HMS Hesperus (H57)

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HMS Hesperus (H57) was an H-class destroyer of the Royal Navy.

She was originally laid down as Juruena for the Brazilian Navy by John I. Thornycroft and Company at Woolston in Southampton on 6 July 1938, launched on 1 August 1939, purchased in September 1939 and named Hearty. Commissioned on 22 January 1940, Hearty was renamed Hesperus on 27 February, after the Hesperus of mythology.

After serving briefly with the 9th Destroyer Flotilla of the Home Fleet, Hesperus was attached to Western Approaches Command for most of the war.

On 25 October 1941, Hesperus and the destroyers HMS Electra and HMS Express escorted the battleship HMS Prince of Wales for the first part of her journey to the Far East. The destroyers refuelled from the Prince of Wales south of Ireland. Two days later the destroyer, HMS Legion was detached from a convoy to cover the Prince of Wales with Hesperus while Electra and Express refuelled from a tanker in Ponta del Garda in the Azores. After Electra and Express returned the following day, Hesperus and Legion departed for Gibraltar.

Hesperus was one of the leading submarine hunters in the war. The ship attacked and sank the enemy German submarines U-208 while in company with the destroyer HMS Harvester in the Atlantic west of Gibraltar on 7 December 1941, U-93 in the North Atlantic on 15 January 1942, U-357 while in company with the destroyer HMS Vanessa in the Atlantic north-west of Ireland on 20 December 1942, U-191 in the North Atlantic south-east of Cape Farewell in Greenland on 23 April 1943 and U-186 in the Atlantic north of the Azores on 12 May 1943.

From June 1942 to March 1944 the destroyer was the leadship of Escort Group B 2, commanded by Commander Donald Macintyre, one of the leading submarine hunters of the war.

Hesperus was sold for scrap on 26 November 1946 and broken up at Grangemouth.