HMS Avon Vale (L06)
HMS Avon Vale at Malta in 1941
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| History | |
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 United Kingdom
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| Name: | HMS Avon Vale |
| Ordered: | 20 December 1939 |
| Builder: | John Brown Shipbuilding & Engineering Company Ltd. (Clydebank, Scotland) |
| Yard number: | 569 |
| Laid down: | 12 February 1940 |
| Launched: | 23 October 1940 |
| Commissioned: | 17 February 1941 |
| Identification: | pennant number: L06 |
| Honours and awards: |
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| Fate: | Scrapped in 1958 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Type II Hunt-class destroyer |
| Displacement: |
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| Length: | 85.34 m (280.0 ft) |
| Beam: | 9.62 m (31.6 ft) |
| Draught: | 2.51 m (8 ft 3 in) |
| Propulsion: | 2 shaft Parsons geared turbines; 19,000 shp |
| Speed: | 25.5 kn (47.2 km/h; 29.3 mph) |
| Range: | 3,600 nmi (6,670 km) at 14 knots (26 km/h) |
| Complement: | 164 |
| Armament: |
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HMS Avon Vale (pennant number L06) was an escort destroyer of the Hunt Type II class. The Royal Navy ordered Avon Vale's construction three months after the outbreak of the Second World War.John Brown Shipbuilding & Engineering Company Ltd laid down her keel at their Clydebank yard on 12 February 1940, as Admiralty Job Number J1569. After a successful Warship Week national savings campaign in February 1942, Avon Vale was adopted by the civil community of Trowbridge, Wiltshire.
Avon Vale began her career on convoy duty in the North Western Approaches with the Irish sea force. The destroyer was worked up at Scapa Flow with ships of the Home Fleet in March, being redeployed with the Irish Sea Force for convoy defence in Irish Sea in April. In May 1941, the Avon Vale was nominated for service in Gibraltar, where she was deployed for convoy defence with the destroyers HMS Eridge and HMS Farndale.
In July, Avon Vale was deployed for escort duties in a Malta convoy GM1, which consisted a passage through the Western Mediterranean as part of Operation Substance. On 17 July the destroyer joined another convoy, WS9C, with the destroyers Eridge, Farndale and HMAS Nestor. Together the destroyers escorted the troopship Pasteur, forming Convoy GM1, carried servicemen to Gibraltar before taking passage to Malta.
On 20 July the destroyer sailed from Gibraltar to join Force X as escort through the Sicilian Narrows to Malta with HMS Edinburgh, Manchester, Arethusa, the cruiser HMS Manxman, the destroyers HMS Cossack, Maori, Sikh, the destroyers forming Force H at Gibraltar, as well as Nestor, Eridge and Farndale. On 23 July the convoy found itself under close air attacks from Sardinian airfields, during which Manchester and Fearless were damaged and withdrawn from the operation.
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