HMS Curacoa (D41)

Curacoa at anchor, 1941
History
United Kingdom
Name:	HMS Curacoa
Namesake:	Curaçao
Ordered:	March–April 1916
Builder:	Pembroke Dockyard
Laid down:	July 1916
Launched:	5 May 1917
Commissioned:	18 February 1918
Reclassified:	Converted to anti-aircraft cruiser, 1939–40
Nickname(s):	Cocoa Boat
Fate:	Sunk in collision with RMS Queen Mary, 2 October 1942
General characteristics (as built)
Class and type:	C-class light cruiser
Displacement:	4,190 long tons (4,260 t)
Length:	450 ft 3 in (137.2 m) (o/a)
Beam:	43 ft 5 in (13.2 m)
Draught:	14 ft 8 in (4.5 m) (mean)
Installed power:	40,000 shp (30,000 kW) 6 × Yarrow boilers
Propulsion:	2 × shafts; 2 × geared steam turbines
Speed:	29 kn (54 km/h; 33 mph)
Complement:	460
Armament:	5 × single BL 6 in (152 mm) Mk XII guns 2 × single QF 3 in (76 mm) 20-cwtanti-aircraft guns 4 × twin 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes
Armour:	Waterline belt: 1.25–3 in (32–76 mm) Deck: 1 in (25 mm)
General characteristics (where different)
Type:	Anti-aircraft cruiser
Displacement:	5,403 long tons (5,490 t) (deep load)
Armament:	4 × twin QF 4-inch (102 mm) Mk XVI dual-purpose guns 2 × single, 1 × quadruple 2-pounder (40 mm) Mk II anti-aircraft guns 2 × quadruple Vickers 0.5 in (12.7 mm) AA machineguns

HMS Curacoa was a C-class light cruiser built for the Royal Navy during the First World War. She was one of the five ships of the Ceres sub-class and spent much of her career as a flagship. The ship was assigned to the Harwich Force during the war, but saw little action as she was completed less than a year before the war ended. Briefly assigned to the Atlantic Fleet in early 1919, Curacoa was deployed to the Baltic in May to support anti-Bolshevik forces during the British campaign in the Baltic during the Russian Civil War. Shortly thereafter the ship struck a naval mine and had to return home for repairs.

After spending the rest of 1919 and 1920 in reserve, she later rejoined the Atlantic Fleet and remained there until 1928, aside from a temporary transfer to the Mediterranean Fleet in 1922–23 to support British interests in Turkey during the Chanak Crisis. Curacoa was then transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet in 1929.

In 1933, she became a training ship until she began a conversion into an anti-aircraft cruiser six years later. The ship played a minor role in the Norwegian Campaign of early 1940 before she was damaged by German aircraft. After repairs were completed later that year, she escorted convoys in and around the British Isles for two years. In late 1942, she was accidentally rammed and sunk by the large ocean liner RMS Queen Mary with the loss of many of her crew.