HMS Dauntless (D45)

History
United Kingdom
Name:	HMS Dauntless
Ordered:	September 1916
Builder:	Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company, Jarrow
Laid down:	3 January 1917
Launched:	10 April 1918
Commissioned:	22 November 1918
Fate:	Broken up April 1946
General characteristics
Class and type:	Danae-class light cruiser
Displacement:	4,650 tons
Length:	471 ft (144 m)
Beam:	46 ft (14 m)
Draught:	14.5 ft (4.4 m)
Propulsion:	Six Yarrow-type water-tube boilers Parsons geared steam turbines Two shafts 40,000 shp (30,000 kW)
Speed:	29 knots (54 km/h)
Range:	2,300 nm
Complement:	350
Armament:	1918: six BL 6-inch (152.4 mm) L/45 Mark XII guns on single mountings CP Mark XIV two QF 3 inch (76.2 mm) Mk II AA guns two 40 mm QF 2 pdr "Pom-pom" AA guns twelve 21 in (533 mm) torpedoes (4 triple launchers)
Armour:	3 inch side (amidships) 2, 1¾, 1½ side (bow and stern) 1 inch upper decks (amidships) 1 inch deck over rudder

HMS Dauntless was a Danae-class light cruiser of the Royal Navy. She was built by Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company of Jarrow, launched on 10 April 1918 and commissioned on 22 November 1918.

The Danae class mounted an extra 6 inch gun and a heavier torpedo armament, compared with their predecessors, the C-class cruiser. The class also had larger low revolution propellers for greater efficiency. Dauntless herself was completed with a large hangar under her bridge, which was eventually removed in 1920.

Completed too late to see action in the First World War, in 1919 she was assigned to operate in the Baltic Sea against the Bolshevik revolutionaries in Russia. She was then on detached service in the West Indies. Following this assignment she was attached to the 1st Light Cruiser Squadron of the Atlantic Fleet for the following five years. Dauntless was a member of the Cruise of the Special Service Squadron, also known as the 'Empire Cruise', of 1923/24. Following this tour, she went with the squadron to the Mediterranean for the next few years.

In May 1928 Dauntless was recommissioned and assigned to the North America and West Indies Station. She ran aground on 2 July 1928 on the Thrum Cap Shoal, 5 nautical miles (9.3 km) off Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, and was badly damaged, suffering the breach of her engine room and of one of her boiler rooms. She was abandoned by most of her 462 crew, the officers remaining on board. Subsequently all of her guns and torpedo tubes and much of her other equipment had to be removed to lighten her. She was finally refloated on 11 July 1928 and towed off by her sister ship HMS Despatch and a number of tugs. She was repaired throughout 1929 and was reduced to the reserve.

...
Wikipedia