HMS Dunedin

Dunedin turning into Gardens Reach on the Brisbane River. South Brisbane wharves in background.
History
United Kingdom
Name:	HMS Dunedin
Builder:	Armstrong Whitworth (Newcastle-on-Tyne, UK): Hawthorn Leslie and Company, (Hebburn, UK)
Laid down:	5 November 1917
Launched:	19 November 1918
Commissioned:	13 September 1919
Fate:	Sunk 24 November 1941 by U-124
General characteristics
Class & type:	Danae-class light cruiser
Displacement:	4,276 tons Full: 5,603 tons After 1924: 4,850
Length:	445 ft (136 m)
Beam:	46 ft 6 in (14.17 m)
Draught:	14 ft 6 in (4.42 m)
Propulsion:	Six Yarrow-type water-tube boilers Parsons geared steam turbines Two shafts 40,000 shp (30 MW)
Speed:	29 knots (54 km/h)
Range:	2,300 nmi (4,300 km)
Complement:	462
Armament:	1918: 6 x BL 6 in L/45 Mark XII on single mountings CP Mark XIV (152 mm) 2 × 3 inch (76.2 mm) Mk II AA guns 2 × 40 mm QF 2-pounder "pom-pom" AA guns 12 × 21 in (530 mm) torpedoes (4 triple launchers)
Armour:	3 inch side (amidships) 2, 1¾, 1½ side (bow and stern) 1 inch upper decks (amidships) 1 inch deck over rudder

HMS Dunedin was a Danae-class light cruiser of the Royal Navy. She was launched from the yards of Armstrong Whitworth, Newcastle-on-Tyne on 19 November 1918 and commissioned on 13 September 1919. She has been the only ship of the Royal Navy to bear the name Dunedin.

Service history

In October 1920 she, with the other three British vessels, was sent to assure protection of the unloading of munitions intended for Poland, at Danzig.

In 1931 she provided assistance to the town of Napier, New Zealand, after the strong Hawkes Bay earthquake, in a task force with the sloop Veronica and the cruiser Diomede.

Second World War

Early in the Second World War, Dunedin was involved in the hunt for the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau after the sinking of the armed merchant cruiser Rawalpindi.

In early 1940 Dunedin was operating in the Caribbean Sea, and there she intercepted the German merchant ship Heidelberg west of the Windward Passage. Heidelberg's crew scuttled the ship before Dunedin could take her. A few days later, Dunedin, in company with the Canadian destroyer Assiniboine, intercepted and captured the German merchant ship Hannover near Jamaica. Hannover later became the first British escort carrier, Audacity. Between July and November, Dunedin, together with the cruiser Trinidad, maintained a blockade off Martinique, in part to bottle up three French warships, including the aircraft carrier Béarn.

On 15 June 1941, Dunedin captured the German tanker Lothringen and gathered some highly classified Enigma cipher machines that she carried. The Royal Navy reused Lothringen as the fleet oiler Empire Salvage. Dunedin went on to capture three Vichy French vessels, Ville de Rouen off Natal, the merchant ship Ville de Tamatave east of the St. Paul's Rocks, and finally, D'Entrecasteaux.

Dunedin was still steaming in the Central Atlantic Ocean, just east of the St. Paul's Rocks, north east of Recife, Brazil, when on 24 November 1941, at 1526 hours, two torpedoes from the German submarine U-124 sank her. Only four officers and 63 men survived out of Dunedin's crew of 486 officers and men.

References

• Jane's Fighting Ships of World War One (1919), Jane's Publishing Company
• Royal Navy Log Books of the World War 1
• HMS Dunedin at U-boat.net
• Ships of the Danae class