Royal Naval Patrol Service

Royal Naval Patrol Service
The HMT Ailsa Craig, a minesweeping Isles-class trawler of the RNPS, 1944
Active	1914–1919, 1939-1945
Country	United Kingdom
Branch	Royal Navy
Type	Fleet

The Royal Naval Patrol Service (RNPS) was a branch of the Royal Navy active during both the First and Second World Wars. The RNPS operated many small auxiliary vessels such as naval trawlers for anti-submarine and minesweeping operations to protect coastal Britain and convoys.

The Royal Naval Patrol Service has its origins in the Great War when the threat of mine warfare was first realized by the British Admiralty. The pre-war Commander-in-Chief of the Home Fleet, Admiral Lord Charles Beresford, is credited with recommending the use of Grimsby trawlers for minesweeping operations following visits he made to various East Coast Ports in 1907. Grimsby, with its impressive docklands and trawler fleet was seen as ideal, with the Commander-in-Chief arguing that the fishing fleet would be inactive in times of war as fishing grounds became war zones. It was also thought that trawlermen would be more skilled than naval ratings with regards to the handling of the sizeable warps and winches that would be required for mine sweeping as they were already accustomed to using them with the working of the trawl. The Admiralty Minesweeping Division remained active throughout the remainder of World War I until the end of the war when the trawlers were returned to their owners to resume fishing operations and the division was disbanded.

The need for a skilled minesweeping force was recognised to be a part of modern naval warfare and the Royal Navy later commissioned one flotilla of fleet minesweepers for the instruction of ratings and junior officers. Three trawlers were then added to the group along with the re-introduction of training in the Trawler Section of the Royal Naval Reserve and, under the new name of the Royal Naval Patrol Service courses in training began at Portland. As tensions mounted in the years before the Second World War training intensified for officers and ratings and experiments and developments in sweeping methods and equipment were carried out, including improvements made to the Oropesa Sweep, named after the trawler that first tried the method in 1918.

In the summer of 1939 the Admiralty purchased 67 trawlers with a further 20 newly constructed and at the outbreak of World War II every available minesweeper of the Royal Navy and Royal Naval Patrol Service was at her war station.HMS Europa, usually known as Sparrow's Nest, became the Central Depot of the Royal Naval Patrol Service, located at Lowestoft, the most easterly point of Great Britain, and then the closest British military establishment to the enemy until decommissioned in 1946. The Lowestoft War Memorial Museum in the town is housed in the old Royal Naval Patrol Service headquarters building.