&sq=Envato&lang=en&file=File:HMS_Bonaventure_1940_IWM_A_1733.jpg) Bonaventure at her mooring, 1940
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| History | |
|---|---|
 United Kingdom | |
| Name | Bonaventure |
| Builder | Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Company, Greenock, Scotland |
| Laid down | 30 August 1937 |
| Launched | 19 April 1939 |
| Commissioned | 24 May 1940 |
| Identification | Pennant number 31[1] |
| Fate | Torpedoed by the Italian submarine Ambra, 31 March 1941 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type | Dido-class light cruiser |
| Displacement | 5,530 long tons (5,620 t) (standard) |
| Length | 512 ft (156 m) (o/a) |
| Beam | 50 ft 6 in (15.39 m) |
| Draught | 14 ft (4.3 m) |
| Installed power |
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| Propulsion | 4 × shafts; 4 × geared steam turbines |
| Speed | 32.25 knots (59.73 km/h; 37.11 mph) |
| Range | 4,240 nautical miles (7,850 km; 4,880 mi) at 16 knots (30 km/h; 18 mph) |
| Complement | 487 |
| Sensors and processing systems | Type 279 early-warning radar |
| Armament |
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| Armour | |
HMS Bonaventure was the lead ship of the Dido-class light cruisers built for the Royal Navy (RN) during the 1930s and during the Second World War. Completed in 1940, Bonaventure was assigned to the Home Fleet and participated in Operation Fish, the evacuation of British wealth from the UK to Canada in July. The ship made one short patrol in August into the North Atlantic to search for German blockade runners and followed that up by escorting an aircraft carrier as it conducted air strikes in Southern Norway in September. The next month she was tasked to provide cover for anti-shipping raids off the Norwegian coast. Bonaventure participated in the unsuccessful search for the German commerce raider Admiral Scheer in November and sustained weather damage that caused her to spend time in a dockyard for repairs. She was part of the escort force for Convoy WS 5A in December and helped to drive off another German commerce raider. While searching for stragglers from the convoy, the cruiser sank a German blockade runner.
Bonaventure was one of the escorts for Operation Excess, a convoy bound for Malta in January 1941 and helped to sink and Italian torpedo boat as the convoy approached Malta; she was transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet afterwards for operations in the Eastern Mediterranean. The ship spent the next several months either escorting convoys or providing cover for them. She did play a small role in Operation Abstention, an unsuccessful invasion of an Italian island in the Dodecanese off the Turkish coast in February. Bonaventure escorted several convoys from British Egypt to Greece in early March and then escorted one to Malta. After her return to Egypt, the ship escorted a convoy returning from Greece and was sunk by an Italian submarine on 31 March; 138 men died during the sinking.