HMS Inglefield was an I-class destroyer leader built for the Royal Navy that served during World War II. She was the navy's last purpose-built flotilla leader. She was named after the 19th century Admiral Sir Edward Augustus Inglefield (1820–1894), and is so far the only warship to carry the name of that seafaring family. In May 1940, her pennant number was changed to I02.
HMS Hasty was an H-class destroyer built for the Royal Navy during the mid-1930s. She was assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet until the beginning of World War II. The ship transferred to Freetown, Sierra Leone, in October 1939 to hunt for German commerce raiders in the South Atlantic with Force K. Hasty returned to the British Isles in early 1940 and covered the evacuation of Allied troops from Namsos in early May 1940 during the Norwegian Campaign. She was transferred back to the Mediterranean Fleet shortly afterwards and participated in the Battle of Calabria and the Battle of Cape Spada in July 1940. The ship took part in the Battle of Cape Matapan in March and evacuated British and Australian troops from both Greece and Crete in April and May. In June, Hasty participated in the Syria-Lebanon Campaign and was escorting convoys and the larger ships of the Mediterranean Fleet for the next year. During the Second Battle of Sirte in March 1942 she defended a convoy from an Italian battleship and several cruisers. While covering another convoy from Alexandria to Malta in June 1942 during Operation Vigorous, Hasty was torpedoed by a German motor torpedo boat and was so badly damaged that she had to be scuttled.
HMS Hesperus was an H-class destroyer that had originally been ordered by the Brazilian Navy with the name Juruena in the late 1930s, but was purchased by the Royal Navy after the beginning of World War II in September 1939, commissioned in 1940 as HMS Hearty and then quickly renamed as Hesperus.
HMS Antelope was a British A-class destroyer, which was completed for the Royal Navy in 1930. Antelope served throughout the Second World War, taking part in the sinking of three enemy submarines and in Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of French North Africa.
The first USS Thomas (DD–182) was a Wickes-class destroyer of the United States Navy that entered service just after World War I.
Lieutenant Commander Malcolm David Wanklyn, was a Royal Navy commander and one of the most successful submariners in the Western Allied navies during the Second World War. Wanklyn and his crew sank 16 enemy vessels.
HMS Safari was a third batch S-class submarine built for the Royal Navy during World War II. Commissioned in 1942, she was assigned to operate in the Mediterranean Sea. During the course of the war, Safari sank twenty-five ships, most of which were Italian.
HMS Tartar was a Tribal-class destroyer of the Royal Navy that saw service in most of the naval theatres of World War II. She had an eventful career, eventually receiving the nickname 'Lucky Tartar' due to her numerous escapes from dangerous situations. She was one of only four from the sixteen Royal Navy-operated Tribal-class destroyers to survive the war.
HMS Splendid was a third-batch S-class submarine built for the Royal Navy during World War II. She was laid down on 7 March 1941 and launched on 19 January 1942. After an initial patrol through the Bay of Biscay to Gibraltar, Splendid conducted two patrols in the Mediterranean Sea; one was abandoned after technical problems and on the other she sank two Italian ships. On her next patrol, the submarine attacked two Italian convoys, sinking an Italian destroyer in the second attack. Based in Algiers, the boat operated north of Sicily, sinking six Italian ships, including two tankers and two heavy merchant ships. Splendid was detected by a German destroyer on 21 April 1943 while patrolling off Naples, Italy; the submarine was attacked with depth charges by the destroyer and forced to surface, after which she was scuttled and her surviving crew members taken prisoner. She was the most successful British submarine by tonnage sunk between November 1942 and May 1943.
HMS Sickle was a third-batch S-class submarine built for the Royal Navy during World War II. Completed in 1942, she made her initial war patrol off the Norwegian coast. Sickle then sailed to Gibraltar, from where she conducted one patrol, then to Algiers, French North Africa. From 10 May to 10 October, the boat patrolled the Gulf of Genoa five times and sank a German submarine as well as three minesweepers and an escort ship. She then moved to Beirut, French Lebanon, and conducted two patrols in the Aegean Sea, sinking three caïques and a merchant ship, in addition to landing resistance operatives in Greece.
HMS Sahib was a third-batch S-class submarine built for the Royal Navy during the Second World War. She was launched on 19 January 1942 and commissioned on 13 May 1942. She was the only British naval vessel to bear the name Sahib.
HMS Seadog was a third-batch S-class submarine built for the Royal Navy during World War II. Completed in September 1942, she spent most of her career in Arctic waters, off Norway, but sank only one German ship in 13 patrols. In January 1945, she was redeployed to the Far East, meeting more success. On her first patrol in the area, the submarine rescued four American airmen. After two patrols, she and her sister ship HMS Shalimar sank five sailing vessels, two coasters, a barge, a tugboat and a Japanese tank landing ship. After the war ended, Seadog was sent back to England, placed in reserve, then sold for scrap in December 1947. She was ultimately broken up in August 1948.
HMS Sportsman was a third-batch S-class submarine built for the Royal Navy during World War II. Completed in 1942, she spent most of the war serving in the Mediterranean Sea. After an initial patrol off Norway, she sank the heavy transport Général Bonaparte in the Mediterranean in 1943 and missed a French oil tanker. She was heavily damaged after a mistaken attack by an Allied bomber, and was sent east after repairs to participate in operations in the Black Sea. After the operation was cancelled, Sportsman patrolled the Aegean Sea, sending several Greek and German ships to the bottom. She sank the German transport SS Petrella in early 1944 despite it being clearly marked as a prisoner-of-war ship, killing 2,670 out of 3,173 Italians aboard. Sportsman sank several more ships, and suffered minor damage when she was detected and sighted while attempting to attack a convoy.
HMS Torbay (N79) was a T-class submarine of the Royal Navy. She was laid down at Chatham Dockyard and launched on 9 April 1940.
HMS Escort was an E-class destroyer built for the Royal Navy in the early 1930s. Although assigned to the Home Fleet upon completion, the ship was attached to the Mediterranean Fleet in 1935–36, during the Abyssinia Crisis. During the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939, she spent considerable time in Spanish waters, enforcing the arms blockade imposed by Britain and France on both sides of the conflict. Escort was assigned to convoy escort and anti-submarine patrol duties in the Western Approaches, when World War II began in September 1939. During the Norwegian Campaign, the ship escorted ships of the Home Fleet, although she did tow her sister HMS Eclipse after the latter ship had been badly damaged by German air attack. Escort was assigned to Force H in late June, and participated in the Attack on Mers-el-Kébir in early July. She was torpedoed a few days later by an Italian submarine, but was towed for three days towards Gibraltar before she foundered.
HMS Fortune was one of nine F-class destroyers built for the Royal Navy in the mid-1930s. Although she was assigned to the Home Fleet upon completion, the ship was detached to the Mediterranean Fleet to enforce the arms blockade imposed by Britain and France on both sides during the Spanish Civil War of 1936–39. Several weeks after the start of the Second World War in September 1939, Fortune helped to sink a German submarine. The ship escorted the larger ships of the fleet during the early stages of World War II and played a minor role in the Norwegian Campaign of 1940. Fortune was sent to Gibraltar in mid-1940 and formed part of Force H where she participated in the Battle of Dakar against the Vichy French. The ship escorted numerous convoys to Malta in 1940–41 until she was badly damaged by Italian bombers in mid-1941.
HMS Laforey was an L-class destroyer of the Royal Navy. She was commissioned in and served during the Second World War, and was torpedoed and sunk by a U-boat in 1944. She had been adopted by the civil community of Northampton in November 1941.
HMS Vanoc was a British V-class destroyer, launched in 1917. The ship saw service in both the First and Second World Wars. During the First World War, Vanoc served as part of two destroyer flotillas, undertaking minelayer and convoy escort roles. In 1919, the destroyer took part in British operations in the Baltic as part of Allied efforts to intervene in the Russian Civil War. During the Second World War, Vanoc was involved in evacuation efforts to remove troops from Norway and France, and was utilised as a convoy escort, protecting convoys from German U-boats. In this role, Vanoc sank a German submarine, German submarine U-100 in March 1941 in the Atlantic, and assisted in the destruction of another, German submarine U-99. Three years later, Vanoc was involved in sinking U-392 in the Straits of Gibraltar in concert with a British frigate and several US anti-submarine aircraft. In January 1945, she was involved in a collision with another Allied vessel off Normandy, before being placed into reserve in June. She was later sold for scrap and was broken up after mid-1946.
HM Trawler Arab was a trawler launched in 1936. At the outbreak of World War II, she became a naval trawler serving in the Royal Naval Patrol Service. Lieutenant Richard Been Stannard won the Victoria Cross (VC) while serving as her commander during the Namsos campaign in 1940. The Admiralty returned her to her owners in 1945 and she remained in commercial service until she was scrapped at Ghent in 1963.
HMS Albrighton was a Type III Hunt-class destroyer built for the British Royal Navy. She entered service in February 1942, first carrying out an attack on German ships in the English Channel then taking part in the Dieppe Raid, rescuing survivors from the sinking destroyer HMS Broke. Albrighton was next assigned to search for and destroy the German auxiliary cruiser Komet, then escorted a convoy to Gibraltar in prevision of the Allied landings in North Africa. Between December 1942 and April 1943, she participated in the sinking of three more Axis ships with the First Destroyer Flotilla. During the Normandy Landings in June 1944, Albrighton served as a headquarters ship, then sank two German trawlers in the weeks after the invasion. After being converted to a destroyer in early 1945, she was damaged in a collision with a Landing Ship, then was assigned to the British Eastern Fleet. However, the war ended before she was deployed and Albrighton went into reserve.
United Kingdom
