HMS Wrestler

HMS Wrestler underway
History
United Kingdom
Name:	HMS Wrestler
Ordered:	9 December 1916
Builder:	Swan Hunter, Wallsend
Laid down:	July 1917
Launched:	25 February 1918
Commissioned:	15 May 1918
Out of service:	6 June 1944
Motto:	"Nitendo vincimus" ("By doing our utmost we win")
Fate:	Mined off Juno Beach 6 June 1944. Sold to J Cashmore at Newport to be broken up for scrap, 20 July 1944.
General characteristics
Class and type:	W class destroyer
Displacement:	1,100 long tons (1,118 t)
Length:	300 ft (91 m) o/a 312 ft (95 m) p/p
Beam:	26 ft 9 in (8.15 m)
Draught:	9 ft (2.7 m) standard 11 ft 3 in (3.43 m) deep
Propulsion:	3 × Yarrow type water-tube boilers Parsons steam turbines 2 shafts 27,000 shp (20,134 kW) 320-370 tons fuel oil
Speed:	34 knots (63 km/h; 39 mph)
Range:	3,500 nmi (6,500 km) at 15 kn (28 km/h; 17 mph) 900 nmi (1,700 km) at 32 kn (59 km/h; 37 mph)
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 × QF 12 pdr 20 cwt Mk.I (76 mm), mount HA Mk.II 2 × triple 21 inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes

HMS Wrestler (D35) was a W class destroyer launched by the Royal Navy in the latter stages of the First World War and active from 1939 to 1944 during the Second World War. She was the first Royal Navy ship to bear that name, and the only one to do so to date.

She was the tenth order in the 1916-1917 programme, ordered on 9 December 1916 from Swan Hunter. She was laid down at Wallsend during July 1917, launched on 25 February 1918 and commissioned on 15 May that year, too late to see active service in the war. In the month of Wrestler's commissioning the battleship HMS Hindustan collided with Wrestler and badly damaged her.

Wrestler′s first deployment was in 1921, to the Atlantic Fleet's 5th Destroyer Flotilla. On 8 October 1921, the American steamer West Camak rammed the British passenger ship Rowan from astern in fog in the North Channel. Her passengers were mustered on deck. The British steamer Clan Malcolm then rammed Rowan from starboard and cut her in two. Rowan sank with the loss of 22 of the 97 people on board. Wrestler joined Clan Malcolm and West Camak in rescuing survivors from Rowan.

The 5th Destroyer Flotilla visited the Mediterranean in 1925. The flotilla returned to the United Kingdom during the 1930s on the commissioning of new destroyers and Wrestler was placed in reserve. She then served as tender to the torpedo school at HMS Vernon from 1938 until October 1939 – the month before the outbreak of the Second World War – when she was put on station at Gibraltar.

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Wikipedia