HMS Pasley (1916)

HMS Pasley was an Admiralty M-class destroyer built on the Tyne by Swan Hunter & Wigham Richardson for the Royal Navy and launched on 15 April 1916. She saw service during the First World War.

In foul weather on the night of 16 September 1917, whilst escorting a convoy from Aspö Fjord in Norway to Lerwick, Pasley rammed and sank the submarine HMS G9, after G9 fired two torpedoes at her, believing her to be a German U boat. Pasley stopped to pick up survivors, but only one member of G9's crew was saved, after Able Seaman Henry Old jumped from the destroyer into the sea to attach a running bowline around him, enabling him to be hauled aboard.

Pasley suffered extensive but not critical damage to her bows, and was able to continue her voyage to Lerwick; she was later repaired and returned to the fleet. At the Court of Inquiry held four days after the incident aboard HMS Indomitable at Scapa, it was decided no blame could be attached to Pasley, concluding "that the process of reasoning which led the captain of HM Submarine G9 to mistake HMS Pasley for a U-boat is, and must remain, unexplained".

Their Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty later directed the captain of HMS Pasley, Commander Charles Gordon Ramsey, to inform the Officer of the Watch at the time of the incident, Midshipman Wallis, that in the opinion of the Court of Inquiry the action taken by him "was the right action to take under the circumstances, and that its result, so deeply to be regretted, is evidence that it was taken with commendable promptness and precision....".

Commander Ramsey later rose to the rank of admiral; he retired in 1942, and was appointed aide de camp to King George VI. His portrait by Bassano is held by the National Portrait Gallery, London.

HMS Pasley was sold for scrap on 9 May 1921.