HMS Veteran (D72)

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Career (United Kingdom)
HMS Veteran in King George V Dock, London in 1942
Class and type:	V class destroyer
Name:	HMS Veteran
Laid down:	30 August 1918
Launched:	26 August 1919
Commissioned:	13 November 1919
Fate:	Sunk by U-404 on 26 September 1942
General characteristics
Displacement:	1,120 tons
Length:	312 ft (95 m)
Propulsion:	Geared turbines, 2 shafts, generating 30,000 hp
Speed:	35 knots
Complement:	134
Armament:	4 × 4-inch guns 2 × 2 pounder anti-aircraft guns 6 × 21-inch torpedo tubes
Motto:	Laudator temporis acti (Proud of former deeds)
Honours and awards:	North Sea (1940) Norway (1940) Atlantic (1939-42)
Badge:	On a Field Green, an old warrior’s head, helmeted Proper.

For other ships of the same name, see HMS Veteran.

HMS Veteran was a V class destroyer of the Royal Navy. She was the third ship to carry the name Veteran. She was launched in 1919 and therefore missed the First World War. She served as a convoy escort in the Second World War before being sunk by the German U-boat U-404 while rescuing survivors from the SS New York, a recently torpedoed United States ship. There were no survivors. In May 1940, her pennant number was changed from D72 to I72

1 Career
- 1.1 Interwar period
- 1.2 Second World War
2 Image gallery
3 References

[edit] Career

[edit] Interwar period

HMS Veteran on the China Station in July 1927

When HMS Veteran was launched on 26 April 1919, the First World War had already been won. Her career therefore started in times of peace, and she served in the 3rd Destroyer Flotilla in the Atlantic until 1930 when transferred to the Mediterranean Sea. From 1926, she was deployed under China Station.

[edit] Second World War

When the war started, HMS Veteran was in dockyard hands and did not start her wartime career until November 1939. When it was eventually put into service, it was commanded by Lieut. Cdr J E Broome, a veteran of First World War.

Her initial rôle was anti-submarine duty and convoy escort in home waters and the Southwest Approaches. During this time, she collided with a British submarine and the SS Horn Shell, the latter of which required her to put in for repairs.

In April 1940, she escorted troopships Chobry and Batory from Scapa Flow to Norway, joining convoy NP1 en route. She was then deployed to support the Norwegian Campaign. As part of this rôle, she escorted the aircraft carriers HMS Glorious and HMS Furious.

After the Norwegian evacuation. She was assigned to invasion patrol with HMS Malcolm and HMS Wild Swan, during the operation she sank several invasion barges, but was herself slightly damaged by a mine and required some repair work.

Her next assignment was convoy defence in the Atlantic. In March 1941, she was escorting convoy OB293 when it came under attack by German U-boats. She participated in the anti-submarine operations which sunk U-70 and may have sunk the illustrious U-47, which had sunk the battleship HMS Royal Oak in a daring attack on Scapa Flow early in the war. However, her rôle was minor and she is credited for neither of these victories. Later that month, on 20 March, she participated in the search for the German warships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. In September 1941, she dropped depth charges on German U-boat U-207 which had attacked convoy SC42. U-207 was sunk, and Veteran shared credit of her sinking with HMS Leamington.

In 1942, she was transferred to Canada to instruct the United States Navy in anti-submarine warfare. During this period, she assisted HMS Le Tiger in an attack on U-215 off Boston. Although the attack sunk the U-boat, credit was awarded to Le Tiger.

In September 1942, she was escorting a number of ships to Great Britain when the convoy came under severe attack from numerous U-boats, two of the ships were destroyed. Veteran was rescuing survivors from the SS New York, which was sunk by U-96, when she was herself hit by two torpedoes from U-404. She quickly sank with all hands, as well as a number of survivors from the American ship. Other survivors from SS New York were later rescued.

U-404 was sunk by the Royal Air Force and United States Air Force in July 1943.