HMS Scorpion (G72)
_in_June_1944.jpg)
HMS Scorpion in June 1944
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| History | |
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 United Kingdom
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| Name: | HMS Scorpion |
| Ordered: | 9 January 1941 |
| Builder: | Cammel Laird, Birkenhead |
| Laid down: | 19 June 1941 |
| Launched: | 26 August 1942 |
| Commissioned: | 11 May 1943 |
| Decommissioned: | 16 August 1945 |
| Identification: | Pennant number: G72 |
| Motto: | Finem espice - Look to the end |
| Honours and awards: |
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| Fate: | Sold to the Dutch in October 1945 |
| Badge: | On a Field barry wavy of six white and blue, a scorpion gold. |
 Netherlands
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| Name: | HMNLS Kortenaar |
| Acquired: | October 1945 |
| Reclassified: | Frigate, 1957 |
| Fate: | scrapped 1962 |
| 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: | |
| Speed: | 36.75 knots (68.06 km/h; 42.29 mph) |
| Complement: | 225 |
| Armament: |
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HMS Scorpion was an S-class destroyer of the Royal Navy, the eleventh of her name, commissioned on 11 May 1943. Initially she was to be named Sentinel, but this was changed following the loss of the Dragonfly-class river gunboat Scorpion in the Bangka Strait in February 1942. She served in the Royal Navy during the Second World War, mostly in the Arctic Ocean, and fought in the Battle of North Cape. She was sold to the Dutch in 1945 and scrapped in 1962.
Scorpion joined the 23rd Destroyer Flotilla of the Home Fleet at Scapa Flow on 11 May 1943 and was deployed on patrol in the Northwestern Approaches. On 20 October she joined an escort group of nine destroyers, a Norwegian corvette and two minesweepers which sailed to the Kola Inlet as part of Operation FR, tasked to bring back merchant ships that had been waiting in Russian ports over the summer while the Arctic Convoys were suspended. Covered by dense fog, convoy RA54A arrived safely in Loch Ewe on 14 November, while the destroyer flotilla turned around to escort Convoy JW 54B to Archangel. She returned to Scapa Flow, but was out again on 10 December to screen the battleship Duke of York and cruiser Jamaica which had been ordered to sea to cover Convoy JW 55A. The Kriegsmarine did not emerge and so she sailed with the battleship all the way through to the Kola Inlet, an unusual and risky move that surprised the Russians.
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