HMS Griffin (H31) was a G-class destroyer, built for the Royal Navy in the mid-1930s. In World War II she took part in the Norwegian Campaign of April–May 1940 and the Battle of Dakar in September before being transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet in November. She generally escorted larger ships of the Mediterranean Fleet as they protected convoys against attacks from the Italian Fleet. Griffin took part in the Battle of Cape Matapan in March 1941 and the evacuations of Greece and Crete in April–May 1941. In June she took part in the Syria-Lebanon Campaign and was escorting convoys and the larger ships of the Mediterranean Fleet until she was transferred to the Eastern Fleet in March 1942.
The G- and H-class destroyers were a group of 18 destroyers built for the Royal Navy during the 1930s. Six additional ships being built for the Brazilian Navy when World War II began in 1939 were purchased by the British and named the Havant class. The design was a major export success with other ships built for the Argentine and Royal Hellenic Navies. They were assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet upon completion and enforced the Non-Intervention Agreement during the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939.
Imperial Japanese Navy submarines originated with the purchase of five Holland type submarines from the United States in 1904. Japanese submarine forces progressively built up strength and expertise, becoming by the beginning of World War II one of the world's most varied and powerful submarine fleets.
The Mediterranean U-boat Campaign lasted from about 21 September 1941 to 19 September 1944 during the Second World War. Malta was an active British base strategically located near supply routes from Europe to North Africa. Axis supply convoys across the Mediterranean Sea suffered severe losses, which in turn threatened the fighting ability of the Axis armies in North Africa. The Allies were able to keep their North African armies supplied. The Kriegsmarine tried to isolate Malta but later it concentrated its U-boat operations on disrupting Allied landing operations in southern Europe.
HMCS Moose Jaw was a Royal Canadian Navy Flower-class corvette which took part in convoy escort duties during World War II. Together with HMCS Chambly, she achieved the RCN's first U-boat kill of the war. She was named after Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan.
The Shoreham-class sloops were a class of eight warships of the Royal Navy built in the early 1930s.
The River class was a series of fourteen destroyers of the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) that served before and during the Second World War. They were named after Canadian rivers.
The Gruppe Monsun or Monsoon Group was a force of German U-boats (submarines) that operated in the Pacific and Indian Oceans during World War II. Although similar naming conventions were used for temporary groupings of submarines in the Atlantic, the longer duration of Indian Ocean patrols caused the name to be permanently associated with the relatively small number of U-boats operating out of Penang. After 1944, the U-boats of the Monsun Gruppe were operationally placed under the authority of the Southeast Asia U-boat Region.
An Empire ship is a merchant ship that was given a name beginning with "Empire" in the service of the Government of the United Kingdom during and after World War II. Most were used by the Ministry of War Transport (MoWT), which owned them and contracted their operation to various shipping companies of the British Merchant Navy.
Park ships were merchant steamships constructed for Canada’s Merchant Navy during the Second World War. Park ships and Fort ships were the Canadian equivalent of the American Liberty ships. All three shared a similar design by J.L. Thompson and Sons of Sunderland, England. Fort ships had a triple expansion steam engine and a single screw propeller. Fort ships were ships transferred to the British government and the Park ships were those employed by the Canadian government, both had the similar design. Park ships were named after local and National Parks of Canada. A few Park ships were launched as "Camp ships", named after Canada military camps, but were quickly renamed after Parks. Jasper Park was the first Park ship lost to enemy attack, in the Indian Ocean after a torpedo attack from U-177 in the Indian Ocean, South of Durban, South Africa.
Counties Ship Management Co. Ltd. (CSM) was an ocean-going merchant shipping company based in the United Kingdom. During the Second World War CSM merchant ships made a substantial contribution to supplying the British war effort, at a cost of 13 ships lost and 163 officers and men killed.
HMCS Morden was a Flower-class corvette that served with the Royal Canadian Navy during the Second World War. She fought primarily in the Battle of the Atlantic as an ocean escort.
