HMS Vega (L41)

HMS Vega in port in Russia in 1919.
History
United Kingdom
Name:	HMS Vega
Namesake:	Vega, the brightest star in the constellation Lyra
Ordered:	30 June 1916
Builder:	William Doxford & Sons, Sunderland
Laid down:	11 December 1916
Launched:	1 September 1917
Completed:	12 December 1917
Commissioned:	14 December 1917
Decommissioned:	1920s/1930s?
Identification:	Pennant number: F4A (1917) F92 (January 1918) F09 (April 1918) D52 (interwar) L41 (1939)
Recommissioned:	1939
Decommissioned:	1945
Identification:	pennant number:L41
Motto:	Praeclare fulgens ("Shining brightly")
Honours and awards:	Battle honour for North Sea 1940–1945
Fate:	Sold for scrapping 4 March 1947
Badge:	A gold lyre with a silver star in chief on it, all on a blue field
General characteristics
Class and type:	Admiralty V-class destroyer
Displacement:	1,272–1,339 tons
Length:	300 ft (91.4 m) o/a, 312 ft (95.1 m) p/p
Beam:	26 ft 9 in (8.2 m)
Draught:	9 ft (2.7 m) standard, 11 ft 3 in (3.4 m) deep
Propulsion:	3 Yarrow type Water-tube boilers Brown-Curtis steam turbines 2 shafts, 27,000 shp
Speed:	34 kt
Range:	320–370 tons oil, 3,500 nmi at 15 kt, 900 nmi at 32 kt
Complement:	110
Armament:	4 × QF 4 in Mk.V (102mm L/45), mount P Mk.I 2 × QF 2 pdr Mk.II "pom-pom" (40 mm L/39) or; 1 z QF 12 pdr 20 cwt Mk.I (76 mm), mount HA Mk.II 4 (2x2) tubes for 21 in torpedoes

The second HMS Vega was a V-class destroyer of the British Royal Navy that saw service in World War I and World War II.

Vega was ordered on 30 June 1916 as part of the 9th Order of the 1916–17 Naval Programme. She was laid down on 11 December 1916 by William Doxford & Sons at Sunderland, England, and launched on 1 September 1917. She was completed on 12 December 1917 and commissioned into service on 14 December 1917. Her original pennant number, F4A, was changed to F92 in January 1918 and to F09 in April 1918. It became D52 during the interwar period.

Vega was assigned to the Grand Fleet or Harwich Force and saw service in the last year of World War I, suffering damage while operating with the fleet in 1918.

Vega was among the ships which accompanied the battlecruisers HMS Hood and HMS Tiger during their visit to Scandinavian ports in June 1920. During the voyage, she and the destroyer HMS Vectis (D51) tested the Royal Navy's High Speed Mine Sweep, which the British Admiralty hoped to use in the shallow waters of the Baltic in the event of a war with Bolshevik Russia (soon to become the Soviet Union). In a blow to the Admiralty's plans, both destroyers lost their minesweeping apparatus, demonstrating the High Speed Mine Sweep to be impractical in shallow water.