Wryneck was put into Reserve during the economic crisis of the 1930s and laid up in Gibraltar. In 1938 she was selected for WAIR conversion to a fast escort ship at Gibraltar Dockyard. The work began in September 1939 and was not completed until March 1940. In April 1940, after sea trials, Wryneck was recommissioned for service with the new pennant number L04, and assigned to convoy defence duty based at Alexandria. In December she was detached to support military operations against the Italian army in Egypt.[1]
In January 1941 she resumed convoy defence duties, and in March formed part of the escort of military convoys taking British and Commonwealth troops to Greece as part of "Operation Lustre". In April, with the fall of Greece, Wryneck returned to help the evacuation of Allied troops.
Wryneck was sent to help HMSDiamond rescue survivors from Slamat and fend off Luftwaffe attacks, but both destroyers were sunk.
On the morning of 27 April she was in Souda Bay when a convoy led by the cruiser HMSCalcutta evacuating troops from Nauplia in the Peloponnese came under air attack in the Argolic Gulf. HMASVendetta, HMASWaterhen and Wryneck were ordered from Souda Bay to release the destroyers HMSHotspur and HMSIsis, which were heavily laden with evacuated troops. By the time Vendetta, Waterhen and Wryneck reached the convoy, the Dutch troop ship Slamat had been disabled and left behind and the destroyer HMSDiamond had been ordered to stay and assist.
At 08:15 Diamond reported that she was still rescuing survivors and still under air attack. By then three destroyers had reinforced the convoy so Calcutta sent Wryneck to assist Diamond. Slamat was afire from stem to stern when Diamond fired a torpedo that sank her in a coup de grâce.[3]Diamond reported at 09:25 that she had rescued most of the survivors and was proceeding to Souda Bay. An hour later Wryneck signalled a request for aircraft cover.[4]
At about 13:15, an air attack by German Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighters and Junkers Ju 88 bombers[5] sank both destroyers within minutes. Wryneck launched her whaler, and each destroyer launched her three Carley floats. Survivors in the whaler set off east past Cape Maleas, towing two Carley floats and their occupants. In the evening the wind increased, causing the floats to strike the boat, so Waldron reluctantly cast them adrift.[6]
HMSGriffin rescued 50 survivors from Wryneck and Diamond, some of whom were survivors from Slamat
After 1900 hrs on 27 April the Vice Admiral, Light Forces, Henry Pridham-Wippell, became concerned that Diamond had not returned to Souda Bay and was not answering radio signals. Wryneck had been ordered to keep radio silence so no attempt was made to radio her.[7] Pridham-Wippell sent the destroyer HMSGriffin to the position where Slamat had been lost. She found 14 survivors in two Carley floats that night, more floats and another four survivors in the morning, and took the survivors to Crete.[6]
The last living survivor from Slamat,[8]Royal Army Service Corps veteran George Dexter, states that after Wryneck was sunk he and three other men were rescued by the cruiser HMSOrion.[9]
24 survivors in Wryneck's whaler, one of them severely wounded, reached Crete in three stages. On 28 April they aimed for the island of Milos in the Aegean Sea, but were too exhausted so they landed at Ananes Rock about 13 nautical miles (24km) southeast of Milos after seeing two boys trying to draw their attention using a Union Jack. There they were met by the passengers of a caïque full of Greek refugees and British soldiers evacuated from Piraeus, who were sheltering by day and sailing only by night to avoid detection. They too had been bombed when another caïque carrying them, Irene, had been sighted near Monemvasia (Porto Gerakas) in the daytime when they were resting ashore. Embarking on another hastily bought caique, they sailed on to the Ananes.
Among the passengers were the historian and SOE operative Nicholas Hammond, Major Ian Pirie the leader of the British expedition to Greece together with expatriate and high-ranking SOE operative David Pawson, as well as four Australian privates. The caïque's captain, George Vergos, was also involved in SOE work and was a decorated veteran (OBE) of the Royal Navy from the First World War, also fleeing Greece with his extended family and some other Greeks. Pirie and Pawson together with Dennis Hamson were now charged with evacuating an unknown amount of bullion from the British Embassy in Athens, all lost with the Irene.
In the evening everyone left Ananes and headed south for Crete, with most people in the caïque and four being towed in the whaler. Five of the women and children were placed in a skiff on deck with a tarpaulin over them as the sea spray from a strong southerly wind was washing the deck. The next day all 46 people reached Souda Bay whose jetty was at the time under heavy aerial bombardment. They were making very slow progress in the small caïque so a faster landing craft was sent out to tow them to safety.[6]
Its final resting place is 36.30N 23.34E which is about 20 nautical miles (37 kilometres; 23 miles) east of Cape Maleas, Greece.
↑ van Lierde, Ed. "Slamat Commemoration". Koninklijke Rotterdamsche Lloyd Te Oudehorne. Archived from the original on 6 January 2014. Retrieved 6 January 2014.
Crabb, Brian James. Operation Demon. The story of the evacuation of British Commonwealth troops from mainland Greece and the tragic loss of the Dutch troopship Slamat and HM destroyers Diamond and Wryneck in April 1941. Angela Young 2021. ISBN978-1-527271-01-2.
Campbell, John (1985). Naval Weapons of World War II. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN0-87021-459-4.
Friedman, Norman (2009). British Destroyers From Earliest Days to the Second World War. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN978-1-59114-081-8.
Gardiner, Robert & Gray, Randal, eds. (1985). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1906–1921. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN0-85177-245-5.
Lenton, H. T. (1998). British & Empire Warships of the Second World War. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN1-55750-048-7.
March, Edgar J. (1966). British Destroyers: A History of Development, 1892–1953; Drawn by Admiralty Permission From Official Records & Returns, Ships' Covers & Building Plans. London: Seeley Service. OCLC164893555.
Raven, Alan & Roberts, John (1979). 'V' and 'W' Class Destroyers. Man o'War. Vol.2. London: Arms & Armour. ISBN0-85368-233-X.
Rohwer, Jürgen (2005). Chronology of the War at Sea 1939–1945: The Naval History of World War Two (Third Reviseded.). Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN1-59114-119-2.
Shores, Christopher; Cull, Brian; Malizia, Nicola (1987). Air War for Yugoslavia, Greece, and Crete. London: Grub Street. ISBN0-948817-07-0.
HMS Kelly was a K-class destroyer of the British Royal Navy, and flotilla leader of her class. She served through the early years of the Second World War; in Home Waters, off Norway and in the Mediterranean. Throughout her service, Kelly was commanded by Lord Louis Mountbatten, as commander of the 5th Destroyer Flotilla. She was lost in action in 1941 during the Battle of Crete.
HMAS Nizam (G38/D15) was an N-class destroyer of the Royal Australian Navy (RAN). The destroyer, named after Osman Ali Khan, the last Nizam of Hyderabad, was commissioned into the RAN in 1940, although the ship remained the property of the Royal Navy for her entire career.
HMS Kingston was a K-class destroyer of the Royal Navy.
HMS Jaguar was a J-class destroyer of the Royal Navy. Commissioned in September 1939, she was present at the Dunkirk evacuation the following year, during which Jaguar was damaged by dive bombers. She later served in the Mediterranean and was involved in several actions there. She was torpedoed off the coast of Egypt on 26 March 1942 and sunk.
HMS Hero was an H-class destroyer built for the Royal Navy in the mid-1930s. During the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939 the ship enforced the arms blockade imposed by Britain and France on both sides as part of the Mediterranean Fleet. During the first few months of World War II, Hero searched for German commerce raiders in the Atlantic Ocean and participated in the Second Battle of Narvik during the Norwegian Campaign of April–June 1940 before she was transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet in May where she escorted a number of convoys to Malta. The ship took part in the Battle of Cape Spada in July 1940, Operation Abstention in February 1941, and the evacuations of Greece and Crete in April–May 1941.
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HMS Greyhound was a G-class destroyer built for the Royal Navy in the 1930s. Greyhound participated in the Norwegian Campaign in April 1940, the Dunkirk evacuation in May and the Battle of Dakar in September before being transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet in November. The ship generally escorted the larger ships of the Mediterranean Fleet as they protected convoys against attacks from the Italian Fleet. She sank two Italian submarines while escorting convoys herself in early 1941. Greyhound was sunk by German Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive bombers north-west of Crete on 22 May 1941 as she escorted the battleships of the Mediterranean Fleet attempting to intercept the German sea-borne invasion forces destined for Crete.
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The Slamat disaster is a succession of three related shipwrecks during the Battle of Greece on 27 April 1941. The Dutch troopship Slamat and the Royal Navy destroyers HMS Diamond and HMS Wryneck sank as a result of air attacks by Luftwaffe Junkers Ju 87 dive bombers. The three ships sank off the east coast of the Peloponnese during Operation Demon, which was the evacuation of British, Australian and New Zealand troops from Greece after their defeat by invading German and Italian forces.
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