Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

HMAS Napier

HMAS Napier was one of eight N Class destroyers laid down in British yards during 1939 to the order of the Royal Navy. Five (Napier, Nestor, Nepal, Nizam and Norman ) were transferred to the Royal Australian Navy, two to the Royal Netherlands Navy and one to the Polish Navy. The only one to become a war loss, HMAS Nestor, was sunk by air attack in the Mediterranean on 16 June 1942.

Napier commissioned on the Clyde on 28 November 1940 under the command of Captain Stephen Arliss RN, a well known Royal Navy destroyer Commander and Captain (D) of a peace time Mediterranean Flotilla. His staff consisted of Australian officers with a nucleus of Royal Navy officers and her company was entirely drawn from the Royal Australian Navy.

Trials and working up at Scapa Flow was followed by a period of uneventful North Atlantic convoy protection duty, before transferring to the Mediterranean to bolster the hard pressed destroyer units operating in that theatre. Napier in company of her sister ship HMAS Nizam arrived shortly before the evacuation of Crete began in May 1941. Here she suffered her first attentions from the enemy, when screening a Mediterranean convoy. She experienced a near miss from a heavy bomb.

Later in May 1941 she assumed duty on the screen of the battle fleet operating south and east of Crete. The battle for the island lost, Napier became one of the units charged with the responsibility of evacuating the British forces.

On 28 May 1941 Napier (Captain (D), 7th Destroyer Flotilla), Nizam and HM Ships Kelvin and Kandahar, left Alexandria for Crete, arriving safely at Sphakia after an uneventful run. In the early hours of the following morning, Napier embarked 296 soldiers, three women, one Greek and Chinese national, ten seamen, two children and a dog.

At 3:00am the entire force sailed on the return voyage. It proved more hazardous and though Napier escaped, Nizam was damaged by several near misses. On the morning of 30 May the four destroyers again sailed for Crete. Two were forced to return; Kandahar, because of engine trouble; and Kelvin as a result of damage sustained under air attack. The two Australian ships continued to Crete to try and evacuate numbers intended to be borne in four ships. At 2:30am the following morning Nizam left Crete carrying 698 troops. Half an hour later Napier sailed with 705 soldiers, mostly Australians.

At 9:00am the expected air attacks developed when twelve planes made a determined attempt to sink Napier. Two sticks each of eight bombs fell on her port side and across her stern. Fourteen were classed as near misses. Damage to her engine and boiler rooms reduced speed to twenty knots. The attackers did not escape unscathed from the intense anti-aircraft fire and in the words of Napier's Commanding Officer, 'One Ju.88 was certainly shot down and it is considered three others were damaged.' In spite of her hazardous passage no life was lost and all troops were safely landed at Alexandria.

The next two-and-a-half months, June to August 1941, were spent at Port Said making good damage defects. The destroyer however was not entirely idle. She was designated control ship for harbour air defence. On the night following her berthing, Port Said suffered its first air raid. Eleven bombs fell nearby, but she escaped further damage from this and repeated subsequent heavier raids.

Refitting completed she assumed duty in August 1941 as leader of the 7th Flotilla which included among others, destroyers well known for their Mediterranean service, HM Ships Jaguar, Jackal, Javelin and Kingston.

In the closing months of 1941 Napier took part in the supplying of besieged Tobruk in September, gave protection to Mediterranean and Red Sea convoys and served on the screen of the fleet at sea. She was one of the screening destroyers when HMS Barham was torpedoed and sunk on 25 November 1941. In November also she took part with nine other destroyers in the transfer of troops from Haifa to Cyprus and vice versa. On 30 December 1941 she sailed from Alexandria as one of the destroyers escorting the heavy ships for the bombardment of Bardia, in Libya, prior to its capture by the 8th Army.

In January 1942 Napier, with Nizam and Nestor in company, left the Mediterranean Theatre to enter the Indian Ocean. On reaching Aden the three destroyers were ordered to join and escort the aircraft carrier HMS Indomitable to ferry aircraft reinforcements for the Malayan/Java theatre. The operation successfully concluded, the carrier and her escort proceeded to Port Soudan for a second flight of planes. Too late to land them in the Malayan theatre as Singapore had fallen, they were flown off some 100 miles from Colombo in time to take part in the successful defence of that port against a first Japanese air attack.

More to follow.