HMS Bickerton
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| History | |
|---|---|
 Vereinigte Staaten | |
| Name | Eisele |
| Builder | Bethlehem-Hingham Shipyard Inc., Hingham, Massachusetts |
| Laid down | 3 May 1943 |
| Identification | DE-75 |
| Fate | Transferred to Royal Navy |
 Vereinigtes Königreich | |
| Name | Bickerton |
| Namesake | Sir Richard Bickerton |
| Launched | 26 July 1943 |
| Commissioned | 17 October 1943 |
| Identification | Pennant number K466 |
| Fate | Torpedoed and sunk by U-354 22 August 1944 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type | Template:Sclass2- |
| Displacement | 1,800 long tons (1,800 t) (fully loaded) |
| Length | 306 ft (93 m) (overall) |
| Beam | 36 ft 6 in (11.13 m) |
| Draught | 11 ft (3.4 m) (fully loaded) |
| Speed | 24 knots (44 km/h; 28 mph) |
| Range | 5,500 nmi (10,200 km; 6,300 mi) at 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph) |
| Complement | Typically between 170-180 |
HMS Bickerton was a Template:Sclass2- of the TE (Template:Sclass-) type of the Royal Navy. She served during the World War II as a convoy escort and anti-submarine warfare vessel in the Battle of the Atlantic and was an effective U-boat killer, being credited with the destruction of two U-boats during a service career of just 10 months. Bickerton was lost in action on 22 August 1944.
Name
Originally this ship was provisionally given the name USS Eisele (this name was reassigned to DE-34). However the delivery was diverted to the Royal Navy before launch, and she was re-named for Sir Richard Bickerton commander of HMS Terrible at the First Battle of Ushant during the American Revolutionary War..
The Commanding Officers were Lieutenant EM Thorpe RN and Commander D. MacIntyre, (Senior Officer 5th Escort Group).
Bauwesen
Bickerton was ordered on 10 January 1942, as DE-75, a long-hulled turbo-diesel (TE) type destroyer escort, one of more than 500 such vessels built for ASW to a collaborative British-American design.[1] She was laid down on 3 May 1943, by the Bethlehem Hingham Shipyard in Hingham, Massachusetts. She was launched on 24 July and completed 17 October, in the remarkably (but not unusually) short build time of 5 months 14 days[2][note 1]
Service career
Bickerton served exclusively with the 5th Escort Group earning battle honours for service in the Arctic (Russian Convoys), North Atlantic, off Normandy and in the English Channel.
On commissioning and working up Bickerton, under the command of Lt. EM Thorpe sailed for Britain, where she was modified to meet Royal Navy requirements. In March 1944 she was allocated to Western Approaches Command as senior ship of 5th Escort Group under her new captain, Cdr. D Macintyre.
In April 5EG joined ON 233 as support group, but was detached to hunt for a U-boat on weather-reporting duty. On 6 May 1944, the German submarine U-765 was found and sunk in the North Atlantic — in position 52°30′N 28°28′W / 52.500°N 28.467°W — by depth charges from Bickerton, operating alongside two Fairey Swordfish (No. 825 Squadron) of the escort carrier Vindex and frigates Bligh and Aylmer. Of the crew of U-765, 37 died and 11 survived.[3] A further search for the U-boat sent as U-765’s relief was unsuccessful.
In June Bickerton and 5EG were deployed in the English Channel as part of Operation Neptune, the naval component of the Normandy landings. Their task was to guard against interference by U-boats from the Biscay ports. On 15 June the group was in an unsuccessful action against a U-boat, during which the frigate Mourne was sunk. (The U-boat, U-767, was caught three days later and destroyed by 14 EG.)[4]
Ten days later on 25 June, off Start Point, Bickerton and 5 EG found and sank U-269 — in position 50°01′N 02°59′W / 50.017°N 2.983°W. Of the crew of U-269, 13 died and 39 survived.[5]
Fate
Bickerton was escorting the second group of escort carriers (Trumpeter and Nabob) from the Home Fleet (under Admiral Moore), which covered the convoy JW 59 and launched further attacks (Operation Goodwood) on the German battleship Tirpitz in Altenfjord. Before the group was able to launch an attack on Tirpitz, U-354 encountered them on her search for the convoy northwest of the North Cape in the Barents Sea. At about 01:00 on 22 August, U-354 badly damaged Nabob with a pattern-running FAT torpedo spread. The U-boat then tried to sink her at 01:22 with a GNAT homing torpedo, which struck Bickerton. She was subsequently scuttled by a torpedo from Vigilant at position 71°42′N 19°11′E / 71.700°N 19.183°E.
References
- Collingwood, Donald (1998). The Captain Class Frigates in the Second World War. Leo Cooper. ISBN 0-85052-615-9.
- Franklin, Bruce Hampton (1999). The Buckley-Class Destroyer Escorts. Chatham Publishing. ISBN 1-86176-118-X.
- Niestle, Axel (1998). German U-Boat Losses During World War II. United States Naval Institute. ISBN 1-55750-641-8.
This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships. The entry can be found here.
External links
- HMS Bickerton at uboat.net
- HMS Bickerton at navalhistory.net
- Uboat.net page for U-765
- Uboat.net page for U-269
- Uboat.net page for U-354
- captainclassfrigates.co.uk
Shipwrecks and maritime incidents in August 1944 | |
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| Shipwrecks |
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| Other incidents | |
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