HMS Fortune (H70)

Fortune in June 1943
History
United Kingdom
Name:	Fortune
Builder:	John Brown & Company, Clydebank
Laid down:	25 July 1933
Launched:	29 August 1934
Commissioned:	27 April 1935
Fate:	Transferred to the Royal Canadian Navy, 31 May 1943
Canada
Name:	Saskatchewan
Namesake:	Saskatchewan River
Acquired:	31 May 1943
Commissioned:	31 May 1943
Out of service:	28 January 1946
Identification:	Pennant number: H70
Fate:	Sold for scrap, 1946
General characteristics
Class and type:	F-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 Fortune was one of nine F-class destroyers built for the Royal Navy in the mid-1930s. Although she was assigned to the Home Fleet upon completion, the ship was detached to the Mediterranean Fleet to enforce the arms blockade imposed by Britain and France on both sides during the Spanish Civil War of 1936–39. Several weeks after the start of the Second World War in September 1939, Fortune helped to sink a German submarine. The ship escorted the larger ships of the fleet during the early stages of World War II and played a minor role in the Norwegian Campaign of 1940. Fortune was sent to Gibraltar in mid-1940 and formed part of Force H where she participated in the Battle of Dakar against the Vichy French. The ship escorted numerous convoys to Malta in 1940–41 until she was badly damaged by Italian bombers in mid-1941.

After repairs were completed, Fortune was briefly assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet before she was transferred to the Eastern Fleet in the Indian Ocean in early 1942. The ship screened an aircraft carrier during the Battle of Madagascar later that year and was assigned to convoy escort duties for the rest of 1942 and early 1943. She returned home in February to begin conversion into an escort destroyer. The ship was transferred to the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) when it was completed in mid-1943 and renamed HMCS Saskatchewan. The ship spent the next year escorting convoys in the North Atlantic before she was transferred to the English Channel to defend convoys during the Normandy landings in June 1944. Sasketchewan engaged some German patrol boats the following month and was lightly damaged. She was sent to Canada for repairs and a general refit and did not return to the UK until January 1945. The ship resumed her former duties until the end of the war in May and then ferried troops back to Canada for several months. Sasketchewan was judged surplus later that year and was sold for scrap, in early 1946.