HMS Scarborough (U25)
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HMS Scarborough was a Royal Navy sloop of the Hastings class launched in 1930. She saw active service during World War II, especially as a convoy escort in the North Atlantic.
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[edit] Particulars
Scarborough displaced 1,045 tons standard and was 266 ft 4 in (81 m) long, 34 ft 1 in (10.4 m) wide and drew 12 ft 6 in (3.8 m) of water. Her 2 shaft Parsons geared turbines developed 2,000 shp (1.5 MW) to give Scarborough a top speed of 16.5 knots (31 km/h). She carried 312 tons of oil when full.
She was built at the Swan Hunter shipyard in north east England. Scarborough was a fine looking ship, with a single funnel just behind the main mast. During her peacetime cruises she was painted in the foreign station colours of white with a buff funnel.
[edit] Pre War
From 1931 onwards , Scarborough was part of the North America and West Indies Squadron stationed at Bermuda. The famous World War I hero, Augustus Agar V.C., was her captain in the early 1930s. Peacetime duties included showing the flag, especially in smaller ports of the Empire, those unlikely to be visited by large warships.
In the summer of 1931 she was in Newfoundland, then a British dominion, sometimes acting as a yacht to take the Governor around to visit smaller ports. She was on this duty again in 1933 and in 1934 took British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald and his daughter up the west coast of Newfoundland to visit the Grenfell Mission at St. Anthony.
While a part of the North America and West Indies Squadron in 1933 she visited Prince Edward Island in Canada. There, her then captain, Commander Cornwallis, his officers and petty officers were entertained by Senator Creelman MacArthur at his summer home on Foxley River.
[edit] War time modifications
Scarborough was disarmed and used as a survey ship in 1938/39, but at the outbreak of the war in September, 1939, she was rearmed with 1 x 4 inch (102 mm) Quick Fire high angle gun, suitable against either surface or air targets. During late 1941 and 1942, she carried a 12 pounder (5 kg) high angle Quick Fire anti aircraft gun and gradually a number of 20 mm antiaircraft guns were added.
For anti submarine work, Scarborough was given 15 depth charges in 1939, later increased to 40 then 80.
She carried a crew of 100 men.
[edit] Convoy escort in World War Two
Scarborough was most suited in wartime to convoy escort duty and early on was assigned to this role. Britain was short of suitable ships, especially after Italy entered the war in June 1940 and destroyers had to be sent to the Mediterranean.
[edit] The Massacre of Convoy SC-7
HMS Scarborough was sole naval escort for the first three quarters of the journey for the slow convoy SC-7 which left Sydney, Nova Scotia on October 4, 1940 bound for Liverpool and other British ports.
The convoy was supposed to make 8 knots, but a number of its 35 merchant ships were much slower than this. The convoy consisted of older, smaller ships, mostly with essential cargoes of bulk goods. Many of the ships were British, but the convoy also included Greek, Swedish, Norwegian and Dutch vessels. The convoy commodore, Vice Admiral L. D. I. Mackinnon, a retired naval officer who volunteered for this civilian duty, sailed in the SS Assyrian, a British ship of 2,962 tons. As convoy commodore, Mackinnon was in charge of the good order of the merchant ships, but did not command the escort.
The HMS Scarborough was sole naval escort for the first three quarters of the journey. There was no aircraft protection in 1940 for Allied ships in the Atlantic Ocean after leaving coastal regions.
SC7 was just the second convoy to be attacked by a wolf pack, groups of German U-boats making coordinated attacks. There was little that the Scarborough could do, even when reinforced from Britain the next day, October 17, by the sloop Fowey and the new corvette Bluebell.
[edit] Later Convoy Work
As the war progressed British antisubmarine tactics and equipment improved and more ships and reconnaissance aircraft were deployed.
On April 5, 1941, Scarborough in company with the destroyer HMS Wolverine sank the German submarine, U 76 with depth charges south of Iceland. Only one of the submarine's crew was lost, the other 42 surviving.
Also in the spring of 1941, Scarborough intercepted and sank two German-manned ex-Norwegian whalers. These had been captured by the German auxiliary cruiser Pinguin in the South Atlantic and were being sent to German occupied Bordeaux with their valuable cargo of whale oil. The Star XIX was of 360 tons displacement and the Star XXIV was of 250 tons displacement.
On February 7th, 1943, Scarborough was part of the escort of Convoy MJS-7 when three of its merchant ships hit mines west of Gibraltar that had been laid by a German submarine on February 1 and 2, 1943. The Emperor Mordred sank taking 12 crew and 3 gunners down with her, but HMS Scarborough rescued the master, 41 crew and 13 gunners. She landed them safely in Liverpool.
[edit] D Day
Just ahead of the Allied landings in Normandy on D Day in June 1944, Scarborough was assigned to follow closely behind British minesweepers which were making a path through the German minefields near the coast of Normandy. She dropped buoys to mark the clear path for the assault convoys.
[edit] Finis
Scarborough was sold for break up in 1949.
