| Career | |
|---|---|
| Name: | HMS Wild Swan |
| Ordered: | January 1918 |
| Builder: | Swan Hunter and Wigham Richardson, Wallsend-on-Tyne |
| Laid down: | July 1918 |
| Launched: | 17 May 1919 |
| Commissioned: | 14 November 1919 |
| Fate: | Sunk by bombing, 17 June 1942 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Admiralty modified W-class destroyer |
| Propulsion: | Steam engine(s) |
HMS Wild Swan was member of the V and W class of destroyers, of the "Admiralty modified W" type. Wild Swan, like most of the rest of class was launched too late for World War I.
The ship had a long and varied life in the period between the wars and by 1939, like the rest of her class, was old and lightly armed compared to her modern contemporaries. However, like most of her consorts, Wild Swan was badly needed by the war thinned Royal Navy and after refitting rejoined the navy as a short range escort, spending her time escorting convoys.
Her end in 1942 was dramatic. Having been detached from a convoy, was steaming in the Bay of Biscay, when she came under heavy air attack from a squadron of German Junkers Ju 88 bombers. The bombers had been dispatched to attack the convoy, but as Wild Swan happened at the time to be steaming through a formation of neutral trawlers, the German aircraft misidentified these small vessels as the convoy and started to attack. Wild Swan replied with vigour, the ship's crew claiming a number of aircraft destroyed, but the vessel was badly damaged and when it was noticed that she was starting to bend in two amidships, the crew abandoned ship. The ship was reported to have sunk slowly, her bows and stern rising up into a "V" shape before she slipped under the surface (00'N,11.00'W). The survivors were picked up not long after.
According to Ministry of Defence historical document: 17 June 1942 HMS Vansittart "Picked up 10 officers and 123 ratings, five of whom seriously injured, from WILD SWAN, (sunk after damaged by air attack and collision with Spanish trawler in Bay of Biscay) and 11 men from Spanish trawler."
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