Pre-war Dorsetshire was laid down at the
Portsmouth Dockyard on 21 September 1927 and was launched on 21 January 1929. After completing
fitting-out work on 30 September 1930 she was commissioned into the Royal Navy. Upon commissioning,
Dorsetshire became the
flagship of the 2nd Cruiser Squadron. In 1931, she was part of the
Atlantic Fleet during the
Invergordon Mutiny. During the incident, some of her men initially refused to assemble for duty but after an hour and a half, the ship's officers had restored order and no further unrest troubled
Dorsetshire during the mutiny. From 1933–1935, she served as the flagship for the
Commander-in-Chief, Africa; she was replaced by . By September 1935,
Dorsetshire was assigned to the
China Station. From 1–4 February 1937,
Dorsetshire, the
aircraft carrier and the cruiser participated in an exercise to test the defences of Singapore against a hypothetical Japanese attack.
Second World War At the start of the Second World War in September 1939,
Dorsetshire was still on the China Station. In October,
Dorsetshire—with other Royal Navy ships—was sent to South American waters in pursuit of the German
heavy cruiser , which was attacking British merchant traffic in the area.
Dorsetshire was assigned with her
sister ship and the aircraft carrier .
Dorsetshire had just arrived in
Simonstown, South Africa, from Colombo on 9 December, with orders to proceed to
Tristan da Cunha and then to
Port Stanley in the
Falkland Islands to relieve . After departing Simonstown, she received the order to join the hunt for
Admiral Graf Spee. She left South Africa on 13 December in company with the cruiser and was in transit on 17 December when the Germans
scuttled Admiral Graf Spee following the
Battle of the River Plate.
Exeter had been badly damaged in the battle with
Admiral Graf Spee, and
Dorsetshire escorted her back to Britain in January 1940, before returning to South American waters to search for German supply ships. On 11 February, her reconnaissance aircraft spotted the German supply freighter
Wakama off the coast of Brazil, which was promptly scuttled by her crew.
Dorsetshire arrived on the scene shortly thereafter, picked up ten officers and thirty-five crewmen and sank
Wakama to prevent her from being a navigational hazard. The following month, the President of Panama,
Augusto Samuel Boyd, sent a formal complaint to the British government protesting against
Dorsetshires violation of the
Pan-American Security Zone in the
Wakama incident. In May,
Dorsetshire underwent a short refit in Simonstown, before returning to Britain for a more thorough overhaul. On 23 June, she set out from Freetown to watch the French
battleship , which left
Dakar for
Casablanca two days later. While
en route,
Dorsetshire rendezvoused with the aircraft carrier
Hermes off Dakar.
Richelieu was ordered to return to Dakar by Admiral
François Darlan later that day and she arrived on 27 June.
Dorsetshire continued to monitor the French Navy off Dakar and on 3 July, the French
submarines and attempted to intercept her.
Dorsetshire was able to evade their attacks through high-speed manoeuvres. On 5 July,
Hermes and the Australian cruiser joined her there. On 7 July, the squadron was ordered to issue an ultimatum to the French fleet, to either surrender and be interned under British control or to scuttle their ships; the French refused, so a fast
sloop was sent in to drop
depth charges under the stern of
Richelieu to disable her screws. On 4 September, she was dry-docked at
Durban and on the 20th she arrived back in Simonstown. She sailed for
Sierra Leone the next day. Operating in the Indian Ocean, on 18 November she bombarded Zante in
Italian Somaliland. On 18 December she departed to join the search for the heavy cruiser , which had recently sunk the British refrigerator ship
Duquesa in the
South Atlantic. The British were unsuccessful in their search and
Admiral Scheer remained at large.
Bismarck By May 1941,
Dorsetshire had been assigned to
Force H, along with the aircraft carrier , the
battlecruiser , and the
light cruiser .
Dorsetshire was at that time commanded by Captain Benjamin Martin. Late in the month, the German battleship and heavy cruiser broke out into the North Atlantic to attack convoys sailing for Britain, and
Dorsetshire was one of the ships deployed to hunt the German raiders.
Dorsetshire had been escorting convoy SL74 from Sierra Leone to the UK on 26 May, when she received the order to leave the convoy and join the search for
Bismarck; she was some south of
Bismarcks location.
Dorsetshire steamed at top speed, though heavy seas later in the night forced her to reduce to and later to . By 08:33,
Dorsetshire encountered the
destroyer , which had been engaging
Bismarck throughout the night. The German battleship's gun flashes could be seen, only away, by 08:50. Shortly thereafter,
Dorsetshire took part in
Bismarcks last battle; after the battleships and neutralised
Bismarcks main battery early in the engagement,
Dorsetshire and other warships—including her sister —closed in to join the attack.
Dorsetshire opened fire at a range of , but poor visibility forced her to check her fire for lengthy periods. In the course of the engagement, she fired 254 shells from her main battery. In the final moments of the battle, she was ordered to move closer and torpedo
Bismarck and fired three torpedoes, two of which hit the crippled battleship. The Germans had by this time detonated scuttling charges, which with the damage inflicted by the British, caused
Bismarck to rapidly sink at 10:40.
Dorsetshire and the destroyer then moved in to pick up survivors. Martin had ropes lowered down the sides of the ship so the men in the water could climb aboard. A reported
U-boat sighting forced the two ships to break off the rescue effort. Historians
Holger Herwig and
David Bercuson state that only 110 men were rescued: 85 aboard
Dorsetshire and 25 aboard
Maori. Historian
Angus Konstam, however, writes that his research indicated a total of 116 saved, 86 on
Dorsetshire (one of whom died), 25 on
Maori, 3 rescued by and a further 2 picked up by the German weather ship .
Rodney,
King George V and the destroyers , and
Cossack had meanwhile begun to steam north-west to return to Scapa Flow. After abandoning the rescue effort,
Dorsetshire and
Maori caught up with the rest of the fleet shortly after 12:00. Late that night, as the fleet steamed off Britain,
Dorsetshire was detached to stop in the
Tyne. She had suffered no casualties in the battle with
Bismarck.
Deployment to South Africa and the Indian Ocean in August 1941 In late August,
Dorsetshire participated in the search for the heavy cruiser .
Dorsetshire,
Eagle and the light cruiser left Freetown on 29 August, though they were unable to locate the German raider. On 4 November,
Dorsetshire and the
auxiliary cruiser , were sent to investigate reports of a German surface raider in the South Atlantic but neither ship found anything. In November–December, WS-24, a convoy of 10 troop transport ships, steamed out from
Halifax, Canada en route to
Basra, Iraq. After arriving in Cape Town on 9 December,
Dorsetshire took over the escort duties and the convoy was diverted to Bombay, where it arrived on 24 December.
Dorsetshire was deployed in November, to join the search for the German commerce raider , that had been attacking
Allied shipping off the coast of Africa. Admiral
Algernon Willis formed Task Force 3, with
Dorsetshire and to patrol likely refuelling locations for
Atlantis. On 1 December,
Dorsetshire intercepted the German supply ship
Python, based on
Ultra intelligence. The German ship was refuelling a pair of U-boats— and —in the South Atlantic. The U-boats dived while
Python tried to flee.
UA fired five torpedoes at
Dorsetshire but all missed her due to her evasive manoeuvres.
Dorsetshire fired a salvo to stop
Python and the latter's crew abandoned the ship, after detonating scuttling charges.
Dorsetshire left the Germans in their boats, since the U-boats still presented too much of a threat for the British to pick up the Germans.
Loss In 1942,
Dorsetshire, under the command of
Augustus Agar, was assigned to the
Eastern Fleet in the Indian Ocean. In March,
Dorsetshire was assigned to Force A, which was commanded by Admiral
James Somerville, with the battleship and the carriers and . Somerville received reports of an impending Japanese attack in the Indian Ocean—the
Indian Ocean raid—and so he put his fleet to sea on 31 March. Having not encountered any hostile forces by 4 April, he withdrew to refuel.
Dorsetshire and her sister ship
Cornwall were sent to Colombo to replenish their fuel. The next day, she and
Cornwall were spotted by reconnaissance aircraft from the heavy cruiser . The two British cruisers were attacked by a force of 53
Aichi D3A2 "Val"
dive bombers southwest of
Ceylon. In the span of about eight minutes,
Dorsetshire was hit by ten and bombs and several near misses; she sank stern first at about 13:50. One of the bombs detonated an ammunition magazine and contributed to her rapid sinking.
Cornwall was hit eight times and sank bow first about ten minutes later. Between the two ships, 1,122 men out of a total of 1,546 were picked up by the cruiser and the destroyers and the next day. ==Footnotes==