Talk:HMS Curacoa (D41)

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[edit] Curacao

Where do people get the idea that the name of this ship is "Curacoa?" If you google "HMS Curacao" you get 31,900 references, as against 788 for "Curacoa". Further, when I found some documents in a flat belonging to a relative of one of the sailors the Baltic Exchange who paid the insurance called it the "Curacao". My father sailed in the Atlantic Convoys and always called it the Curacao (Not Curacoa). ALL the other ships in the Royal Navy similarly named are called "Curacao" after a place in South America called Curacao (not Curacoa). Some articles on the internet spell it both ways within the same item(!) There are 388 reasons for getting the name of their ship right, it's not much to ask, is it? Rant over. I'm going to do some more work on this to be sure. Britmax 08:07, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

The book "Queen Mary and the Cruiser: The Curacoa Disaster" definitely spells it Curacoa. I have also seen a ref somewhere to the origin of the name (which was also used by another HMS Curacoa) as being a mis-spelling by the Admiralty which then stuck. I can't find this ref, but as you say, let's do some research and get a definitive result. --mervyn 10:09, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Ha! horribly plausible, I think. Keep meaning to get down to the library to check Jane's and some others; will probably get it done next week. My father told me that the cruiser was zig zagging in front of the ship to flush out mines; he implied that this was a regular practice. After this and an incident when two destroyers gave up pacing the liner and had to be drydocked on returning home the Mary and the Lizzie were left to cross the Atlantic unescorted. I've heard two theories as to why this worked; the first was the sheer speed of the ships, and the second that orders (some say from the highest level) came down not to touch them as the repeat of a propaganda coup like the sinking of the Lusitania in the First War was deemed undesirable. Don't know how much of this is true (fog of war, chinese whispers, propaganda, etc).Thanks for the reply anyway, Mervyn. Britmax 18:29, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

J. J. Colledge, Ships of the Royal Navy, Greenhill Books, 1987 is generally regarded as the authority on RN ship names. I don't have it, but check it out if you get the chance. --mervyn 19:18, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Colledge and Jane's both list her as Curacoa. And Colledge lists all Royal Navy ships so named as Curacoa (not Curacao!) as far back as the first one in 1809. Seems definitive. Benea 19:06, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

And no, far from being warned off them, the Germans were very much after the Queens. "Because of their size and prestige their sinking was such a high priority for Germany that Adolf Hitler offered the equivalent of $250,000.00 and the Iron Cross to the U-boat commander who could sink them" - from RMS Queen Mary, and quoted from here. Benea 15:58, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

And no to the zig zagging as a way of flushing mines in this instance. It was an accepted practice, but in areas where there were expected to be mines, eg in chokepoints, etc. In this case, the point of collision was in open waters, where it did not make much sense to lay mines in the unlikely chance that a ship and mine would would one day intersect. Curacoa was zig zagging as an anti u-boat measure. This worked in two ways, by continually changing course, she made herself a much harder target for a u-boat to make an accurate prediction about where to aim the torpedoes. And by continually shifting her position and covering a wider area

by zig zagging, it increased the chances of detecting any u-boats shadowing the convoy, which would have been hard pressed to find an area that might not be suddenly covered by the erratic course of the convoy escorts. Hope all this clears up the situation. Benea 14:31, 13 October 2007 (UTC)