HMS Valorous (L00)

The fifth HMS Valorous, ex-HMS Montrose, was a V-class flotilla leader of the British Royal Navy that saw service in World War I, the Russian Civil War, and World War II.

For other ships with the same name, see HMS Valorous and HMS Montrose.

HMS Valorous (bearing L00 pennant number) during World War II.
History
United Kingdom
Name: HMS Valorous
Ordered: April 1916[1]
Builder: William Denny and Brothers, Dumbarton, Scotland[2]
Laid down: 25 May 1916[2]
Identification: Pennant number F.92 (in 1917)
Renamed: HMS Valorous
Namesake: valorous
Launched: 8 May 1917[2]
Completed: 21 August 1917[2]
Commissioned: 21 August 1917[1]
Decommissioned: 1931[2]
Recommissioned: June 1939[2]
Decommissioned: either by July 1945[1] or soon after 15 August 1945[2]
Motto: Valenter volenter ("Strongly and willingly")[2]
Honours and
awards:
Fate:
  • For disposal 1946
  • Sold for scrapping 4 March 1947[2]
Badge: A Shaheen falcon within a blue annulet on a white field[2]
General characteristics (Admiralty V leader)
Class and type: Admiralty V-class flotilla leader
Displacement: 1,316–1,339 long tons (1,337–1,360 t)
Length: 312 ft (95.1 m) o/a, 300 ft (91.4 m) p/p
Beam: 26 ft 9 in (8.15 m)
Draught: 9 ft (2.7 m) standard, 11 ft 3 in (3.43 m) deep
Propulsion: 3 Yarrow-type Water-tube boilers, Brown-Curtis steam turbines, 2 shafts, 27,500 shp (20,507 kW)
Speed: 34 kn (63.0 km/h; 39.1 mph)
Range: 320–370 tons oil, 3,500 nmi (6,482 km; 4,028 mi) at 15 kn (28 km/h; 17 mph), 900 nmi (1,667 km; 1,036 mi) at 32 kn (59 km/h; 37 mph)
Complement: 115
Armament:

Construction and commissioning

The ship was ordered in April 1916 for delivery in April 1917, and was initially intended to be named HMS Montrose; her keel was laid down on 25 May 1916 by William Denny and Brothers of Dumbarton, Scotland. During September 1916 she was renamed HMS Valorous[4] and she was launched under that name on 8 May 1917. She was completed on 21 August 1917[2] and commissioned the same day.[1][2]

Service history

World War I

Upon completion, Valorous entered service with the fleet during World War I. Before the Armistice with Germany ended the war on 11 November 1918, she had been converted for use as minelayer.[2]

Interwar

After the conclusion of World War I, Valorous deployed to the Baltic Sea to participate in the British campaign there against Bolshevik forces during the Russian Civil War, seeing action against Russian warships.[2] In 1919, she and the destroyer HMS Vancouver severely damaged the Bolshevik submarine Ersh, which barely made it back to base at Kronstadt.[5] In 1921 she began service in the Atlantic Fleet and later was assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet until relieved there in 1931, when the flotilla leader was decommissioned and placed in reserve.[2]

In 1938, the Royal Navy selected Valorous for conversion into an anti-aircraft escort under the naval rearmament programme, and she entered Chatham Dockyard for the required work. Upon its completion in June 1939, she was recommissioned, and in August 1939 was assigned to the escort force at Rosyth, Scotland.[2]

World War II

When the United Kingdom entered World War II in September 1939, Valorous took up convoy defence duties in the North Sea and Northwestern Approaches with Rosyth Force. In January 1940 her duties were expanded to include the defence of convoys along the east coast of Great Britain and in the English Channel. She did not take part in the evacuation of Allied troops from Dunkirk, France, remaining on convoy escort duties instead. On 11 June 1940, she was escorting Convoy FN 23 when it came under German air attack and, after a German bomb hit sank the collier Heworth, rescued Heworth's crew.[2]

In July 1940, Valorous's duties expanded again to include anti-invasion patrols. In 1941, after the threat of invasion had subsided, she returned to her convoy escort focus. On 21 June 1941 the flotilla leader rescued the only three survivors of the tanker Vancouver, which had struck a naval mine and caught fire off Sunk Head Buoy, Harwich, with the loss of 45 lives while on a voyage from Shell Haven to Halifax, Yorkshire. Valorous was "adopted" by the civil community of Dewsbury, then in the West Riding of Yorkshire, as the result of a Warship Week National Savings campaign in October 1941.[2]

Valorous interrupted her regular duties in January 1942 to take part in Operation Performance, deploying with the Home Fleet to cover the break-out of merchant ships from Sweden into the North Sea via the Danish Straits. Fitted with a Type 285 fire-control radar for her main armament in 1942 and with Type 286P radar and direction-finding equipment in 1943–1944, the vessel continued her convoy defense duties through the surrender of Germany in early May 1945, not taking part in any operations related to the Allied invasion of Normandy in the summer of 1944.[2]

After Germany's surrender, Valorous supported reoccupation forces, and on 14 May 1945 joined the destroyer Venomous in escorting minesweepers during minesweeping operations at Kristiansund, Norway.[2]

Decommissioning and disposal

Valorous was decommissioned in 1945 – sources differ on whether she had been deleted from the Royal Navy's active list as of July 1945[1] or stayed in commission until after the surrender of Japan on 15 August 1945[2] – and placed on the disposal list in 1946. She was sold on 4 March 1947 for scrapping at Thornaby.[2]

Notes
  1. "HMS Valorous (L 00)". uboat.net. Retrieved 16 May 2015.
  2. Mason, Geoffrey B. (2004). Gordon Smith (ed.). "HMS Valorous (L 00) – V & W-class Destroyer". naval-history.net. Retrieved 16 May 2015.
  3. Jane's Fighting Ships 1919 Archived 17 April 2013 at the Wayback Machine, pages 104–105
  4. Dittmar & Colledge, British Warships 1914-1919, p.73.
  5. Dobson, Christopher; Miller, John (1986). The Day They Almost Bombed Moscow: The Allied War in Russia 1918–1920. New York: Atheneum. pp. 252. ISBN 978-0-68911-713-8.

Bibliography
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  • Chesneau, Roger, ed. (1980). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1922–1946. Greenwich, UK: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 978-0-85177-146-5.
  • Colledge, J. J.; Warlow, Ben (2006) [1969]. Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy (Rev. ed.). London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-281-8.
  • Cocker, Maurice; Allan, Ian. Destroyers of the Royal Navy, 1893–1981. ISBN 978-0-7110-1075-8.
  • Dittmar, Fred & Colledge, Jim, eds. (1972). British Warships 1914–1919. Shepperton, Surrey: Ian Allan Ltd. ISBN 0-7110-0380-7.
  • Friedman, Norman (2009). British Destroyers From Earliest Days to the Second World War. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-59114-081-8.
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  • March, Edgar J. (1966). British Destroyers: A History of Development, 1892–1953; Drawn by Admiralty Permission From Official Records & Returns, Ships' Covers & Building Plans. London: Seeley Service. OCLC 164893555.
  • Preston, Antony (1971). 'V & W' Class Destroyers 1917–1945. London: Macdonald. OCLC 464542895.
  • Raven, Alan & Roberts, John (1979). 'V' and 'W' Class Destroyers. Man o'War. 2. London: Arms & Armour. ISBN 978-0-85368-233-2.
  • Rohwer, Jürgen (2005). Chronology of the War at Sea 1939–1945: The Naval History of World War Two (Third Revised ed.). Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-59114-119-8.
  • Whinney, Bob (2000). The U-boat Peril: A Fight for Survival. Cassell. ISBN 978-0-304-35132-9.
  • Whitley, M. J. (1988). Destroyers of World War 2. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-0-87021-326-7.
  • Winser, John de D. (1999). B.E.F. Ships Before, At and After Dunkirk. Gravesend, Kent: World Ship Society. ISBN 978-0-905617-91-6.
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