British Destroyers Equipped with Seaplanes?

[walterkaschner]

I read somewhere that certain RN Destroyers operating in the Med during WWII were equipped with seaplanes. Does anyone have any info on this?

Regards, Kaschner

[redcoat]

I read somewhere that certain RN Destroyers operating in the Med during WWII were equipped with seaplanes. Does anyone have any info on this?

Regards, Kaschner

Sorry, but no RN destroyers were equipped to carry seaplanes.
The only Allied destroyers in WW2 that were ever equipped to carry seaplanes, were 8 Dutch destroyers of the Admiralen-class, and a couple of US Fletcher destroyers, but none ever used them operationally, The Dutch had removed them by WW2, and in the case of the US, they were removed after trials showed them to be impractical.

[walterkaschner]

Thanks Redcoat! I have some familiarity with WW II vintage US destroyers and had my serious doubts. I now recall that the reference to seaplanes on RN destroyers comes from Alan Furst's latest novel Dark Voyage, when on a voyage through the Med his Dutch merchant ship captain spies a British Osprey, which supposedly comes from an RN destroyer over the horizon. He elsewhere suggests that German destroyers are also equipped with seaplanes. I am a great fan of Furst, as his books are set in the 1930's and 1940s and have an aura of verisimilitude about them. However, he is guilty of an occasional anachronism or outright error, and this appears to be one.

Regards, Kaschner

[Tiornu]

No German destroyer ever carried a seaplane. When was this novel said to take place? The Germans didn't have any destroyers at all until 1937. As far as I know, the only "German" destroyers in the Med would be captives from Greece etc.
I know of only a few isolated cases of British destroyers engaged in trials with aircraft: Thanet, Senator, and Stronghold. These were well before WWII. Perhaps there were other cases, but nothing I'm aware of.
Fiction is fiction. A little deutero-reality won't bother me, as long as it stays out of the non-fiction section.

[walterkaschner]

No German destroyer ever carried a seaplane. When was this novel said to take place? The Germans didn't have any destroyers at all until 1937. As far as I know, the only "German" destroyers in the Med would be captives from Greece etc.
I know of only a few isolated cases of British destroyers engaged in trials with aircraft: Thanet, Senator, and Stronghold. These were well before WWII. Perhaps there were other cases, but nothing I'm aware of.
Fiction is fiction. A little deutero-reality won't bother me, as long as it stays out of the non-fiction section.

Thanks Tiornu for the info. The time frame of Dark Voyage is April-June, 1941. It deals with a Dutch captain of a merchant ship which its owners placed under the virtual command of the British Admiralty. A rousing good tale and one I read with much pleasure, despite an error and anachronism or two - as an instance of the latter he has the Captain and his lover drinking Kirs Royales in a Paris brasserie in 1941, and the drink (named after the Chanoine Kir who was elected mayor of Dijon in 1945) was not known by that name until the 1950s. But so what? It's still a fine novel.

Regards, Kaschner

[John T]

despite an error and anachronism or two

The size of destroyers and the meaning of the term isn't easy to define.
Try to define the diffrence between a large destroyer and a old light cruiser.
You have to add country and timeframe to make the definition.

So make it an Light cruiser, not a destroyer and the author is in box.


Best regards
/John T.

[Tiornu]

There's not a lot of ambiguity. All British cruisers were armored; no British destroyers were armored. All British cruisers were rated as cruisers and known as cruisers; all British destroyers were rated as destroyers and known as destroyers. The same would hold true for German ships, but the point would be moot in the Med. The Germans did have a scout cruiser design that straddled the destroyer/cruiser line, but it was never built.
The smallest British cruiser would be more than twice the size of the largest British destroyer, and the same would apply with the Germans.

[Michael Emrys]

Of course, the IJN had its destroyer leaders, which would have been rated as light cruisers in other navies. I don't know if they carried planes, but I rather doubt it. And anyway, this is beside the point of the original post. Just thought I'd toss it in.

[John T]

There's not a lot of ambiguity. All British cruisers were armored; no British destroyers were armored. All British cruisers were rated as cruisers and known as cruisers; all British destroyers were rated as destroyers and known as destroyers. The same would hold true for German ships, but the point would be moot in the Med. The Germans did have a scout cruiser design that straddled the destroyer/cruiser line, but it was never built.
The smallest British cruiser would be more than twice the size of the largest British destroyer, and the same would apply with the Germans.

Tiornu,
I see no errors in your response, I just had to add this as I am getting back into an old hobby of mine,
collecting 1250 scale waterline models. A beautiful way to represent naval architecture
And a good way to compare different ships from different time periods.

Since you specified both timeframe and country in your answer I think you got my main point.
Regarding size I just had to point out that you refer to displacement, not volume.

Destroyer: HMS Cossack Size: 364 ft by 36 ft, displacement: 2,519 tons (max)
Cruiser: HMS Arethusa(WW2) Size: 506 ft by 51 ft displacement: 5,220 tons

and as a comparison
Cruiser: HMS Arethusa(WW1) 410 ft by 39 ft 3,512 tons



Cheers
/John T.

[Tiornu]

Arethusa makes a good choice. I believe she was the smallest cruiser in the RN to carry a scoutplane. Full load displacement was somewhere about 6800 tons. She represented a minimal cruiser design, the sort of concept the British pursued in their effort to get the largest possible number of ships--the sort that was abandoned as soon as the Mogami and Brooklyn classes made their appearance.
The Japanese light cruisers were rated as cruisers by the Japanese themselves. Despite their humble statistics, they too were distinctly cruiser-ish with armored machinery spaces and cruiser-caliber guns. Most of them did carry an airplane at one time or another.
The ships that are most obstinately astraddle the cruiser-destroyer line might be the later French contre-torpilleurs. In fact, some of them were re-rated as cruisers during the war. However, this was more a matter of publicity than reality as these ships were really just large destroyers carrying cruiser-ish guns.
Since we're discussing the Dutch, we can also mention Tromp, a very small cruiser and destroyer leader. She had a modest armor scheme and cruiser guns, but visually she resembled a destroyer more than any other ship we've mentioned, and she did have aviation facilities. She even served in the Med for a time. I think she was a likeable design, perhaps the best of cruiser-ettes. But then, we've already noted that Dutch destroyers themselves actually did carry aircraft prewar.

[walterkaschner]

Thanks, all, for the info.

I've gone back and reread the relevant portions of Dark Voyage once again, and at my age I should have learned by now never to trust my memory. In the first place, the Dutch captain is not described as spotting an Osprey, as I had recalled, but rather a Sea Otter - not that it really makes much difference, in that I don't believe any Sea Otters had yet joined the fleet in May-June of 1941. In the second, the other reference to aircraft equipped destroyers is not specifically to German destroyers, but rather to enemy destroyers, which could of course mean Italians. But again, it would seem to make no difference, as I can find nothing that would indicate that Italian destroyers were equipped with aircraft either.

As to the difficulty in differentiating between destroyers and light cruisers, I think that was really made pretty clear, at least with respect to the US, Japan and Great Britain and its Dominions, after the 1930 London Naval Limitation Treaty which in Part III (to which France and Italy were not parties) defines a destroyer as a vessel of war having a displacement not in excess of 1,850 tons and armament not exceeding 5.1 inches, and a cruiser as a vessel of war (other than a capital ship or aircraft carrier) having a tonnage or armament in excess of the destroyer limitations. The text of the Treaty may be found at:

http://www.microworks.net/pacific/road_ ... treaty.htm

These specific provisions expired in 1936, but aggregate tonnage limitations for each category were continued in the 1936 Treaty, in which Japan did not join, and in practice both the US and Great Britain and its Dominions continued to observe the 1930 Treaty destroyer limitations until well into WWII.

As for the Dutch light cruiser Tromp , she was laid down in 1936 and was indeed small for her category, but at 3,350 tons and with six 149.1mm (5.9 inch) guns she far outclassed any destroyers laid down during that period. And she did carry a Fokker sea plane on board. Her specs can be found at:

http://www.netherlandsnavy.nl/Tromp.htm

BTW, her history, for which there is a link on the above site, indicates that the totality of her service was in the far East, and apparently she never operated in the Med.

Well, this is an example of one of the fascinations of this Forum - a simple, stupid question can lead one down circuitous and incidental byways of knowledge to which one would otherwise remain a complete stranger.

Regards, Kaschner

[Tiornu]

Tromp spent approximately a week in the Mediterranean, right around the time when WWII broke out.
I can't find any indication of an Italian destroyer doing the seaplane thing. Italian destroyers tended toward the small side and would be among the least likely to attempt aviation activities.

[walterkaschner]

Thanks, Tiornu! I supose Tromp was in the Med on her way to the Dutch East Indies - a much shorter trip via Suez than rounding the Cape.

Regards, Kaschner

[redcoat]

In the first place, the Dutch captain is not described as spotting an Osprey, as I had recalled, but rather a Sea Otter - not that it really makes much difference, in that I don't believe any Sea Otters had yet joined the fleet in May-June of 1941.
Regards, Kaschner

You are correct.
The Sea Otter didn't enter operational service until late 1943, and that was with RAF Coastal Command, as Air-Sea rescue aircraft.
With the Fleet Air Arm the Sea Otter didn't enter service until November 1944, and the first Sea Otters to see service in the Mediterranean didn't do so until the European war was over in June 1945 with 1702 Squadron.

ps, useful quiz question.

The Supermarine Sea Otter has the distinction of being the last biplane to enter RAF service

[Tiornu]

Yeah, I suppose I rather overstated my point to say that Tromp "served" in the Med when she was really just passing through. My thinking in this thread (and it may be an overstatement to reference "thinking") is to reflect what a merchant skipper might know and understand rather than what I can point to in retrospect.