ARA King (P-21)

ARA King is a World War II era Argentine Navy warship, originally classified as minelayer and later as patrol ship. The vessel is named after Juan King, an Argentine naval officer that served in the Cisplatine War. It is the third Argentine naval ship with this name.

Design
King was as part of a program to build four mine warfare ships during the Second World War, of which two (Murature and King) were completed as patrol boats and the others (Piedrabuena and Azopardo) as antisubmarine frigates.

History
King was launched in 1943 and commissioned in 1946.

In 1955 took part of rising against Juan Domingo Perón's government known as Revolución Libertadora, when she protected as a floating battery the rebel naval base at Río Santiago.

After the decommissioning of her sister Murature in 2014, King is the oldest unit still in service in the Argentine navy as of 2015.