Penelope A Ship

[Prince Aboubakar]

At the outbreak of World War II Penelope was with the 3rd Cruiser Squadron in the Mediterranean, having arrived at Malta on 2 September 1939. Penelope and her sister ship Arethusa were reallocated to the 2nd Cruiser Squadron in the Home Fleet and arrived at Portsmouth on 11 January 1940. On 3 February she left for the River Clyde en route to Rosyth, arrived on 7 February and operated with the 2nd Cruiser Squadron on convoy escort duties. In April and May 1940, she took part in the Norwegian Campaign.

On 11 April Penelope ran aground off Fleinvr while hunting German merchant ships entering the Vestfjord. Her boiler room was flooded and she was holed forward. The destroyer Eskimo towed her to Skjelfjord where an advanced base had been improvised. Despite air attacks, temporary repairs were made and she was towed home a month later. She arrived at Greenock in Scotland on 16 May 1940 where additional temporary repairs were carried out, before proceeding on 19 August to the Tyne for permanent repairs.

Penelope was holed both forward and aft by near-misses during air attacks on Malta on 26 March. While in the island, she was docked and repaired at the Malta Dry Docks. Day after day she was attacked by German aircraft and the crew worked to fix a myriad of shrapnel holes, so many that she was nicknamed HMS Pepperpot; when these had been plugged with long pieces of wood, HMS Porcupine. Penelope gun-loader, Albert Hewitt, was blown off his feet but regained consciousness still safely holding a four inch shell.[2] Penelope sailed for Gibraltar on 8 April and on the next day was repeatedly attacked from the air. She arrived in Gibraltar on 10 April, with further damage from near-misses. Later that day she received a signal from Vice Admiral, Malta, "True to your usual form. Congratulations".

The damage was extensive and required several months at home after temporary repairs in Gibraltar. The ship was visited by the Duke of Gloucester on 11 April, who had originally laid down her keel plate. The duke also visited Captain Nicholl in hospital. The First Sea Lord congratulated the ship on her successful arrival in Gibraltar. The question of Penelope's repairs had been reconsidered, and it was decided to send her to the United States. She accordingly left Gibraltar on 10 May 1942, for the Navy Yard at New York via Bermuda, arriving on 19 May. She was under repair until September and arrived in Norfolk, Virginia on 15 September, proceeding, again via Bermuda, to Portsmouth, England, which she reached on 1 October 1942. The King, at an investiture at Buckingham Palace, decorated 21 officers and men from Penelope as "Heroes of Malta". Among their awards were two Distinguished Service Orders, a Distinguished Service Cross and two Distinguished Service Medals.

Penelope arrived at Scapa Flow on 2 December and remained in home waters until the middle of January 1943. She left the Clyde on 17 January for Gibraltar, where she arrived on 22 January. She had been allocated to the 12th Cruiser Squadron, in which she operated with the Western Mediterranean Fleet under the flag of Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham during the follow-up of Operation Operation Torch, the landings in North Africa.

On 10 July 1943, with Aurora and two destroyers, Penelope carried out a diversionary bombardment of Catania as part of the conquest of Sicily, (Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily). The flotilla then moved to Taormina where the railway station was shelled. On 11 July, Penelope left Malta with the 12th Cruiser Squadron as part of Force H to provide cover for the northern flank of the assault on Sicily. During the remainder of July and August, she took part in various other naval gunfire support and sweeps during the campaign for Sicily.

On 9 September 1943, Penelope was part of Force Q for Operation Avalanche, the allied landings at Salerno, Italy, during which she augmented the bombardment force. Penelope left the Salerno area on 26 September with Aurora and at the beginning of October was transferred to the Levant in view of a possible attack on the island of Kos in the Dodecanese. On 7 October, with the cruiser Sirius and other ships, she sank six enemy landing craft, one ammunition ship and an armed trawler off Stampalia. While the ships were retiring through the Scarpanto Straits south of Rhodes, they were attacked by 18 Ju 87 "Stuka" dive-bombers of I Gruppe Sturzkampfgeschwader 3 MEGARA. Although damaged by a bomb, Penelope was able to return to Alexandria at 22 knots (41 km/h; 25 mph). On 19 November 1943 the ship moved to Haifa in connection with possible developments in the Lebanon situation. Towards the end of 1943, she was ordered to Gibraltar for Operation Stonewall, (anti-blockade-runner duties), in the Atlantic. On 27 December, the forces in this operation destroyed the German blockade-runner Alsterufer which was sunk by aircraft co-operating with Royal Navy ships. Penelope returned to Gibraltar on 30 December and took part in Operation Shingle, the amphibious assault on Anzio, Italy, providing gunfire support as part of Force X with USS Brooklyn on 22 January 1944. She also assisted in the bombardments in the Formia area during the later operations. She made eight shoots on 8 February.

C. S. Forester, author of the Horatio Hornblower series of sea stories set at the time of the Napoleonic Wars, published his novel The Ship in May 1943. It is set in the war in the Mediterranean and follows a Royal Navy light cruiser in an action where it defeats a superior Italian force. The author dedicated the book "with the deepest respect to the officers and crew of HMS Penelope".[3] The story of the fictional HMS Artemis is based on but does not follow in detail, the Second Battle of Sirte. The book was published before Penelope was sunk.Former British politician Penny Mordaunt is named after Penelope. [4]

I returned to plastic models last year having not built a kit since 1970 and I find things have changed since those days. Kits and aftermarket parts are spectacularly good and my eyes and hands have gone in the other direction. I have been building WW2 RN destroyers from Flyhawk, IBG and Trumpeter mostly with some elementary PE. This will be a step up in many ways so I hope I can bring it to a successful conclusion.

She operated with the 2nd Cruiser Squadron on convoy escort duties. In April and May 1940, she took part in the Norwegian Campaign. On 11 April Penelope ran aground off Fleinvr while hunting German merchant ships entering the Vestfjord. Her boiler room was flooded and she was holed forward. The destroyer Eskimo towed her to Skjelfjord where an advanced base had been improvised. Despite air attacks, temporary repairs were made and she was towed home a month later.

Penelope was holed both forward and aft by near-misses during air attacks on Malta in March 1942. While in the island, she was docked and repaired at the Malta Dry Docks. Day after day she was attacked by German aircraft and the crew worked to fix a myriad of shrapnel holes, so many that she was nicknamed HMS Pepperpot; when these had been plugged with long pieces of wood, HMS Porcupine.

Further service in the Mediterranean saw her bombed and mined several times. On 18 February 1944, Penelope, was leaving Naples when she was torpedoed by the German submarine U-410. A torpedo struck her in the after engine room and was followed sixteen minutes later by another torpedo that hit in the after boiler room, causing her immediate sinking; 417 of the crew, including the captain, went down with the ship

I plan to try to replicate the brown and white camouflage used in 1940 during her stay in Skjelfjord . This was an improvised scheme to try and match the colours of the snowy mountains surrounding the fjord. The colour balance was changed over time with the brown elements increasing to reflect the snow melting. That does give me some license to depart from a strict copy of the layout depicted with the kit. There is some controversy and little pictorial evidence of this paint scheme but the ships log attests to it and confirms that it was brown and whit and not just a simple overpaint of brown onto the light grey hull and superstructures. The exact colour of brown is undetermined so will be my choice.

My goals for the model are to replicate the Skjelfjord paint scheme, install my first set of wooden decks, use the metal gun barrels (another first) and try to use as much PE as I think enhances the model and remains below my fear limit. A stretch goal is to try a Norwegian fjord diorama. I plan a waterline model.

The Flyhawk box contains a nice print of the box top image with some brief notes about the ship on the back. Instructions for the basic kit assembly and the PE are on separate sheets and there are many sprues of beautifully moulded small parts. a metal weight is provided to and some substance to the model. Parts for a Walrus and a Seafox aircraft are provided. The Seafox is the correct choice for 1940.

This will probably be a slow build as I think through the sequence of build and paint and the appropriate points to add PE and the wooden decks. The wooden decks do come with masks which I think will give me some choices

A tentative start has been made. It seems to me that one of the necessary skills is the ability to look at the kit and decide how to break it down into elements to build and paint, especially when masking is required. I spent most of the morning staring at the parts and the assembly information and decided that I will complete the hull, build the elements of the superstructure as far as masking will allow and then assemble, add final details and touch up paint. Some of the PE is much too fragile to stand any form of masking.

The waterline hull assembly and the weight were completed. all tightly fitting. This was followed by the first consideration. The wooden decks came with a set of masks and I was unsure whether to install the wooden decks and then add the masks for subsequent painting or to add the masks to the bare decks and install the wooden decks before final assembly. I decided to install the masks on the bare decks thinking that if any paint got under the mask it was likely to be insufficient to affect the adhesion of the deck but if might be hard to get a perfect register with the mask over the wooden deck and any paint getting on the wood would be disappointing. I made one exception with the lower bridge structure where I did install the wooden deck and then applied the mask. The build up of the structure would make adding the wooden deck difficult later in the build. This is the first time i have used a wooden deck so this may be completely incorrect.

3a8082e126