HMS Deptford (U53)

HMS Deptford was a sloop of the Royal Navy. Built at Chatham Dockyard in the 1930s, Deptford was launched in 1935 and commissioned later that year. The ship saw early service on the Persian Gulf station, but the outbreak of the Second World War saw Deptford serving as a convoy escort in the North Atlantic and Mediterranean, sinking a German U-boat in 1941. She survived the war, and was scrapped in 1948.

Construction and design
On 10 January 1934, the British Admiralty ordered a single, HMS Deptford, to be built at Chatham Dockyard. She was the seventh ship of her class to be ordered, following two ordered in 1932 and four (two for the Royal Navy, one for the Royal Indian Marine and one for the Royal Australian Navy) in 1933. Another ship would be ordered for the Royal Navy later that year, with two more being ordered in 1935, while the Australians ordered another ship in 1935 and a final 2 in 1938. The Grimsby class, while based on the previous, was intended to be a more capable escort vessel than previous sloops, and carried a more powerful armament.

Deptford was 266 ft long overall, with a beam of 36 ft and a draught of 9 ft at deep load. Displacement was 990 LT standard, and 1355 LT full load. The ship was powered by two geared steam turbines driving two shafts, fed by two Admiralty 3-drum boilers. This machinery produced 2000 shp and could propel the ship to a speed of 16.5 kn. The ship had a range of 6000 nmi at 10 kn.

Two 4.7 in (120 mm) Mark IX guns were mounted fore and aft on the ship's centreline. As the 4.7 inch guns were low-angle guns, not suited to anti-aircraft use, a single QF 3 inch 20 cwt anti-aircraft gun was mounted in "B" position. Four 3-pounder saluting guns and eight machine guns completed the ship's gun armament. The initial anti-submarine armament was small, with a design loadout of four depth charges. The ship could be fitted for minesweeping or minelaying (for which the aft 4.7 inch gun was removed, allowing 40 mines to be loaded) as well as escort duties. The ship had a crew of 103 officers and men.

Deptford was laid down on 30 April 1934 and was launched on 5 February 1935. The ship was launched by floating out of a dry dock rather than a conventional launch from a slipway. She was formally commissioned on 14 August 1935, completing construction on 20 August.

Modifications
Pre-war modifications included the fitting of Sonar in 1938, and the addition of two quadruple .50 in (12.7 mm) anti-aircraft machine guns in 1939.

The outbreak of war brought the addition of depth charge armament, with 40 depth charges initially being fitted, with this later being increased to 60 charges. A Hedgehog anti-submarine mortar was fitted in 1942, replacing the 3 inch anti aircraft gun. The ship's close-in anti-aircraft armament was supplemented by two Oerlikon 20 mm cannon in January 1942, with a further two being fitted in October that year, and two more replacing the .50 in machine guns in 1943.

Type 286 radar was fitted early in the war, which was replaced by Type 271 in March 1942, when HF/DF radio direction-finding gear was also fitted.

Service
On commissioning, Deptford deployed to the Persian Gulf, reaching Muscat on 14 November 1935 where she replaced the old Flower-class sloop HMS Lupin (1916), with Lupin's crew transferring to Deptford. On 4 June 1936, Deptford carried Sheikh Hamad ibn Isa Al Khalifa, the King of Bahrain to Basra on the first step of a state visit to the United Kingdom. She underwent a short docking at Bombay in March 1936, undergoing a more extensive refit at Bombay from September to November that year. Deptford recommissioned with a new crew at Bombay in April 1937, and continued to serve in the Gulf until November that year, when she was refitted again, this time at Columbo in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). In September 1938 she was refitted at Bombay again, while in November supported three Vickers Wellesley bombers of the RAF flying from Ismalia, Egypt to Darwin, Australia in a successful attempt at the World Flight distance record. Deptford was stationed in the Arabian Sea to act as a navigation waypoint, while the survey ship HMIS Investigator and the sloop HMAS Swan (U74) fulfilled similar roles in the Bay of Bengal and the Timor Sea respectively. It was hoped to carry out a major refit at Malta from May 1939 in which the ship would be re-armed with four QF 4 inch Mk XVI naval guns, but time pressures owing to the threat of war resulted in this refit being cut short and the ship not being rearmed. After this refit she briefly returned to the Persian Gulf station before being reassigned to Singapore, reaching there in August 1939.

The outbreak of the Second World War saw Deptford being ordered back to home waters, reaching Portsmouth on 16 November and joining the 2nd Escort Division based at Liverpool in December. She was deployed in convoy escort duties in the Western Approaches. On 3 February 1940, Deptford was part of the escort for Convoy OB 84 when she collided with the merchant ship SS Antigua, receiving slight damage. On 22 May, Deptford took part in a search for the German submarine GS U-37 (1938) after U-37 had attacked the merchant ship Dunster Grange. In August 1940 she transferred to Rosyth for escort work in the North Sea and North West Approaches, before returning to Liverpool in November as part of the Sloop Division, and carrying out convoy escort in the Atlantic.

On 9–10 February 1941, Deptford was escorting Convoy HG 53 from Gibraltar to Britain when it came under attack by U-37. Deptford carried out a depth charge attack on U-37 after U-37 torpedoed and sank the merchant ship SS Brandenburg. U-37 escaped unharmed. Later that month Deptford entered a refit at Liverpool that continued until March, after which she continued escort operations to and from Gibraltar. On 9 August Convoy HG 70 set out from Gibraltar for the British Isles. The Germans were warned of the convoy's departure by spies, and the convoy came under heavy submarine attack as a result. Deptford, which was joining the convoy's escort from OG 70, was attacked by the ITALIAN SUBMARINE Guglielmo Marconi. While Marconi claimed to have sunk Deptford, the sloop was undamaged. All attacks on the convoy failed with no merchant ships hit. Deptford (by now part of Escort Group 36) took part in the escort of Convoy HG 72 in from 10–15 September, and while the convoy came under attack by the Italian submarines ITALIAN SUBMARINE Leonardo da Vinci, Morosini, ITALIAN SUBMARINE Luigi Torelli and ITALIAN SUBMARINE Alessandro Malaspina, the escort repelled the attacks with no losses. The return convoy OG 74's escort included the Escort carrier HMS Audacity as well as Escort Group 36, and on 20 September, one of Audacity's aircraft, together with Deptford and the corvette HMS Arbutus (K86) forced the German submarine GS U-201 to submerge as it approached the convoy. The rescue ship SS Walmer Castle was badly damaged by a German Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor long-range bomber and was scuttled by Deptford and the corvette HMS Marigold (K87) on 21 September. On the night of 21/22 September, Deptford and Marigold were detached to help a group of four stragglers from the convoy but could not prevent three being sunk. In total, six ships from OG 74 were sunk.

On 14 December 1941, Deptford left Gibraltar as part of the escort of Convoy HG 76. The convoy came under heavy and sustained attack by German submarines and aircraft, and by 19 December four U-boats (GS U-127 (1941), GS U-131 (1941), GS U-434 and GS U-574) had been sunk for the loss of one destroyer (HMS Stanley (I73)) and a merchant ship. Shortages of fuel and damage caused a number of ships to leave the escorting force, while the Germans continued to order more submarines into the battle. In order to draw away some of the U-boats, Deptford and several corvettes were ordered to stage a mock battle by firing guns and star shells at a distance from the convoy. The ruse was unsuccessful however, as it panicked several merchant ships in the convoy to fire off rockets, giving away the convoy's position, which allowed GS U-567 to sink a merchant ship and GS U751 to torpedo and sink Audacity. Later that night, Deptford spotted a surfaced U-boat, and when the submarine dived, carried out a series of depth charge attacks. While Deptford was not credited with a "kill" at the time, she was later found to have destroyer U-567 commanded by the U-boat ace Engelbert Endrass. On returning to the convoy after this attack, Deptford collided with the sloop HMS Stork (L81), killing two survivors of the sinking of U-574 aboard Stork.

Deptford was under repair until March 1942 when she rejoined Escort Group 36, working on the Freetown, Sierra Leone convoy route. She continued these operations until November when she took part in Operation Torch, the Anglo-American invasion of French North Africa. The ship then carried out local escort work along the coast of Algeria until she ran aground off Algiers on 9 December, sustaining heavy damage and not being refloated until 14 December. After return to British waters, she was under repair at Liverpool until August 1943.

Deptford was then allocated to the 37th Escort Group, operating in the Mediterranean Sea, being based at Alexandria and operating in the Eastern Mediterranean until July 1944, when she transferred to Taranto for operations in the Central Mediterranean. In December 1944, Deptford returned to the United Kingdom, where she was employed for convoy escort in the English Channel until May 1945 brought the end of the war in Europe.

Deptford went into reserve at Milford Haven in July 1945 and was sold for scrap on 8 March 1948, being broken up at Milford Haven by Thos W Ward from May 1948.

Pennant number
Note: The Pennant number was not painted on the ship's side until September 1939.