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HMS Worcester (D96)

HMS Worcester (I96)
HMS Worcester moored at a buoy during World War II, sometime between the changing of her pennant number to I96 in June 1940 and her becoming a constructive total loss in December 1943.
History
Royal Navy Ensign
Class and type: Admiralty Modified W-class destroyer
Name: HMS Worcester
Ordered: April 1918
Builder: J. Samuel White, Cowes, Isle of Wight, and Royal Navy Dockyard, Portsmouth
Laid down: 20 December 1918
Launched: 24 October 1919
Completed: 20 September 1922
Commissioned: 20 September 1922
Decommissioned: early 1930s
Recommissioned: September 1939
Fate: Constructive total loss 23 December 1943
Decommissioned: April 1944
Reclassified: Accommodation ship, May 1944
Recommissioned: June 1945
Renamed: HMS Yeoman, June 1945
Fate: Sold 17 September 1946 for scrapping
Motto: In bello in pace fidelis ("Faithful in peace and war")
Honours and
awards:
Badge: A silver castle with three towers on a field divided into black and red quarters
General characteristics
Class and type: Admiralty Modified W-class destroyer
Displacement: 1,140 tons standard, 1,550 tons full
Length: 300 ft o/a, 312 ft p/p
Beam: 29.5 feet (9.0 m)
Draught: 9 feet (2.7 m), 11.25 feet (3.43 m) under full load
Propulsion: Yarrow type Water-tube boilers, Brown-Curtis geared 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: 127
Sensors and
processing systems:
  • Type 286M Air Warning Radar fitted 1940
  • Type 271 Surface Warning Radar fitted 1940
Armament:

The eighth HMS Worcester (D96, later I96), was a Modified W-class destroyer of the British Royal Navy that saw service in World War II. She later served as an accommodation ship as the second HMS Yeoman.

Worcester was ordered in April 1918 as part of the 13th Order of the 1917-1918 Naval Programme. She was laid down on 20 December 1918 by J. Samuel White at Cowes, Isle of Wight, and launched on 24 October 1919. After launching, she was transferred to the Royal Navy Dockyard at Portsmouth for fitting out, and was completed there on 20 September 1922. She was commissioned into service the same day with the pennant number D96.

After entering service with the fleet in 1922, Worcester saw service in the Atlantic Fleet and Mediterranean Fleet before being decommissioned, transferred to the Reserve Fleet, and placed in reserve at Portsmouth in the early 1930s.

In 1939, Worcester was selected for recommissioning as the fleet mobilised because of deteriorating diplomatic relations between the United Kingdom and Nazi Germany.

After the United Kingdom entered World War II on 3 September 1939, Worcester prepared for war service, recommissioning that month, taking aboard stores, and reporting for duty with the 16th Destroyer Flotilla – which also included the destroyer leader HMS Montrose (D01) and the destroyers HMS Venomous (D75), HMS Veteran (D72), HMS Verity (D63), HMS Whitshed (D77), HMS Wild Swan (D62), and HMS Wivern (D66) – at Portsmouth for convoy escort and patrol operations in the English Channel and Southwestern Approaches, which she began in October 1939. She remained on these duties until May 1940, when the German invasion of the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France began and she was transferred to Dover Command to support the evacuation of Allied personnel from Europe as German ground forces advanced. On 24 May, she was assigned to Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of Allied troops from Dunkirk, France, during which she made six trips to the Dunkirk beaches, transported a total of 4,350 troops to the United Kingdom, and suffered damage in a German air attack on 27 May 1940.


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