HMAS Waterhen (D22)

HMAS Waterhen, with HMAS Stuart in background
History
United Kingdom
Name	Waterhen
Namesake	Waterhen
Builder	Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company
Laid down	3 July 1917
Launched	26 March 1918
Completed	17 July 1918
Commissioned	July 1918
Decommissioned	October 1933
Fate	Transferred to Royal Australian Navy
Australia
Name	Waterhen
Commissioned	11 October 1933
Decommissioned	9 October 1934
Recommissioned	14 April 1936
Decommissioned	1 June 1938
Recommissioned	1 September 1939
Nickname(s)	The Chook[1]
Honours and awards	Battle honours: Libya 1940–41 Greece 1941 Crete 1941
Fate	Sunk by dive bombers, 30 June 1941
General characteristics
Class and type	W-class destroyer
Displacement	1,100 tons standard
Length	312 ft (95.1 m) length overall 300 ft (91.4 m) between perpendiculars
Beam	29 ft 6 in (9.0 m)
Draught	13 ft 11 in (4.2 m)
Propulsion	3 × White=Forster boilers, 2 × Brown-Curtis turbines, 27,000 shp (20,000 kW), two shafts
Speed	34 knots (63 km/h; 39 mph)
Range	3,560 nautical miles (6,590 km; 4,100 mi) at 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph)
Complement	6 officers, 113 sailors
Armament	4 × QF 4-inch (102 mm) Mk V guns 1 × QF 2-pounder (40 mm) AA gun (later increased to 2) 5 × .303-inch (7.7 mm) machine guns 2 × 3-tube 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo sets (replaced by 2 × 4-tube sets) Depth charge chutes and throwers

HMAS Waterhen (D22/I22) was a W-class destroyer that served in the Royal Navy (as HMS Waterhen (G28/D22)) and the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). Built during World War I, the destroyer was completed in mid 1918, and commissioned into the Royal Navy. In 1933, Waterhen and four other British ships were transferred to the RAN. The ship's early RAN career was uneventful, with periods spent decommissioned in reserve, but she was reactivated in September 1939, and deployed to the Mediterranean as part of the Australian destroyer force: the Scrap Iron Flotilla. During her time in the Mediterranean, Waterhen was involved in escort and patrol duties, performed shore bombardments, and participated in Allied evacuations from Greece and Crete. On 29 June 1941, while operating with the Tobruk Ferry Service, Waterhen was heavily damaged by two Italian Regia Aeronautica's aircraft, dive bombers Ju 87 Stuka (renamed Picchiatello) of 239 squadriglia, flown by pilots Serg.mag. Ennio Tarantola e Serg. Lastrucci.^[2] Attempts to tow the ship to port were unsuccessful, and she sank on 30 June 1941, the first RAN ship lost to combat in World War II.