Exeter

HMS Exeter underway, date and location unknown.

Design

HMS Exeter was initially designed as a sister ship to HMS York; however, several improvements made in her design resulted in Exeter being considered a ship of its own class.

Displacing 8,400 tons standard and 10,500 tons when fully loaded, Exeter was slightly heavier than her intended sister ship. Her length was identical with 175.25m, however her beam was increased to 17.68m while her draft remained the same. In her initial state her crew would count 628 men.

Exeter’s armor was improved over that of York. While the machinery protection remained identical with a 76mm strong belt and a 38mm deck, the magazine protection was drastically increased to 127mm side and 76mm deck armor. The main armament however only received the usual splinter protection — similar to the Japanese cruisers of the era — of 25mm all around.

The main armament remained similar to that of York: three twin turrets, mounted on the centerline with a superfiring pair fore and one turret aft. Her barrels were all 203mm/50 Mark VIIIs, the same gun found on preceding Royal Navy heavy cruiser classes. Capable of firing up to five 116.1kg heavy projectiles per minute to a range of 28 kilometers, these guns were mounted in slightly modified versions of the turret which saved weight and no longer possessed the ability to elevate the guns higher than 50 degrees.

The secondary armament initially consisted of four single mounted 102mm/45 guns, capable of being used against both air and sea targets. In 1941, a new version of this gun came on board in a twin mounting, effectively doubling the firepower. These guns could fire a 28.8kg heavy shell against an air target up to 11.9 kilometers high, while maintaining up to 20 rounds per minute and gun.

Exeter’s light anti-aircraft armament varied before the war, initially carrying a few single mounted 47mm and 40mm Pompoms. These were gradually replaced by two quad-mounted .50-caliber Vickers machine guns, and two octuple mounted 40mm Pompom mounts. Her torpedo armament was carried in two triple launchers, and aviation facilities allowed Exeter to carry two sea planes.

Her machinery spaces were identical to that of York: eight Admiralty 3-drum boilers and four Parsons turbines that generated up to 80,000 shaft horsepower, capable of propelling Exeter up to 32 knots. Carrying 1,900 tons of fuel, a cruising range of 10,000 nautical miles at 14 knots was possible.

Ordered later than her sister York — and to a slightly different design — HMS Exeter (68) was laid down on 1 August 1928 at His Majesty’s Dockyards at Devonport, launched on 18 July 1929, and commissioned into the Royal Navy on 27 July 1931.

Service

From the beginning, Exeter could already lay claim to a historical footnote: she would be the last heavy cruiser ever commissioned by the Royal Navy. Upon commissioning she joined the 2nd Squadron, where her sister served as flagship. In 1934 both cruisers were transferred to the America and West Indies Station, but this assignment was interrupted in late 1935 by the Abyssinian crisis. With a potential war with Italy looming on the horizon (an eventuality neither party had prepared for), both Exeter and York were ordered to join the Mediterranean Fleet, which was then under the command of Admiral Sir William Fisher. As open war never resulted with Italy, and the crisis ended in 1936 with the conquest of Ethiopia, both cruisers were transferred back to the America and West Indies Station where they would remain until 1939.

Due to the presence of the German raider Admiral Graf Spee in the Atlantic when Britain declared war on Germany on 3 September 1939, Exeter was put into action almost immediately under the command of Captain F.S. Bell. Graf Spee had begun a terrifyingly effective campaign against Allied merchant traffic in the South Atlantic, so on 5 October 1939 the French and British put together eight hunter-killer groups assigned to patrol for, find, and sink her. Exeter was assigned to Force G, under the command of Commodore Henry Harwood, along with heavy cruiser Cumberland. Force G was assigned to patrol off the southeast coast of South America, and later the two heavy cruisers were joined by light cruisers Achilles and Ajax.

Upon receiving intelligence that Graf Spee was in the area, Commodore Harwood gathered all available cruisers – Cumberland was undergoing maintenance in the Falkland Islands – to the Río de la Plata, the largest hub of shipping South Atlantic waters and an obvious choice for the Spee’s next target. Exeter steamed north from her station near the Falklands, while Achilles traveled south from her station off Rio de Janeiro, to join Ajax near the Río de la Plata.

Harwood’s intuition proved correct, and at 0608 on 13 December 1939, Ajax spotted smoke to the northwest. Harwood ordered Exeter to investigate, and shortly after at 0616 Captain Bell signaled, “I think it is a pocket-battleship” even as the German ship turned to bring its broadside to bear. With that, the three cruisers raised their battle ensigns and adopted the pre-arranged battle formation. In order to split Graf Spee’s fire, the two light cruisers would engage from a separate heading compared to Exeter, who, alone, would attempt to split the fire of the German cruiser on her north-northwest heading. The battle began at 0618 when Graf Spee fired her opening salvo, sending three 300kg armor-piercing shells shrieking through the air at Exeter from a range of just over 20,000 yards. Two minutes later, Captain F.S. Bell gave his order to engage, hailing the chief gunnery officer with the words: “There’s the [expletive] Scheer! Open fire at her!”. Exeter promptly fired a four-gun salvo from 'A' and 'B' turrets at a range of 18,700 yards. The two light cruisers also opened fire at 0621-0623 from 19,000 yards. Spee opened up on them with her 150mm secondary battery, but her 283mm main guns were reserved for Exeter. At 0623 her third salvo straddled the heavy cruiser, with splinters from a near miss massacring Exeter’s starboard torpedo crew, obliterating the command relay center, and causing damage to searchlights and seaplanes. However, Exeter was dishing out as much as she was getting at this point. Her fifth and sixth salvoes straddled, splinters perforating the Spee's hull, while a 203mm punched through one of the German cruiser’s 105mm secondary mounts, penetrating 9.75 meters into the ship and exploding. The blast, wiping out the fresh-water plant and killing many crew, was the first hit of the battle. Moments later, though, Graf Spee scored her own first hit, as a dud punched through the forecastle of the British cruiser. At 0624, just after she fired her eighth salvo, 283mm high explosive shell smashed into Exeter’s 'B' turret, detonating on the thin 25mm faceplate with devastating affect. The turret was knocked out of action, and the explosion shredded the bridge, killing or wounding all present – including her captain. Two more blows and several near misses added to the damage, causing fires, wiping out communication systems, and destroying the aft conning position. Exeter was now relying on chains of messengers to pass orders along to steer the ship.

The light cruisers had been engaging in a voluminous, but largely ineffective barrage of 152mm fire, until due to their proximity Spee’s captain feared a torpedo attack and switched fire with his 283mm guns. Exeter, spared for the moment, took the opportunity to fire three torpedoes from her starboard tubes at 0632, but failed to hit as the German cruiser retreated behind a smoke screen. At 0637, Exeter burst from the smoke intent on firing her port torpedoes at the German ship. Firing four-gun salvoes from her 'A' and 'Y' turrets, she again struck first, one shell punching through the enemy cruiser's tower mast and the other penetrating the belt armor of Graf Spee, where it exploded in the ship’s workshop, destroying her fuel processing system. A near miss inflicted further splinter damage. However, at 0638 Graf Spee, engaging Exeter again, scored another direct hit on one of Exeter’s turrets, this time knocking 'A' turret out of the fight. Exeter continued to try and engage, but now that the light cruisers were starting to score hits Spee re-focused on them. Exeter finally uncorked her port torpedoes at 0643, but Spee dodged these and engaged Exeter again, with a hit amidships demolishing gyros and fire control instruments as well as sparking a large fire, while another shell exploded forward causing heavy flooding – Exeter was now listing seven degrees to starboard, and was down by the bow. Bell had initially hoped to ram Spee, but as the battle began to recede away he finally retreated from the battle, his ship a cripple – Exeter was on fire in multiple places, down by the bow and listing. She had a single 203mm turret in action – until 0730, when flooding reached the machinery for her 'Y' turret and disabled it, leaving the cruiser toothless. She had fired about 200 rounds and scored three hits with her main guns, and fired six 533mm torpedoes to no effect. However, the few hits she had scored had inflicted decisive damage, which made it impossible for Admiral Graf Spee to escape back to Germany.

Exeter did not stick around to see the end of the enemy ship. The crippled cruiser limped south to the Falklands, pulling into Port Stanley where emergency repairs were conducted until January. She then returned to her place of birth, Devonport, in February, where permanent repairs were affected. She also received extensive upgrades, trading her single 4”/45 QF Mk.V dual-purpose mounts for twin 4”/45 QF Mk.XVI, as well as installing two octuple 40mm pom-pom mounts and a Type 279 air-search radar. Her torpedoes were moved slightly forward to not obstruct the ammunition hoists for the new twin 4" (102mm) mounts.

This work took over a year to complete, and it wasn’t until 10 March 1941 that she returned to service. Coincidentally, sixteen days later her only sister York was sunk in the Mediterranean by MT assault boats of the Decima Flottiglia Motoscafi Armati Siluranti (the 10th Assault Vehicle Flotilla) – the first British heavy cruiser lost in the war. Now the only survivor of her small class, Exeter spent the rest of 1941 escorting convoys in the Atlantic, which mercifully went very smoothly. However, with the entrance of Japan into the war on 7 December 1941, Exeter’s presence was needed in the Far East. She was transferred to Singapore, arriving there on 13 January 1942.

Upon reaching Singapore, Exeter was incorporated into to ABDACOM (American-British-Dutch-Australian Command), a joint Allied force whose task was to defend the Dutch East Indies from Japanese invasion. For a force whose end was so infamous, the early tasks were somewhat mundane in comparison; Exeter spent most of January and early February escorting convoys, but by mid-February matters had rapidly become more pressing as the Allied defenses began collapsing all around them. On 13 February 1942, reconnaissance aircraft spotted a Japanese invasion convoy east of Sumatra. An ABDA force made of five cruisers (including Exeter) and nine destroyers, under command of Dutch Rear Admiral Karl Doorman, was dispatched to attack the Japanese. However, as the ABDA force traversed the Gaspar Strait on 14 February, things started going sour. First, destroyer Van Ghent struck a rock and had to be abandoned, in effect taking two destroyers out of action (as another had to be tasked to take off her crew). Then, making matters worse, the Allied force was spotted by Japanese aircraft, and subsequently came under attack from land-based aircraft and those of the carrier Ryujo. Seven B5N bombers from the carrier launched their attacks against Exeter, but all missed, their only damage being bomb splinters which shredded the cruiser’s seaplane. Attacks continued, and although ineffective, they convinced Doorman to turn back at 1242. Japanese air attacks followed them for the entire day as they retreated, but neither Japanese ordnance nor Allied anti-aircraft fire proved effective at drawing blood against the other.

In late February, all ABDA ships were recalled to Surabaya to join the eastern force, in the wake of more Japanese forces being spotted by Dutch aircraft. The situation was now desperate; Java was the only island in the Dutch East Indies still under Allied control. On 26 February, the ABDA forces' captains met, and Admiral Doorman informed them of his intention to attack the Japanese invasion forces. The fleet, with two heavy cruisers, three light cruisers, and nine destroyers, set sail that evening, but had an inauspicious start, with the flagship De Ruyter accidentally ramming and sinking a tug. Doorman, mistaking the speed of the Japanese force and assuming they were much closer than they actually were, spent much of the night vainly seeking his opponents. It would not be until the next day that anyone from either side spotted the other, and unfortunately for ABDA, it was the Japanese who located Doorman’s fleet first, with Admiral Takagi receiving the sighting report at 1100 the next morning. Takagi increased speed, and ordered heavy cruiser Nachi to launch a scout plane by catapult at 1137. J ust short of an hour later, the scout plane found and reported the ABDA formation, tailing it as is started to head back.

Deciding his path was open, Takagi decided to ignore Doorman’s fleet and continued with his mission. However, later that afternoon, a Dutch PBY Catalina spotted the Japanese force, giving Doorman the first solid information on the location of the Japanese of the entire day. Immediately upon receiving the information at 1427, he reversed course to attack. Nachi’s scout duly reported this, and Takagi prepared for combat, opposing Doorman with a force totaling two heavy cruisers, two light, and ten destroyers. At 1610, lookouts aboard light cruiser Jintsu spotted masts at 30,000 yards, and two minutes later on the Allied side, British destroyer Electra also spotted Japanese ships. Jinstu firede the first shots of the action, engaging Electra at 19,000 yards, and at 1617 Nachi opened fire with her 203mm guns. However, her ranging was off badly: she opened fire from 28,000 yards, but her first salvo fell a full 2,000 yards short. Exeter became the first Allied ship to return fire at 1620, but her shooting wasn’t much better.

At the outset, the duel was mostly between the four heavy cruisers: Nachi and Haguro on the Japanese side, opposed by Exeter and USS Houston (CA-30). The range was still beyond anything light cruisers could hope to engage at, and even though the heavy cruisers could engage, hits were few and far to be found. The first finally came at 1631 when a dud fired by Haguro struck Dutch light cruiser De Ruyter. A long-range torpedo salvo was released by the Japanese, but all failed to hit. Haguro managed to smack De Ruyter with another dud at 1653. On the Allied side, fire was even less effective: Houston’s blood-red salvos (due to her shell dye to aid spotting of fall of shot) frequently straddled Japanese ships as she fired at a furious rate, each gun spitting flame every 20-24 seconds. Accurate as her fire direction was, she also failed to secure any hits. Exeter, meanwhile, couldn’t get any of her salvos close to her foes. Around the same time, the Japanese ships launched a new, massive wave of their dreaded Type 93 Long-Lance Torpedoes.

Finally, the turning point of the battle came, as the Japanese scored three hits in succession – at 1706 a dud penetrated into Houston’s engine room, followed shortly after by a second dud that penetrated into a fuel tank. Finally, at 1708, another dud stuck – this time scoring a hit on Exeter. Coincidentally, the impact was similar to that of Exeter’s first hit on Graf Spee more than two years prior – the shell punched directly through one of the 102mm mounts on the starboard side, penetrating through a ventilator for the boilers before exploding inside boiler room ‘B’, knocking all but two boilers out of action and releasing superheated steam. This resulted in the death of fourteen men, and made it impossible for both damage control teams and rescue parties to reach the boiler room. Exeter began to lose way and turned out of line, followed soon after by other Allied cruisers behind her. HMAS Perth was the first cruiser to realize Exeter had been badly hit, and began circling her with smoke.

As if the situation had yet to become sour enough, at 1713, a Type 93 torpedo slammed into the Dutch destroyer Kortenaer amidships with a massive explosion. The destroyer sank in under two minutes. Here the ABDA force split for the last time. As Admiral Doorman attempted to marshal his forces, Exeter limped away to the south, burning and making only 5 knots. Escorting her were destroyers Electra, Encounter, Jupiter, and the Dutch Witte de With.

Doorman’s force was now down to Houston, three light cruisers (De Ruyter, Java, Perth) and four American Clemson-class destroyers. In spite of this, he covered Exeter’s retreat with his forces, trying to keep Japanese ships away from Exeter as they attempted to score torpedo hits. In the end, however, it took a sacrifice to keep Exeter safe. Recognizing the danger, Commander W.C. May, captain of the Electra, informed his crew; “The Japanese are mounting a strong torpedo attack against the Exeter. So we are going through the smoke to counterattack.”. Electra burst through the smoke, followed by Encounter. Electra’s guns blazed, and quickly landed a hit on cruiser Jintsu, and not long after also punished destroyer Asagumo, damaging her engine room and leaving her dead in the water. Meanwhile, Encounter traded salvoes with Minegumo. One of them also registered hits on Tokitsukaze. The action saved Exeter, but it came at a cost, as Asagumo scored hits in return, hitting Electra below the bridge and in her No. 2 boiler room, shattering the boiler. She rapidly lost speed, while Minegumo began pummeling her at close range. At 1816, barely a quarter of an hour after she dashed out of the smoke, Electra sank.

Exeter and her two escorts (Encounter and Witte de With) retreated to Surabaya, while Doorman continue on towards his infamous and fatal end. De Ruyter and Java were later both sunk by torpedoes from Haguro, while Houston and Perth escaped to Tanjung Priok.

Exeter arrived safely, but the heat in the boiler room was so intense that it could not be entered until the afternoon of the 26th, after which funerals were held for her lost crew. Emergency repairs to the boilers began immediately, as the Allies prepared to evacuate the remaining heavy ships to Colombo in Ceylon. Exeter departed Surabaya on the evening of the 28th, still crippled but able to work up to a top speed of 16 knots. Worse, because her draft was too great, she couldn’t navigate the nearby Bali Strait; she would have to travel west through the Java Sea until she reached the Sunda Strait. That same evening, Houston and Perth attempted to breach the Sunda Strait in company with Dutch destroyer Evertsen, and ran into the Japanese Western Invasion Force, consisting of two heavy cruisers, three light cruisers, and nine destroyers. After a furious action, the Japanese sank all three Allied ships, and five of their own transport ships.

Meanwhile, Exeter, Encounter, and the American destroyer Pope made their dash to freedom. Unfortunately for them, the Japanese knew right where to find them. On the morning of 1 March 1942, at 0750 hours, a lookout aboard Exeter spotted masts to the southwest: it was Nachi and Haguro. Exeter altered course to avoid, but at 0935 her lookouts spotted two more heavy cruisers to the northwest, Myoko and Ashigara. Their two accompanying destroyers tried to close, but at 1010 Exeter’s surviving secondary guns, and the main guns of her destroyers, opened fire on their foes. The Japanese destroyers turned away firing their aft mounts, but neither side’s fire was accurate.

Exeter made a hard turn to starboard and the Allied Force – the only remaining naval units of ABDA – attempted to fleet to the east. Her crew, never ceasing in their repair efforts, allowed Exeter to increase speed by a remarkable margin, and she was able to make 23 knots. However, the two Japanese cruisers were making their own top speed of 33 knots, and at 1020, when the range had closed to 25,000 yards, Myoko and Ashigara opened fire. Exeter returned fire immediately with a broadside, but her shots landed far from the Japanese cruisers; part of her fire control tables (AFCT Mk.III) had experienced a breakdown, and could no longer provide accurate fire solutions. Both Japanese cruiser groups closed to 18,000 yards, the northern group firing freely, while Nachi and Haguro, having consumed two thirds of their ammunition (some 1,619 shells) the previous day, held their fire.

The Allied ships began to weave and make smoke to throw off Japanese aim as 203mm shells from the two northern cruisers relentlessly fell closer. Japanese fire fell off somewhat as a result... but these actions could not prevent them from continuously closing. In a desperate bid, Exeter and her destroyer escorts launched torpedoes at the northern cruisers at a range of just 7,000 yards, causing them to cease fire and take evasive action, but then Nachi and Haguro opened fire from 17,000 yards at 1115. Pope fired off her last five torpedoes at the former, but this did not dissuade Nachi. The Japanese ships in return fired torpedoes, but these had little consequence. Then, disaster struck. At 1120, a full hour after fire had been opened, a 203mm shell stuck her and detonated in boiler room ‘A’ with devastating results: the cruiser’s speed dropped to only 4 knots as she rapidly lost steam and power. Her captain, realizing the end was neigh, ordered the destroyers to flee. Encounter was crippled by splinters and was immobilized around 1135, but Pope escaped into a squall at 1200.

Exeter, her fate clear, was ordered scuttled, and various valves were opened in order to begin the flooding. Even as she began to heel over to port, Japanese shells continued to pummel the stricken cruiser. At 1145, Nachi and Haguro ceased fire, having collectively fired 288 203mm shells. Meanwhile, the destroyer Ikazuchi dashed in and fired yet more torpedoes at the sinking cruiser. This time, the Japanese hit, a Type 90 torpedo striking directly amidships and another abreast the ‘A’ turret, causing Exeter to right herself and then fall over to starboard. Exeter finally capsized and disappeared below the waves at 1200. Encounter, still under fire, followed at 1205, at which point Myoko and Ashigara finally ceased fire, having expended 1,171 shells. 652 men from Exeter’s crew were rescued by the Japanese, but only 500 would survive captivity.

The remains of HMS Exeter were discovered in February 2007 in 200 feet of water, 90 miles north-west of Bawean Island. A return expedition to her remains in 2016 made the gruesome discovery that the site — a British war grave — had been desecrated due to illegal scavengers salvaging the wreckage.

Historical Inaccuracies

• Exeter is depicted after her 1941 refit. Her 1939 configuration when she fought the German armored ship Admiral Graf Spee at the Battle of the River Plate is not represented.
• Permanent camouflage is actually based on the camouflage of HMS York. The camouflage used by Exeter in game differs from York’s historical camouflage by using different shades of grey and inconsistencies in pattern design. Exeter herself never received a camouflage pattern.
• Exeter was painted all over in a coat pre-war pale-grey during her fight with Admiral Graf Spee, and after her refit was painted all over in mid-grey paint. Her wooden decks also remained unpainted.
• The tubs on B and Y turrets don't carry the anti-aircraft machine guns fitted there. These were likely 0.303mm Lewis Guns since no 20mm Oerlikons were available.
• Supermarine Walrus spotter plane is missing.

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  Damage received by Exeter during the Battle of the River Platte (December 1939).

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  Exeter at anchor, early 1941.

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  Exeter under air attack on 15 February 1942.

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  Exeter sinking after the Second Battle of the Java Sea.