HMS Bruiser (F127)

HMS Bruiser
History
Name: HMS Bruiser
Ordered: 6 March 1941[1]
Builder: Harland and Wolff
Launched: 27 October 1942
Commissioned: 12 March 1943
Out of service: 1946
Fate: Scrapped Bilbao 1973 [2]
General characteristics
Type: Landing Ship, Tank Mark I
Displacement: 3,620
Speed:
  • 18 knots laden to beaching draught
  • 16.5 knots at deep
Capacity: 13 Churchill Infantry tanks, 27 vehicles, 193 men
Complement: 169
Service record
Commanders: Lt.Cdr. Joseph Stretch, RD, RNR, A B Lee, RNR
Operations:

HMS Bruiser, pennant number F127[1] was built as a Landing Ship, Tank (LST(1)) at Harland and Wolff. Launched in October 1942 and commissioned the following March, she saw service as part of the Allied invasion of Italy.

Design and development

HMS Bruiser was the second of the LST Mk.1 class ships which could carry 13 Churchill tanks, 27 other vehicles and 193 men. It had a high speed even when laden for the assault (about 18 knots) but did not have a shallow draught, which meant that a 140 ft (43 m) long bow ramp had to be added and this took up a lot of room inside the ship.

Bruiser had only two sister ships, as plans to build more in the United States led instead to a simpler though slower design capable of similar capacity but with a much shallower draught.

Service

Bruiser took part in the Salerno landing[3] in 1943. In 1944, she was refitted as a "Fighter Direction Ship", for use during the Normandy landings in controlling fighter aircraft by GCI. Later in 1944 she took British troops back into Athens in Greece[3]. Bruiser was sold into merchant service in 1946.

Commanding officers

FromToCaptain
16 Jan 194325 Nov 1944Lt.Cdr. Joseph Stretch, RD, RNR
25 Nov 1944mid 1945A B Lee, RNR


See also

References

  1. 1 2 "HMS Bruiser (F 127)".
  2. ↑ "HMS Bruiser". Retrieved 11 April 2018.
  3. 1 2 "bbc".

Publications


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