HMAS
NESTOR
Type: ‘N’
Class Destroyer
Displacement: 1,760 tons
Length: 356 feet 6 inches (overall), 348 feet (waterline)
Beam: 35 feet 8 inches
Draught: 16 feet 4 inches (maximum)
Builder: Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Co Ltd, Govan,
Glasgow
Machinery: 2 Parsons geared turbines, 2 shafts
Horsepower: 40,000
Speed: 36 knots
Armament: 6 x 4.7-inch guns
1 x 4-inch gun
1 x 2-pounder multiple barrelled Pom Pom
4 x Oerlikons
10 x 21-inch torpedo tubes
Complement: 249 (at time of loss)
HMAS NESTOR was one of eight ‘N’ class destroyers
laid down in British shipyards 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.
NESTOR was commissioned
on the Clyde on 3 February 1941 and joined the Home Fleet
based on Scapa Flow and spent the first months of service
escorting North Atlantic convoys, on patrol and screening
the Fleet capital ships at sea.
NESTOR was a unit
of the force which hunted and sank the German battleship BISMARCK,
although having been diverted to Iceland to refuel she was
not with the force when the BISMARCK was sunk on 27 May 1941.
In July 1941 NESTOR
entered the Mediterranean for the first time when she operated
as one of the escorts for the passage of important Malta convoys
(Operation ‘Substance’). In August she saw further
Mediterranean service before proceeding on escort duties in
the South Atlantic. In October 1941 she returned to England
for repairs and refit.
Escort duties were
resumed on 5 December 1941 when she sailed from Devonport
to rendezvous with a Gibraltar bound convoy. On 15 December,
off Cape St Vincent, she sighted the German submarine U-127
on the surface at a distance of about seven miles. NESTOR
opened fire with her main armament, forcing the U-Boat to
dive, and after gaining contact made a successful attack with
depth charge. She has since been officially credited with
the destruction of U-127.
On Christmas Eve
1941 NESTOR returned to Malta. Two days later she proceeded
as one of the escorts of a convoy bound for Alexandria and
on 30 December, sailed from that port on the screen of the
heavy ships for the bombardment of Bardia (Lybia), prior to
it's capture by the British 8th Army.
In January 1942
NESTOR left the Mediterranean theatre to support operations
to reinforce Malaya. On reaching Aden, she was ordered to
join the escort of the aircraft carrier INDOMITABLE, engaged
on ferrying aircraft to the Malayan / Java theatre. The operation
successfully concluded, the carrier and her escort proceeded
to Port Soudan to load a second flight of planes. Too late
to land them in Malaya (Singapore had fallen), they were flown
off some 100 miles off Colombo in time to take part in the
defence of that port against the first Japanese air attack.
Parting from INDOMITABLE, NESTOR proceeded to Trincomalee
and after docking at Colombo joined the Eastern Fleet, then
being reformed under Admiral Somerville.
In late March and
early April NESTOR was engaged on patrol and escort duties
in the Indian Ocean and on the screen of the Fleet. Following
a visit to the temporary base of the Eastern Fleet at Kilindini
(East Africa) she proceeded on an exercise cruise to Zanzibar
and in June returned to the Mediterranean.
At Haifa in June
1942, in company with HMAS NORMAN, she was joined by HMA Ships
NAPIER (Captain S.H.T. Arliss DSO) and NIZAM, forming the
7th Destroyer Flotilla for Operation ‘Vigorous’,
the passage of an east to west Malta convoy. The total covering
force comprised eight cruisers and twenty-six destroyers supported
by corvettes and nine submarines.
Enemy air attacks
carried out almost exclusively by land based aircraft began
almost as soon as the convoy left Alexandria. Early attacks
were concentrated on the cruisers and the eleven ships of
the convoy but later the destroyers became the principal targets.
On the afternoon
of 15 June a signal was received intimating that a second
convoy had succeeded in reaching Malta from the west (Operation
‘Harpoon’), but in view of the strength of enemy
air attack and the presence of the Italian fleet, it was finally
decided to break off the westward passage and return to Alexandria.
At about 1800 on
15 June 1942, when the convoy was off the south west corner
of Crete (33°36´N, 24°30´E), NESTOR was
straddled by a stick of heavy bombs which caused serious damage
to her boiler rooms. She was taken in tow by HMS JAVELIN but
at about 0530 the next morning (16 June), with the destroyer
then going down by the nose, permission was requested to scuttle.
After the crew had been transferred to JAVELIN she was sunk
at about 0700 by depth charge.
Other losses in
the attempt to reach Malta from the east included one cruiser,
two destroyers, and two merchant ships sunk. Three cruisers,
one destroyer and one corvette were damaged.
