HMS Verdun (L93)


HMS Verdun underway during the Second World War
Career
Class and type: Admiralty V class destroyer
Name: HMS Verdun
Ordered: 1916-17
Builder: Hawthorn Leslie and Company
Laid down: 13 January 1917
Launched: 21 August 1917
Commissioned: 3 November 1917
In service: Converted to long-range escort between 1939-1940
Fate: Sold for scrap in April 1946
General characteristics
Displacement: 1,272-1,339 tons
Length: 300 ft o/a, 312 ft p/p
Beam: 26 ft 9 in
Draught: 9 ft standard, 11 ft 3 in deep
Propulsion: 3 Yarrow type Water-tube boilers
Brown-Curtis steam turbines, 2 shafts, 27,000 shp
Speed: 34 kt
Range: 320-370 tons oil, 3,500 nmi at 15 kt, 900 nmi at 32 kt
Complement: 110
Armament:
Motto: On ne passe pas: 'They shall not pass'
Honours and awards: NORTH SEA 1940-45
ARCTIC 1942
Badge: On a Field Field Paly, of three Blue, White and Red, a tower Gold.

HMS Verdun was an Admiralty V destroyer of the Royal Navy which saw service in the First and Second World Wars. So far she has been the only ship of the navy to bear the name Verdun, after the Battle of Verdun. She was assigned to carry the remains of The Unknown Warrior home to Britain on 8 November 1920.

Contents

Second World War

Verdun underwent a conversion to a long range escort at the start of the war, having her pennant number changed from D93 to L93 on its completion in May 1940. She operated as a convoy escort out of Rosyth and in the North Sea, being damaged by a bomb on 1 November 1940 that killed 11 men including her captain. She was repaired at Harwich and spent the rest of the war escorting convoys along the east coast, occasionally supporting the Arctic convoys as well. She survived the war and was placed in reserve, before being sold for scrapping in April 1946.

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