Tribal Class Destroyer HMS Sikh (F82)
HMS Sikh was a Tribal Class Destroyer ordered from Stephens of Govan on 19 June 1936 under the 1936 Build Programme. The ship was laid down on 24 September 1936 and launched on 17 December 1937 as the second Royal Navy warship to carry this name that had previously been used by a destroyer sold in 1927 and is that of a Hindi community dating back to the 14th century. Construction was completed on 12 October 1938 at a cost of £337, 704 5s. Following a successful Warship Week National Savings campaign in March this ship was adopted by the civil community of Beckenham. Kent.
14th Destroyer Fleet
HMS Sikh, HMS Gurkha, HMS Afridi and HMS Mohawk were patrolling in the Red Sea when war broke out. The ships quickly returned to the Mediterranean for convoy escort duty and blockades of Italy and ports of LIbya.
As part of 14th D.F., HMS Sikh, HMS Maori, HMS Legion, and HrMs Isaac Sweers, she took part in the sinking of the Italian cruisers Alberico di Barbiano and Alberto di Giussano off Cape Bon, Tunisia.
22nd Destroyer Fleet
After a period of rest and refit at Malta, HMS Sikh and HMS Maori took part in the First Battle of Sirte, then operated from Alexandria, Egypt in December. Orders were then issued for HMS Sikh and HMS Maori to return to Malta, and join HMS Zulu and form the 22nd D.F. This force would operate against Axis supply convoys between Italy and North Africa.
Operation Agreement
HMS Sikh (under Captain St John Micklethwait), in company with her sistership, HMS Zulu, were on a commando raid (Operation Agreement) on the Libyan port Tobruk, on the night of September 13/14, 1942, when att 0500 hours, a searchlight held Sikh in its beam and she was bombarded from the shore.
Sikh's and Zulu's gunners returned fire, but at 0526 Sikh was hit by a huge shell which started a fire and hit some ammunition which exploded, killing several British commandos. Another heavy caliber shell hit in one of the engine rooms, reducing the ship's speed. Then came the coup de grâce, with the shore batteries hitting the steering gear. The crippled destroyer could only turn slowly in circles, halting when the engines stopped. Zulu made several attempts to take her in tow, eventually succeeding, only for the hawser to snap when a shell landed on her quarterdeck. HMS Sikh was abandoned, with the B turret crew still firing as the destroyer slowly sank in position 32º05'N, 24º00'E . Forced to retire, Zulu turned seawards, leaving Sikh ablaze fore and aft, but Zulu was sunk in a follow up raid by fighter-bombers from 13° Gruppo.[1]
Three Italian torpediniere (old World War I destroyers) rescued the survivors of Sikh. The British survivors were taken to the POW camp in Chiete (southern Italy) and liberated on 21 March 1943 at the Turkish city of Mersin in exchange for German and Italian POWs.[2]
According to the British survivors the destroyer was sunk by heavy naval guns in the coastal defence role:
The Sikh was sunk by cross fire from two batteries of six inch [152mm Regia Marina guns] which the freed prisoners said had been especially mounted in anticipation of the raid. Despite this gunfire and the subsequent bombardment of small boats after they had abandoned ship, the Sikh lost only 17 men, although many more of the marine landing party were lost.[3]
The Allied Official Histories credit the sinking to the single local German 88mm battery. In addition to the 30 German different caliber anti-aircraft guns and the more numerous (78) Italian anti-aircraft, field, anti-tank, 4-inch and 5.9-inch coastal guns the British destroyer was engaged by the Regia Marina amphibious landing ships MZ 728 and MZ 750 with their 3-inch guns.
The Italian coastal defences in the raid included five batteries of the Cannone da 90/53 90mm guns (the Italian equivalent of the German 88mm flak gun) astride the harbour, 1,000 yards north of the so-called 'Arab village'.[4]
Today HMS Sikh it is a historical diving wreck that can be visited from Libya.
Notes
- ↑ " "Zulu had fallen victim to MC.200 fighter-bombers of 13° Gruppo. Twenty-one of this unit's Macchis, some of which had recently been equipped with wing racks to carry 50kg bombs, had set off early in the morning in a succession of waves to attack the Allied shipping approaching Tobruk." A History of the Mediterranean Air War, 1940-1945: Volume 2: North African Desert, February 1942 - March 1943, Christopher Shores, Giovanni Massimello, Casemate Publishers, 2014
- ↑ NAZIS HAD FULL PLANS OF RAID
- ↑ Tobruk Raid Was Washout, The Milwaukee Journal, 23 May 1943
- ↑ Massacre at Tobruk: The Story of Operation Agreement, Peter Charles Smith, p. 30, W. Kimber, 1987