SQUANCE, Sidney J (#247)
#247
Chief Ordnance Artificer Sidney J SQUANCE MiD RN
Royal Navy
Alan Pollock’s Rough Notes:
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Chief Ordnance Artificer Sidney J SQUANCE MiD RN represents ALL ARTIFICERS, the CREWS of the BATTLESHIPS, and specifically the traditional role of NAVAL GUNNERY (with RN neglecting newer Cinderella “AIRCRAFT” &, with its powerful FLEET, having hoped to negotiate the SUBMARINES away by treaty interwar), here specifically its big 16″ GUNS (shell wt 2,0501b & range 39,100yds at 40 degrees).
His long service 1940 to Dec44 celebrates MANY GUN ACTIONS of HMS RODNEY; Sidney, as most, found her a happy, lucky & successful SHIP, despite its missing her 1941 due refit & had a high reputation HMS RODNEY(1925): 33,900, full load 38,000 ton displacement BATTLESHIP, with a 1,640 war complement and 9×16”, 12×6”, 8×4” A/A + 16x40mm, 48x2pdr pompoms & 61x2Omm and two submerged torpedo tubes.
Designed H.P. 45,000 = 23 kts. Length 660 feet (w.l.:702 ft) Beam: 106 feet Mean Draught:30 feet Among RODNEY’s several fortunate breaks were an UXB of 1,2001b off BERGEN (18 injured), on the BISMARCK CHASE, U-556 sighted her but had no torpedoes left, & RODNEY helped dest.roy BISMARCK 27May4l also with one torpedo (380 16″ and 716 6″ shells, and 12 21″ torpedoes were fired by RODNEY alone! Other participants KG V 339 15″ 660 5.25″ shells, NORFOLK 527 8″ & 8 torpedoes, VICTORIOUS 8 aircraft torpedoes and ARK ROYAL 130 with a total of 16 torpedoes from COSSACK, MAORI, ZULU and SIKH); on PEDESTAL to MALTA the EAGLE was hit on RODNEY’s port side but RODNEY survived 3 days of Italian subs & many misses from Ju-87 Stukas; on TORCH bombarding ORAN, she came under fire &, thanks to AURORA, dodged another torpedo; survived SICILY, ITALY and NORMANDY INVASIONS & the CAEN BOMBARDMENTS.
A BISMARCK Historical Note.
19 Battleships and Cruisers, 2 Aircraft Carriers, 21 Destroyers and more than 50 Coastal Command Aircraft were involved to find and sink BISMARCK on 27May41, which had taken 8 minutes and 93 heavy shells to sink HOOD.
Bismarck was: laid down at Blohm & Voss at Hamburg in July 1936, being launched in Feb39 and commissioned Aug40, Bismarck, with a displacement of 41,700 tons, 804 ft length, beam 118 ft, speed 25/30 kts, had 8 15″ 9.2-n-s-a”n–‘-4-turret-s–, 12 5.9″ guns (6 per side casement) and 16 4.1″ and 16 2Omm A.A. guns,, with two Arado aircraft, and a complement of 2,200 men.
The plan originally had been to use Bismarck together with Scharnhorst (sank Rawalpindi.on 23Nov39 SE of Iceland, and Glorious 8Jun40 but was hit by ACASTA’s torpedo just before she was sunk: then, in 1941 with Gneisenau sank 22 ships; machinery under repair and Gneisenau (hit by a torpedo: after Channel Dash mine and then bomb damage in Kiel); Tirpitz. was insufficiently trained and Bismarck was sent out with Prinz Eugen (Sources: Rodney Association, Jane’s and Encyclopaedia of World War 2).