on
Okinawa was to neutralise the Japanese airfields in the Sakishima Gunto islands
at the southern end of the Ryukyus. The fleet returned to Leyte in the
Philippines to replenish on 23 April 1945, and sailed again on 1 May 1945, for
the final operation which resulted in the capture of Okinawa, returning to Manus
on 30 May 1945. During this period, HMS EURYALUS bombarded Miyako in the
Sakishima group. She briefly visited Brisbane in June.
On 6 July 1945, the BPF, commanded by Vice-Admiral Rawlings, joined USN
operations against the mainland of Japan, but the British and American Fleets
temporarily withdrew from the operational area for the dropping of atomic bombs
on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August respectively. After the surrender of
Japan on 14 August 1945, a British squadron, under the command of Rear-Admiral
Harcourt, was ordered to proceed to Hong Kong, to reoccupy the colony. Preceded
by RAN minesweepers, Swiftsure and HMS EURYALUS entered Hong Kong harbour at
noon on 30 August 1945, and parties were sent ashore to secure the dockyard and
the Prisoner of War Camps.
Now peacetime and initially based in Sydney, late 1945 and all of 1946 saw HMS
EURYALUS visiting many ports including Tonga, Shanghai, Manila, and in New
Zealand and Japan, showing the flag to re-establish British influence in the
West Pacific. She finally departed Hong Kong on 7 January 1947, arriving at
Rosyth on 22 March 1947 to decommission, having steamed 136,767 miles. The
longest period at sea was in July and August 1945, when the ship was operating
off Japan and steamed 16,850 miles non-stop for 44 days, then a RN record, using
the new technique of refuelling at sea.
After a refit and further modernisation at Rosyth, HMS EURYALUS recommissioned
on 20 February 1948, and joined the 1st Cruiser Squadron of the Mediterranean
Fleet on 14 May 1948; she soon became involved in the civil wars in Greece and
Palestine. On 14 May 1948, General Sir Alan Cunningham, the last High
Commissioner in Palestine, left the territory from Haifa in HMS EURYALUS, to end
the British Mandate. The ship returned to Britain in May 1950, recommissioned at
Plymouth and left again for the Mediterranean on 30 May 1950. HMS EURYALUS was
at Aqaba, where the Lancashire Fusiliers were based, on 25 April 1951 and, with
them, commemorated the thirty-sixth Anniversary of the Gallipoli Landings. Later
at a time of unrest in Iran, after the nationalisation of the Anglo-Persian Oil
Company, HMS EURYALUS was sent to the Persian Gulf from 5 May 1951 to 7 June
1951. She left the Mediterranean again in July 1951, pausing in the in the Canal
Zone to embark 42 Lancashire Fusiliers as integrated members of the ship’s
company, to become Abadan guard ship until September 1951.
In August 1952. HMS EURYALUS returned to Plymouth and again recommissioned for
the Mediterranean. She refitted in Malta from November to March 1953, and then
sailed for the South Atlantic to relieve Bermuda as the flagship of the
Commander-in-Chief, based in Simonstown. She was in Capetown for the Coronation
celebrations in June 1953 and then visited many ports on the east and west
coasts of Africa and Madagascar. This included a refit in Simonstown from
January to March 1954. Some members of her ship's company discovered a hitherto
unknown but well stocked fishing bank near town, which was named after the ship.
On 27 July 1954, HMS EURYALUS finally left the South Atlantic and arrived in
Plymouth on 19 August to pay off and reduce to reserve. Approval to scrap was
given in October 1958. On 18 July 1959 HMS EURYALUS arrived at Blyth to be
scrapped by Hughes Bolckow.
SHIP DETAILS:
The fifth HMS EURYALUS was a light cruiser built at HM Dockyard Chatham.
Laid down: 21 October 1937 HM Dockyard Chatham
Launched: 6 June 1939
Completed: 30 June 1941
Length: 512ft overall
Beam: 50ft
Displacement: 5770 tons
Draught: 14ft
Complement: 551 peacetime
620 wartime
Machinery: by Hawthorn Leslie & Co
Parsons single reduction geared turbines
4 shafts 64,000 SHP
4 Admiralty 3 drum boilers 400 psi
Speed: 32.25 knots
Armament: 10 x 5.25ins (third forward turret removed in 1943 refit)
16 light anti-aircraft guns on build; these were augmented and replaced by more
modern weapons during the ship's life
6 x 21in torpedo tubes
Armour: 1 - 2in on turrets, 2in on sides
The following link details HMS HMS EURYALUS' war service:
http://wow.naval-history.net/xGM-Chrono-06CL-HMS EURYALUS.htm
Ref: HMS EURYALUS Association - http://www.HMS EURYALUS.org.uk/hist-5th.htm.
Wikipedia.
Congo 2005 she is depict in margin of sheet.
Peter Crichton