HMS Starling (U66)

Career (UK)
Name: HMS Starling
Namesake: Starling
Builder: Fairfields
Laid down: 21 October 1941
Launched: 14 October 1942
Completed: 1 April 1943
Reclassified: As a frigate in 1947
Fate: Broken up July 1965
General characteristics
Class and type: Modified Black Swan-class sloop
Displacement: 1,350 tons
Length: 299 ft 6 in (91.29 m)
Beam: 38 ft 6 in (11.73 m)
Draught: 11 ft (3.4 m)
Propulsion: Geared turbines, 2 shafts
4,300 hp (3.21 MW)
Speed: 20 knots (37 km/h)
Range: 7,500 nmi (13,900 km) at 12 kn (22 km/h)
Complement: 192
Armament: 6 × 4-inch (102 mm) AA guns (3 × 2)
4 × 2 pdr AA pom-pom
12 × 20 mm Oerlikon AA (6 × 2)
Service record
Part of: 2nd Support Group
Commanders: Frederick John Walker
Operations: Battle of the Atlantic
Arctic convoys
Operation Neptune
Victories: 15 U-boats (shared)

HMS Starling (U66) was a Modified Black Swan-class sloop of the Royal Navy. She was built by Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company at Govan, Scotland, launched on 14 October 1942, and commissioned on 1 April 1943.

In the Battle of the Atlantic in World War II, Starling was the flagship of Captain Frederic John Walker's 2nd Support Group, a flotilla of six sloops not tied down to convoy protection, but free to hunt down U-boats wherever found. The other ships of the group were HMS Cygnet, HMS Kite, HMS Wild Goose, HMS Woodpecker, and HMS Wren.

Starling was scrapped in 1965.

Contents

Combat record against U-boats

Starling participated in the sinking of fourteen U-boats:

During the war the Starling was credited, along with the sloops Amethyst, Peacock, Hart, and frigate Loch Craggie, with sinking the U-482 in the North Channel on 16 January 1945. The British Admiralty withdrew this credit in a post-war reassessment.[1]

See also

Media related to [//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:HMS_Starling_(F-66) HMS Starling (F-66)] at Wikimedia Commons

Notes

  1. ^ Blair (2000), 630-631.

References

External links