HMS Versatile (D32)

HMS Versatile moored to a buoy during World War II sometime after the May 1940 change of her pennant number to I32.
History
United Kingdom
Name:	HMS Versatile
Namesake:
Ordered:	30 June 1916
Builder:	Hawthorn Leslie and Company, Tyneside, England
Laid down:	31 January 1917
Launched:	31 October 1917
Completed:	11 February 1918
Commissioned:	11 February 1918
Decommissioned:	October 1936
Identification:	Pennant number: F29 (1917) G10 D32 (interwar) I32 (May 1940)
Recommissioned:	1939
Decommissioned:	summer 1945
Motto:	Omnibus eadem ("The same in all (winds)")
Honours and awards:	Battle honours for: Atlantic 1939–1945 North Sea 1941–1945 Normandy 1944 English Channel 1944–1945
Fate:	Sold for scrapping 7 May 1947
Badge:	A gold weather vane on a black 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

HMS Versatile (D32) was a Admiralty V-class destroyer of the British Royal Navy that saw service in World War I, the Russian Civil War, and World War II.

Versatile, the first Royal Navy ship of the name, was ordered on 30 June 1916 as part of the 9th Order of the 1916–17 Naval Programme. She was laid down on 31 January 1917 by Hawthorn Leslie and Company at Tyneside, England, and launched on 31 October 1917. She was completed on 11 February 1918 and commissioned into service the same day. Her original pennant number, F29, was later changed to G10 and became D32 during the interwar period.

All V- and W-class destroyers, Versatile among them, were assigned to the Grand Fleet or Harwich Force.Versatile saw service in the last year of World War I.

During 1919, Versatile took part in the British campaign against Bolshevik forces in the Baltic Sea during the Russian Civil War. She then served in the 1st Destroyer Flotilla in the Atlantic Fleet.

On 23 March 1922, Versatile was steaming off Europa Point, Gibraltar, at 20 knots with other destroyers while British submarines practised attacks on them. The submarine H42 surfaced unexpectedly only 30 or 120 yards (27 or 110 meters) – sources differ – ahead of her. Versatile went to full speed astern on her engines and put her helm over hard to port, but had not yet begun to answer her helm when she rammed H42 abaft the conning tower, almost slicing the submarine in half. H42 sank with the loss of all hands. An investigation found H42 at fault for surfacing where she did against instructions.