HMS Dorsetshire (pennant number

Pennant number

In the modern Royal Navy, and other navies of Europe and the Commonwealth, ships are identified by pennant numbers...

 40) was a heavy cruiser

Heavy cruiser

The heavy cruiser was a type of cruiser, a naval warship designed for long range, high speed and an armament of naval guns roughly 203mm calibre . The heavy cruiser can be seen as a lineage of ship design from 1915 until 1945, although the term 'heavy cruiser' only came into formal use in 1930...

 of the County class

County class cruiser

The County class was a class of heavy cruisers built for the British Royal Navy in the years between the First and Second World Wars. They were the first post-war cruiser construction for the Royal Navy and were designed within the limits of the Washington Naval Conference of 1922...

 of the Royal Navy

Royal Navy

The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

, named after the English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 county

County

A county is a jurisdiction of local government in certain modern nations. Historically in mainland Europe, the original French term, comté, and its equivalents in other languages denoted a jurisdiction under the sovereignty of a count A county is a jurisdiction of local government in certain...

 (now usually known as Dorset

Dorset

Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...

). She was launched on 29 January 1929 at Portsmouth Dockyard

HMNB Portsmouth

Her Majesty's Naval Base Portsmouth is one of three operating bases in the United Kingdom for the British Royal Navy...

, UK

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

. During the Second World War

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, she was last commanded by Captain

Captain (naval)

Captain is the name most often given in English-speaking navies to the rank corresponding to command of the largest ships. The NATO rank code is OF-5, equivalent to an army full colonel....

 Augustus Agar V.C.

Victoria Cross

The Victoria Cross is the highest military decoration awarded for valour "in the face of the enemy" to members of the armed forces of various Commonwealth countries, and previous British Empire territories....

. The Dorsetshire was sunk by Japanese dive bombers in the Indian Ocean

Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...

 in 1942.

Interwar

Upon commissioning, Dorsetshire became the flagship

Flagship

A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, reflecting the custom of its commander, characteristically a flag officer, flying a distinguishing flag...

 of the 2nd Cruiser Squadron. In 1931, she was part of the Atlantic Fleet during the Invergordon Mutiny

Invergordon Mutiny

The Invergordon Mutiny was an industrial action by around 1,000 sailors in the British Atlantic Fleet, that took place on 15–16 September 1931...

 but the incident was brought to a close before her crew joined the mutiny

Mutiny

Mutiny is a conspiracy among members of a group of similarly situated individuals to openly oppose, change or overthrow an authority to which they are subject...

. From 1933-1936, she served on the Africa Station. In 1936, she received a refit, and the following year she joined the China Station

China Station

The China Station was a historical formation of the British Royal Navy. It was formally the units and establishments responsible to the Commander-in-Chief, China....

.

The Atlantic and South Africa

In December 1939, a couple months after war was declared, Dorsetshire — with other Royal Navy ships— was sent to Uruguay in pursuit of the German

Kriegsmarine

The Kriegsmarine was the name of the German Navy during the Nazi regime . It superseded the Kaiserliche Marine of World War I and the post-war Reichsmarine. The Kriegsmarine was one of three official branches of the Wehrmacht, the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany.The Kriegsmarine grew rapidly...

 pocket battleship

Deutschland class cruiser

The Deutschland class was a series of three panzerschiffe , a form of heavily armed cruiser, built by the Reichsmarine officially in accordance with restrictions imposed by the Treaty of Versailles...

  in the aftermath of the Battle of the River Plate

Battle of the River Plate

The Battle of the River Plate was the first naval battle in the Second World War. The German pocket battleship had been commerce raiding since the start of the war in September 1939...

. Dorsetshire left Simonstown, South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

 on 13 December, and was still in transit on 17 December when the Germans scuttled Graf Spee.

She operated in the Atlantic for a short while, and in February 1940, she intercepted the German supply freighter Wakama, which was promptly scuttled by her crew. On 2 March, Dorsetshire left the Falklands — with wounded sailors from fellow cruiser — en route to Cape Town

Cape Town

Cape Town is the second-most populous city in South Africa, and the provincial capital and primate city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital of the country. It forms part of the City of Cape Town metropolitan municipality...

 via Tristan da Cunha

Tristan da Cunha

Tristan da Cunha is a remote volcanic group of islands in the south Atlantic Ocean and the main island of that group. It is the most remote inhabited archipelago in the world, lying from the nearest land, South Africa, and from South America...

, where the islanders were supplied with stores. On the 11th, the wounded and the prisoners from the German freighter were put ashore.

Dorsetshire then returned to the UK, arriving at Plymouth

Plymouth

Plymouth is a city and unitary authority area on the coast of Devon, England, about south-west of London. It is built between the mouths of the rivers Plym to the east and Tamar to the west, where they join Plymouth Sound...

 on 25 May. She spent less than a week here, departing again for Freetown

Freetown

Freetown is the capital and largest city of Sierra Leone, a country in West Africa. It is a major port city on the Atlantic Ocean located in the Western Area of the country, and had a city proper population of 772,873 at the 2004 census. The city is the economic, financial, and cultural center of...

 at the end of the month. In June, she set out from Freetown to follow the French

French Navy

The French Navy, officially the Marine nationale and often called La Royale is the maritime arm of the French military. It includes a full range of fighting vessels, from patrol boats to a nuclear powered aircraft carrier and 10 nuclear-powered submarines, four of which are capable of launching...

 battleship

Battleship

A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of heavy caliber guns. Battleships were larger, better armed and armored than cruisers and destroyers. As the largest armed ships in a fleet, battleships were used to attain command of the sea and represented the apex of a...

 , which had left Dakar

Dakar

Dakar is the capital city and largest city of Senegal. It is located on the Cap-Vert Peninsula on the Atlantic coast and is the westernmost city on the African mainland...

 for Casablanca

Casablanca

Casablanca is a city in western Morocco, located on the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital of the Grand Casablanca region.Casablanca is Morocco's largest city as well as its chief port. It is also the biggest city in the Maghreb. The 2004 census recorded a population of 2,949,805 in the prefecture...

. Richelieu was eventually ordered to return to Dakar by her admiral, François Darlan

François Darlan

Jean Louis Xavier François Darlan was a French naval officer. His great-grandfather was killed at the Battle of Trafalgar...

. Dorsetshire continued to monitor the French Navy off Dakar throughout July. On 4 September, she was dry-docked at Durban

Durban

Durban is the largest city in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal and the third largest city in South Africa. It forms part of the eThekwini metropolitan municipality. Durban is famous for being the busiest port in South Africa. It is also seen as one of the major centres of tourism...

, and on the 20th she arrived back in Simonstown. She sailed for Sierra Leone the next day.

Now operating in the Indian Ocean

Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...

, in November she bombarded Zante in Italian Somaliland

Italian Somaliland

Italian Somaliland , also known as Italian Somalia, was a colony of the Kingdom of Italy from the 1880s until 1936 in the region of modern-day Somalia. Ruled in the 19th century by the Somali Sultanate of Hobyo and the Majeerteen Sultanate, the territory was later acquired by Italy through various...

. In December, she was back in dock at Simonstown, before departing later that month to search for the pocket battleship , which had recently sunk a British refrigerator ship in the South Atlantic

Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...

. On 18 January 1941, she captured the Vichy French freighter Mendoza and escorted the ship to Takaradi. By March, she was once again at Simonstown.

The Bismarck and Singapore

In late May 1941, Dorsetshire was one of the ships which engaged the German battleship in the North Atlantic. On 27 May, Dorsetshire was ordered to torpedo

Torpedo

The modern torpedo is a self-propelled missile weapon with an explosive warhead, launched above or below the water surface, propelled underwater towards a target, and designed to detonate either on contact with it or in proximity to it.The term torpedo was originally employed for...

 Bismarck, which had by that point been crippled by repeated aircraft and naval attacks. Dorsetshire torpedoed Bismarck, which then sank rapidly, either from the damage she had received from the British, or from Bismarcks crew working to scuttle her. Dorsetshire was able to recover only 110 of the Bismarcks crew from the ocean, before being forced to leave to evade a suspected U-boat

U-boat

U-boat is the anglicized version of the German word U-Boot , itself an abbreviation of Unterseeboot , and refers to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in World War I and World War II...

. Dorsetshire's navigating officer, Lieutenant Commander Durant, sighted on the starboard bow two miles away a smoky discharge in the water. He pointed it out to Captain Benjamin Charles Stanley Martin and others on the bridge. No one knew what it was but the most likely explanation was a U-boat. The Admiralty had sent a warning that U-boats were on the way and they were lucky not to have encountered any already. And if it was a U-boat, Dorsetshire, laying stopped in the water, was a sitting target. In the circumstances, Captain Martin had no choice but to ring down for full speed and in HMS Maori, Commander Armstrong did the same.

In September, Dorsetshire departed Freetown to cover the five-ship convoy WS-10X which arrived in South Africa from the UK with troops in route to the Middle East

Middle East

The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...

. In November-December, WS-12X, a convoy of 10 troop transport ships, steamed out from Halifax, Canada

City of Halifax

Halifax is a city in Canada, which was the capital of the province of Nova Scotia and shire town of Halifax County. It was the largest city in Atlantic Canada until it was amalgamated into Halifax Regional Municipality in 1996...

 en route to Bombay, India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. However, when WS-12X arrived in Cape Town on 9 December, it was diverted to Singapore

Singapore

Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...

 with the Dorsetshire as an escort. This convoy was labelled “12X” instead of “13” in deference to nautical superstition, but to no avail. The entire 18th Division successfully landed only to surrender a few weeks later after seeing little action in the capitulation of Singapore

Battle of Singapore

The Battle of Singapore was fought in the South-East Asian theatre of the Second World War when the Empire of Japan invaded the Allied stronghold of Singapore. Singapore was the major British military base in Southeast Asia and nicknamed the "Gibraltar of the East"...

.

Eastern Fleet and sinking

Dorsetshire was deployed on 11 November in the search for the German commerce raider (the "Raider C") that had preyed on Allied shipping. Dorsetshire also chanced upon the German supply ship Python on 1 December, which was refuelling U-boats in the South Atlantic

Atlantic Ocean

The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...

. The U-boats dived, and one of them fired some torpedoes at Dorsetshire, but missing her. The crew of Python scuttled their ship.

In 1942, Dorsetshire was assigned to the Eastern Fleet in the Indian Ocean

Indian Ocean

The Indian Ocean is the third largest of the world's oceanic divisions, covering approximately 20% of the water on the Earth's surface. It is bounded on the north by the Indian Subcontinent and Arabian Peninsula ; on the west by eastern Africa; on the east by Indochina, the Sunda Islands, and...

. In the Imperial Japanese Navy

Imperial Japanese Navy

The Imperial Japanese Navy was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1869 until 1947, when it was dissolved following Japan's constitutional renunciation of the use of force as a means of settling international disputes...

's Indian Ocean raid

Indian Ocean raid

The Indian Ocean raid was a naval sortie by the Fast Carrier Strike Force of the Imperial Japanese Navy from 31 March-10 April 1942 against Allied shipping and bases in the Indian Ocean. It was an early engagement of the Pacific campaign of World War II...

, she and her sister ship

Sister ship

A sister ship is a ship of the same class as, or of virtually identical design to, another ship. Such vessels share a near-identical hull and superstructure layout, similar displacement, and roughly comparable features and equipment...

  were attacked by Japanese Navy Aichi D3A

Aichi D3A

The , Allied reporting name "Val") was a World War II carrier-borne dive bomber of the Imperial Japanese Navy . It was the primary dive bomber in the Imperial Japanese Navy, and participated in almost all actions, including Pearl Harbor....

 Val dive bomber

Dive bomber

A dive bomber is a bomber aircraft that dives directly at its targets in order to provide greater accuracy for the bomb it drops. Diving towards the target reduces the distance the bomb has to fall, which is the primary factor in determining the accuracy of the drop...

s 320 km (198.8 mi) southwest of Ceylon on 5 April. Dorsetshire was hit by 10 bombs and sank stern first at about 13:50. Cornwall was hit eight times and sank bow first about 10 minutes later. Of Dorsetshires crew, 234 men were killed in the attack; more than 500 survived in the water or on rafts, being picked up by the cruiser and the destroyers and the next day. Captain Agar was among the survivors.

See also

Augustus Agar

Augustus Agar

Captain Augustus Willington Shelton Agar, VC, DSO, RN was a noted Royal Navy officer in both World War I and World War II and a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.In...

for a more detailed discussion of the circumstances surrounding Dorsetshires last days.

External links

HMS Dorsetshire at U-boat.net
Cruisers of World War II

Details of HMS Dorsetshire