HMS Cossack (F03)

History
HMS Cossack under way in 1938
United Kingdom
Name:	Cossack
Namesake:	Cossack
Ordered:	10 March 1936
Builder:	Vickers-Armstrongs
Cost:	£341,082
Laid down:	9 June 1936
Launched:	8 June 1937
Completed:	10 June 1938
Identification:	Pennant number: L03, F03 & G03 successively
Fate:	Sunk, 27 October 1941
General characteristics (as built)
Class and type:	Tribal-class destroyer
Displacement:	1,891 long tons (1,921 t) (standard) 2,519 long tons (2,559 t) (deep load)
Length:	377 ft (115 m) (o/a)
Beam:	36 ft 6 in (11.13 m)
Draught:	11 ft 3 in (3.43 m)
Installed power:	44,000 shp (33,000 kW) 3 × Admiralty 3-drum boilers
Propulsion:	2 × shafts; 2 × geared steam turbines
Speed:	36 knots (67 km/h; 41 mph)
Range:	5,700 nmi (10,600 km; 6,600 mi) at 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph)
Complement:	190
Sensors and processing systems:	ASDIC
Armament:	4 × twin QF 4.7-inch (120 mm) Mk XII guns 1 × quadruple QF 2-pounder anti-aircraft guns 2 × quadruple QF .5-inch (12.7 mm) Mk III anti-aircraft machineguns 1 × quadruple 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes 20 × depth charges, 1 × rack, 2 × throwers

HMS Cossack was a Tribal-class destroyer named after the Cossack people of the Russian and Ukrainian steppe. She became famous for the boarding of the German supply ship Altmark in Norwegian waters, and the associated rescue of sailors originally captured by the Admiral Graf Spee. She was torpedoed by U-563 and sank on 27 October 1941.

She was laid down at the Walker Naval Yard of Vickers-Armstrongs in Newcastle upon Tyne on 9 June 1936, launched on 8 June 1937 by Mrs. S. V. Goodall, commissioned on 7 June 1938 and completed on 14 June 1938. During her trials Cossack made 36.223 knots (67.085 km/h; 41.685 mph) at 366.4 RPM with 44,430 shp (33,130 kW) at 2,030 long tons (2,060 t).

Cossack's first action was on 16 February 1940, under the command of Philip Vian. This was the Altmark Incident in Jøssingfjord, Norway which resulted in the freeing of the Admiral Graf Spee's prisoners who were being held aboard the supply ship Altmark and the death of eight crew members of the German ship.

In the Incident the German tanker rammed her with the stern in an angle of about 30° at the altitude of her bridge and pressed the destroyer towards the fiord wall. The Norwegian officers present later reported, that only the mass of ice piled up averted the destroyer to crash onto the rocky shore. The powerful engines of the destroyer made her escape from the squeeze possible.Cossack arrived at Leith on 17 February with the 299 freed prisoners. She had to be docked for her propellor and A-brackets to be checked in case they had been damaged by the thick ice in the fiord. They were unharmed, but her stern plating had to be repaired where it had been bumping against Altmark.

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Wikipedia