Portuguese destroyer Dão

NRP Dão was an of the Portuguese Navy. The ship was built in Lisbon Shipyard and completed in 1935. She remained in service until 1960, being refitted and re-armed several times and taking place in a coup attempt in 1936.

Construction and design
On 18 January 1933, a fifth destroyer of the was ordered from Lisbon Shipyard, with machinery to be built by the British shipbuilder Yarrows. Portuguese Dictator Salazar gave a speech to commemorate the beginning of construction, thanking the navy minister for "choosing to name this unit of our fleet after the river that crosses my town." Dão was launched on 30 July 1934 and commissioned on 5 January 1935.

Dão was 323 ft long overall and 307 ft between perpendiculars, with a beam of 31 ft and a draught of 11 ft. The ship displaced 1219 LT standard and 1563 LT full load. Three Yarrow boilers fitted with air pre-heaters and superheaters supplied steam at 400 psi to geared steam turbines, driving two propeller shafts and generating 33000 shp, giving a speed of 36 kn.

Armament was similar to contemporary Royal Navy destroyers, with a gun armament of four 4.7 in Vickers-Armstrong Mk G guns, and three 40 mm (2-pounder) 'pom-pom' anti-aircraft guns. Two quadruple banks of 21 in torpedo tubes were carried, while two depth charge throwers and 12 depth charges constituted the ships' anti-submarine armament. Up to 20 mines could be carried. The ships complement was 147 officers and men.

1936 mutiny
On 9 September 1936 the crews of the aviso Afonso de Albuquerque and the Dão mutinied while anchored in Lisbon harbour. Opposed to the Salazar dictatorship's support of the Nationalists rebels against the pro-government Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, the sailors confined their officers and declared their solidarity with the Spanish Republic. As the ships were leaving the Tejo estuary they were fired upon by the batteries from the forts and both Afonso de Albuquerque and Dão received direct hits and were grounded. Some of the sailors were killed while trying to flee, but most of the sailors were arrested and sent to the penal colony of Terrafal in Cape Verde. After the mutiny was put down the government claimed that the sailors had prepared to sail to Spain in order to assist the Spanish Republic.