In August 1937 HMS Leander, on a journey from Europe to New Zealand, carried out an aerial survey of Henderson, Oeno and Ducie, and on each island a British flag was planted and an inscription was nailed up proclaiming: "This island belongs to H.B.M. King George VI."[1]
In 1941 the New Zealand Division became the Royal New Zealand Navy (RNZN) and she was commissioned as HMNZS Leander in September 1941.
Italian ship Ramb I sinking after the engagement with Leander
In World War II, Leander served initially in the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Commander Stephen Roskill, in later years the Royal Navy's Official Historian, was posted as the ship's executive officer in 1941. In action on 27 February 1941, she sank the Italian armed merchantmanRamb I near the Maldives, rescuing 113 of her crew and taking slight damage. On 23 March 1941, Leander intercepted and captured the Vichy French merchant Charles L.D. in the Indian Ocean between Mauritius and Madagascar. On 14 April, Leander deployed for support of military operations in Persian Gulf and, on 18 April, joined the aircraft carrier Hermes and the light cruiser Emerald. On 22 April, Leander was released from support duties in the Persian Gulf and took part in search for German raider Pinguin south of the Maldives.
On 13 July 1943, Leander was with Rear Admiral Walden Lee Ainsworth's Task Group 36.1 of three light cruisers: Leander and the US ships Honolulu and St. Louis. The task group also included ten destroyers. At 01:00 the Allied ships established radar contact with the Japanese cruiser Jintsu, which was accompanied by five destroyers near Kolombangara in the Solomon Islands. In the ensuing Battle of Kolombangara, Jintsu was sunk and all three Allied cruisers were hit by torpedoes and disabled. Leander was hit by a single torpedo just abaft 'A' boiler room. 26 crew from the boiler room and the No.1 4-inch gun mount immediately above were killed or posted missing.[2] The ship was so badly damaged that she took no further part in the war. She was first repaired in Auckland, then proceeded to a full refit in Boston.[3]
She returned to the Royal Navy on 27 August 1945. In 1946 she was involved in the Corfu Channel Incident. She was scrapped in 1950.
The superyacht Leander G, owned by Sir Donald Gosling, is named after HMS Leander, the first naval vessel on which he served.[4]
^"Fiji's future Guardian-class patrol boat to honour fallen sailor". Baird Maritime. 25 October 2019. Retrieved 26 October 2019. The vessel honours Seaman Savenaca Naulutuma, a Fiji-born Royal New Zealand Navy sailor who was killed in action while serving aboard the cruiser HMNZS Leander at the Battle of Kolombangara in the Solomon Islands in World War II. Naulutuma and 25 other crewmembers on Leander were killed shortly after their ship was struck by a Japanese torpedo in the early morning hours of 13 July 1943.
Sources
Catapult-launched Supermarine Walrus from HMNZS Leander, ca. 1938, used as a fleet spotter
Lenton, H. T.; Colledge, J. J. (1968) [1964]. British and Dominion Warships of World War Two (orig. pub. Warships of World War II ed.). Garden City, NY: Doubleday. OCLC440734.
Rohwer, Jürgen (2005). Chronology of the War at Sea 1939–1945: The Naval History of World War Two (Third Revised ed.). Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN1-59114-119-2.
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