HMS Encounter (H10)

Encounter in July 1938
History
United Kingdom
Name:	HMS Encounter
Ordered:	1 November 1932
Builder:	Hawthorn Leslie and Company, Hebburn
Cost:	£252,250
Laid down:	15 March 1933
Launched:	29 March 1934
Completed:	2 November 1934
Identification:	Pennant number: H10
Motto:	Acta non verba ("Deeds not words")
Honours and awards:	Atlantic 1939 Norway 1940 Spartivento 1940 Libya 1941 Malta Convoys 1941 Mediterranean 1941
Fate:	Sunk in the Second Battle of the Java Sea, 1 March 1942
Badge:	On a Field Green, two rapiers crossed Silver
General characteristics
Class and type:	E-class destroyer
Displacement:	1,405 long tons (1,428 t) (standard) 1,940 long tons (1,970 t) (deep load)
Length:	329 ft (100.3 m) o/a
Beam:	33 ft 3 in (10.13 m)
Draught:	12 ft 6 in (3.81 m) (deep)
Installed power:	36,000 shp (26,800 kW) 3 × Admiralty 3-drum boilers
Propulsion:	2 × shafts; 2 × geared steam turbines
Speed:	35.5 knots (65.7 km/h; 40.9 mph)
Range:	6,350 nmi (11,760 km; 7,310 mi) at 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph)
Complement:	145
Sensors and processing systems:	ASDIC
Armament:	4 × single QF 4.7-inch (120 mm) Mk IX guns 2 × quadruple 0.5-inch (12.7 mm) machine guns 2 × quadruple 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes 20 × depth charges, 1 rack and 2 throwers

HMS Encounter was an E-class destroyer built for the Royal Navy in the early 1930s. Although assigned to the Home Fleet upon completion, the ship was attached to the Mediterranean Fleet in 1935–36 during the Abyssinia Crisis. During the Spanish Civil War of 1936–39, she spent considerable time in Spanish waters, enforcing the arms blockade imposed by Britain and France on both sides of the conflict. Encounter was assigned to convoy escort and anti-submarine patrol duties in the Western Approaches, when World War II began in September 1939. She participated in the Norwegian Campaign before joining Force H in mid-1940 and was present during the Battles of Dakar and Cape Spartivento later that year. The ship was transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet in 1941 where she escorted convoys to Malta.

Encounter was badly damaged while refitting at Malta a few weeks after arriving in the Mediterranean and was briefly reassigned to Force H after her repairs were completed before rejoining the Mediterranean Fleet later in the year. Late in the year, the ship was transferred to the Eastern Fleet at Singapore and spent several months in early 1942 on convoy escort duties under the control of American-British-Dutch-Australian Command (ABDACOM). She was one of the Allied ships retasked to intercept Japanese invasion convoys during the Dutch East Indies Campaign in February 1942 and participated in the Battle of the Java Sea. Encounter was sunk a few days later in the Second Battle of the Java Sea on 1 March and most of her crew was rescued by a Japanese ship the next day. About a quarter of them died in captivity before the end of the war in 1945. The ship's wreck was discovered in 2007 and had been almost totally destroyed by illegal salvagers by 2016.