Cavalier's 80th
There are but a few surviving warships from either the First or Second World War with the most famous being the Belfast moored on the Thames but there is smaller vessel only around thirty miles away from her tucked away in Chatham Dockyard.
HMS Cavalier is the last remaining British destroyer from the War and although ORP Blyskawica in Gdansk has a much richer war record with the British and Polish navies, the Cavalier represents all of the British destroyers who served and were lost in the conflict.
So why am I writing about Cavalier today? Is this a sly under radar way of advertising for the Dockyard? Yes but not really as the ‘yard is not open again until February but this is the anniversary of Cavalier’s commissioning date (near enough) and she is 80 years old. In fact there is a celebration aboard today (23rd November).
The Cavalier was one of some ninety six destroyers that were ordered as part of the War Emergency Programme destroyers ordered to replace the losses of the early part of the war and was eventually laid down at J Samuel White’s at Cowes on the 28th March 1943 and launched on the 7th April 1944 before final commissioning on 22nd November 1944.
Interestingly she is one of the first vessels to have the hull welded at the fore and aft whilst the mid-section being riveted which gave her strength as well as more speed.
Once completed the destroyer was assigned to the 6th Destroyer Flotilla attached to the Home Fleet and was involved in several operations off Norway including Operation Hotbed which was the the movement of the convoys JW 64 and RA 64. Cavalier’s role was restricted to the RA 64 convoy, which was making its way from Kola Inlet in Russia back to Britain and its journey had seen one of the escorts, HMS Lark, torpedoed by U-968 and had to be towed back to Kola. The U-968 would also sink the Thomas Scott and the U-711 sank HMS Bluebell before bad weather set in and scattered the ships, briefly, then the Luftwaffe arrived and sank the Henry Bacon on the 23rd February. On that day the Myngs, Scorpion and Cavalier sailed from Scapa to meet the convoy to augment the escort and keep the convoy together. She would return four days later.
As part of Operation Selenium the Cavalier, as part of Force 2 went with the Devonshire, Premier, Puncher, Cavandish, Zebra and Scourge to meet up with Force 1 (Norfolk, Dido, Myngs, Scorpion and Savage.) to seek out enemy shipping between Bud and Kvatholm. None was encountered and the mission called off.
For taking part in these operations she was granted the battle honour, Arctic.
She sailed for the Pacific afterwards and was part of the British Pacific fleet taking part in the Battle of Surabaya between the British and Indonesians and to Bombay to quell the Royal Indian Navy revolt of February 1946.
After these duties and a refit to remove torpedo tubes and Y turret in favour of squid mortars for anti-submarine work she was assigned to Operation Grapple, the Nuclear tests off Malden Island and then ordered to the Maldives to maintain defence of the vital base from terrorist or civil unrest. Another policing mission took place in December 1962 with the landing of troops in Brunei to help quell a rebellion as part of the Indonesia-Malaysia Confrontation.
Whilst under tow in Gibraltar in May 1964, she rammed the tanker Burgan. badly damaging the destroyer’s bow. Repairs were made at Portsmouth and a new bow was fashioned at Devonport.
Cavalier’s big claim to fame was the race that saw her become Cock of the fleet and defeat HMS Rapid.
So I should preface this with the Royal Navy do not race their warships - officially- but when ships are going back into service following refits and what not they have to sail around and open their engines up to make sure that dockyards have done a good job of refitting them and sometimes there is an unofficial wager between rival crews and Captains as to whether they are faster. So on 6th July 1970 the Cavalier and the former World War 2 destroyer Rapid (which had been refitted and made a Frigate) formed up and raced a sixty four mile course in the Firth of Forth. It was a tightly fought contest with Rapid inching ahead until one of her safety valves blew and Cavalier pipped them to the post by thirty yards. She had averaged 31.8 knots.
Of course there were accusations of cheating from the Rapid’s crew and rumours persist of the Cavalier’s Chief engineer walking round with a sledgehammer and bashing all of her safety valves in. Also any spare ratings were sent to the Aft end so that their combined weight pushed the propellers deeper into the water and gave them more bight.
In in 1972 Cavalier was decommissioned at Chatham and laid up in Portsmouth for scrapping whilst a campaign was led to save her which eventually won out with £65,000 being raided by the Cavalier Trust and paid on Trafalgar Day 1977. Although there are no ties with the Royal Navy itself the ship was allowed special dispensation to keep the HMS prefix and fly the white ensign.
After a year as a museum ship in Southampton she was moved to Brighton where she was the centrepiece of the new yacht marina from 1983-87 before moving up to the Tyneside for the National shipbuilding exhibition. Whilst there, allegedly, quite a lot of the original wiring was erm… liberated by the locals.
With the Tyneside museum falling through and the council faced with a £30,000 saw the poor old Cavalier up for sail again or face scrapping. The reformation of the Cavalier Association they managed to save the ship again and bring her to Chatham again with her arriving on 23rd May 1998 and sits in dry dock No.2, the same dock Victory and Achilles were built. A large bronze relief listing all 142 destroyers that were lost lays alongside on the dock to commemorate the 11,000 men lost aboard them during the Second World War.
Cavalier may not have had the same sort of glittering career or battle honours as Belfast or Caroline but she has a very individual story, she was fastest ship in the fleet and even at nearly thirty years old could pump out that sort of speed.
She also represents all of the destroyers of the Second World War, the workhorses of the Royal Navy carrying out many different tasks including convoy escort, scouting, bombardments and engagements such as Narvik, Operation Juno and even attacking Bismarck. There are amazing stories like Glowworm attacking Hipper, Ardent and Acasta facing down two German battleships. These efforts and sacrifices of the men and ships are stories that need to be told and Cavalier does that well.