REPULSE HMS 1916

[shipstamps]

The battlecruiser HMS REPULSE was built by the yard of John Brown & Co. at Clydebank, Scotland for the Royal Navy.
25 Jan. 1915 keel laid down.
08 Jan. 1916 launched under the name HMS REPULSE. One sistership HMS RENOWN.
Tonnage 32.000 tons displacement, 36.800 full load. Dim. 794.2½ x 102 2/3 x 31 3/4ft.
Brown Curtis direct drive turbines 110.000/120.000 shp, speed 30 knots, 4 screws.
42 Babcock and Wilcox boilers, bunker capacity, oil only, maximum 4.243 tons.
Armament 6 – 15 inch, 17 – 4 inch 2 – 3 inch and 4 –3pdrs. Torpedo tubes 21 inch, 2 submerges 8 above water in pairs.
Crew 1200.
August 1916 completed.

After commission joined the Grand Fleet and used with the Home Fleet in the North Sea the rest of World War I.
The class had a light armor protection, and after the war she received an extensive refit, her armor increased significantly.
1922 After the work was completed she was commissioned again. Took part in many fleet maneuvers and long distance cruises.

Between 1933-36 she was modernized, emerging with improved deck armor, a hangar and a catapult for launching aircrafts. Her anti aircraft armament greatly increased.
During the first two years of World War II she operated with the Home Fleet in the North Sea and Atlantic.
Took part in the hunt for the German battleship BISMARCK in May 1941.
End 1941 she got orders to proceed to the Far East together with the new battleship PRINCE OF WALES, and just before the outbreak of hostilities with Japan the two ships arrived at Singapore on 1 Dec.
When war broke out the squadron consisting of the two battlecruisers and an escort of destroyers, sailed from Singapore heading for the east coast of Malaya to intercept a reported invasion force.
The British squadron did not have any air protection, what was a great disadvantage, but Admiral Sir Tom Phillips on board the PRINCE OF WALES decided to push on and to try to destroy the Japanese troop transports and their escorts.
Around 11.30 a.m. of the 10th December, the squadron was attacked by around 60 Japanese aircraft. The HMS REPULSE at that moment under command of Capt. W.G.Tennant was hit by a bomb, which penetrated in the engine room. Later the squadron came again under attack from 27 torpedo planes and both battleships were vitally hit. The HMS REPULSE received heavy underwater damage, and she sank rapidly. When she sank she carried a complement of 1.467 men.
27 Officers and 407 rating lost there life.

Gambia 1995 5d sg 2033, scott 1631d
St Helena 1987 9p sg 501 and 20p
Tanzania 1992 75s sg 1316, scott 824c
Grenada Carriacou & Petite Martinique$6

[john sefton]

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