HMS Saumarez (G12)

History

United Kingdom
Name:	HMS Saumarez
Namesake:	James Saumarez, 1st Baron de Saumarez
Ordered:	January 1941
Builder:	Hawthorn Leslie, Hebburn, Newcastle upon Tyne
Launched:	20 November 1942
Commissioned:	1 July 1943
Identification:	Pennant number: G12
Honours and awards:	Arctic 1943-44 North Cape 1943 Normandy 1944 Malaya 1945 Burma 1945
Fate:	Heavily damaged by mine on 22 October 1946 Written off as a constructive total loss and sold on 8 September 1950 for scrapping Broken up in Charlestown, Fife in October 1950.
Badge:	On a Field White, within a crescent Red a leopard's face black
General characteristics
Class and type:	S-class destroyer
Displacement:	1,730 tons (standard)
Length:	363 ft (111 m)
Beam:	35 ft (11 m)
Draught:	14 ft (4.3 m)
Propulsion:	Two sets of Parsons geared turbines 40,000 hp (30,000 kW)
Speed:	36.75 knots (68.06 km/h; 42.29 mph)
Complement:	225
Armament:	4 × 4.7-inch (120-mm) QF Mk IX guns (4×1) 2 × 40mm Bofors (1x2) 8 × 20 mm anti-aircraft guns 8 × 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes (2×4)

HMS Saumarez was an S-class destroyer of the Royal Navy, completed on 1 July 1943. As a flotilla leader, her standard displacement was 20 tons heavier than other ships of her class. She continued the tradition of flotilla leaders being named after prominent British seamen, in her case Vice-Admiral James Saumarez, 1st Baron de Saumarez of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

After working up, the Saumarez was allocated to the 3rd Destroyer Flotilla, Home Fleet, and shortly after to the 23rd Destroyer Flotilla, working with the Arctic convoys. She was one of the escorts which sailed from Seyðisfjörður, Iceland on 23 October, taking with them five Russian minesweepers and six Russian motor launches, to bring back from the Kola Inlet thirteen ships which had been there since the Spring. The convoy (RA 54A) sailed from Arkhangelsk on 1 November and arrived in United Kingdom ports on 13 and 14 November without loss, although it had been delayed by thick fog. Saumarez escorted an outgoing Arctic convoy shortly afterwards, which also arrived without loss or damage.

On 22 December Convoy RA 55A sailed from Kola, escorted by eight destroyers, including Saumarez, two Canadian destroyers, three corvettes and a minesweeper. The outgoing convoy, JW 55B, had left Loch Ewe on 20 December and was expected to reach Bear Island on Christmas Day about the same time as RA 55A. Cruiser cover was provided east of Bear Island by Belfast, Sheffield and Norfolk, and heavy cover by the battleship Duke of York and the cruiser Jamaica.

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