HMS Calypso (D61)
HMS Calypso
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| History | |
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| Name: | HMS Calypso |
| Builder: | Hawthorn Leslie and Company |
| Laid down: | 17 February 1916 |
| Launched: | 24 January 1917 |
| Commissioned: | 21 June 1917 |
| Fate: | Sunk 12 June 1940 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | C-class light cruiser |
| Displacement: | 4,120 long tons (4,190 t) |
| Length: | 450 ft (140 m) |
| Beam: | 42.9 ft (13.1 m) |
| Draught: | 14.3 ft (4.4 m) |
| Installed power: | 40,000 shp (30,000 kW) |
| Propulsion: |
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| Speed: | 29 kn (33 mph; 54 km/h) |
| Capacity: | Fuel oil: 300 short tons (270 t) (normal); 935 short tons (848 t) (maximum) |
| Complement: | 344 |
| Armament: | 5 × BL 6 in (150 mm) Mk XII guns, 2 × QF 3 inch 20 cwt anti-aircraft guns, 4 × QF 3-pounder guns, 1 × machine gun, 8 × 21 in (530 mm) torpedo tubes |
| Armour: | |
HMS Calypso (D61) was a C class cruiser of the Caledon sub-class of the Royal Navy, launched in 1917 and sunk in 1940 by the Italian submarine Alpino Attilio Bagnolini .
HMS Calypso was built by Hawthorn Leslie and Company. Her keel was laid down in February 1916 and she was completed in June 1917.
Calypso was involved in the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight on 17 November 1917, when she and her sister ship Caledon were part of the force that intercepted German minesweepers near the German coast. During the battle, Calypso's bridge was struck by a 5.9 in (150 mm) shell which killed all personnel on the bridge including the captain, and causing the accidental firing of a ready torpedo.
Calypso went to the rescue of the Greek royal family in 1922 after King Constantine of Greece abdicated and a military dictatorship seized power. The King's brother, Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark was banished for life by a revolutionary court and was forced to flee with his family (which included his 18-month-old son Philippos who would later become Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh). The British Government had received news of the situation, and dispatched Calypso to evacuate the family. They boarded with minimal possessions. Philippos was carried onboard in a cot made from an orange box. The family were taken to Brindisi where they were put on a train to Paris.
On 2 November 1924, the destroyer HMS Venomous (D75) was steaming in the Grand Harbour upon returning to Valletta, Malta, from a cruise in the Western Mediterranean Sea when she accidentally rammed and sank a motorboat from Calypso. All four people aboard the motorboat were saved by a boat from the destroyer HMS Umpire.
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