HMS Dorsetshire (40)

History
HMS Dorsetshire (40) in front of the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1938.
United Kingdom
Name:	HMS Dorsetshire
Builder:	Portsmouth Dockyard
Laid down:	21 September 1927
Launched:	29 January 1929
Commissioned:	30 September 1930
Fate:	Sunk by IJN aircraft, 5 April 1942
General characteristics
Class and type:	County-class heavy cruiser
Displacement:	10,035 long tons (10,196 t) (standard) 13,420 long tons (13,640 t) (full load)
Length:	632 ft 9 in (192.86 m)
Beam:	66 ft (20 m)
Draught:	18 ft (5.5 m)
Installed power:	80,000 shp (60,000 kW)
Propulsion:	4 × Parsons geared or Brown Curtis steam turbines 8 × boilers 4 × shafts
Speed:	31.5 kn (58.3 km/h; 36.2 mph)
Range:	12,000 nmi (22,000 km; 14,000 mi) at 12 kn (22 km/h; 14 mph)
Complement:	653
Armament:	8 × 8 in (200 mm) Mk VIII guns 8 × 4 in (100 mm) dual purpose guns 24 × 2-pounder pom-pom anti-aircraft guns 8 × 24 in (610 mm) torpedo tubes numerous light anti-aircraft guns
Aircraft carried:	2 × Supermarine Walrus floatplanes (operated by 700 Naval Air Squadron)
Aviation facilities:	1 × catapult

HMS Dorsetshire (pennant number 40) was a heavy cruiser of the County class of the Royal Navy, named after the English county, now usually known as Dorset. The ship was a member of the Norfolk sub-class, of which Norfolk was the only other unit; the County class comprised a further eleven ships in two other sub-classes. Dorsetshire was built at the Portsmouth Dockyard; her keel was laid in September 1927, she was launched in January 1929, and was completed in September 1930. Dorsetshire was armed with a main battery of eight 8-inch (200 mm) guns, and had a top speed of 31.5 knots (58.3 km/h; 36.2 mph).

Dorsetshire served initially in the Atlantic Fleet in the early 1930s, before moving to the Africa Station in 1933, and then to the China Station in late 1935. She remained there until the outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939, when she was transferred to the South Atlantic. There, she reinforced the search for the German raider Admiral Graf Spee. In late May 1941, Dorsetshire took part in the final engagement with the battleship Bismarck, which ended when Dorsetshire was ordered to close and torpedo the crippled German battleship. She joined searches for the heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper in August and the auxiliary cruiser Atlantis in November.

In March 1942, Dorsetshire was transferred to the Eastern Fleet to support British forces in the recently opened Pacific Theatre of the war. At the end of the month, the Japanese fast carrier task force—the Kido Butai—launched the Indian Ocean raid. On 5 April, Japanese aircraft spotted Dorsetshire and her sister Cornwall while en route to Colombo; a force of dive bombers then attacked the two ships and sank them. More than 1,100 men were rescued the next day, out of a combined crew of over 1,500.

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