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PARTICULARS ''Scarborough'' displaced 1,045 tons standard and was 266 ft 4 in (81 m) long, 34 ft 1 in (10.4 m) wide and drew 12 ft 6 in (3.8 m) of water. Her 2 shaft Parsons Geared Turbine s developed 2,000 shp (1.5 MW) to give ''Scarborough'' a top speed of 16.5 Knots (31 km/h). She carried 312 tons of oil when full. She was built at the Swan Hunter shipyard in north east England . Scarborough was a fine looking ship, with a single funnel just behind the main mast. During her peacetime cruises she was painted white. PRE WAR From 1931 onwards , ''Scarborough'' was part of the North America and West Indies Squadron stationed at Bermuda . The famous World War One hero, Augustus Agar V.C. , was her captain in the early 1930s. Peacetime duties included showing the flag, especially in smaller ports of the Empire, those unlikely to be visited by large warships. In the summer of 1931 she was in Newfoundland , then a British dominion, sometimes acting as a yacht to take the Governor around to visit smaller ports. She was on this duty again in 1933 and in 1934 took British Prime Minister Ramsay MacDonald and his daughter up the west coast of Newfoundland to visit the Grenfell Mission at St. Anthony . While a part of the North America And West Indies Squadron in 1933 she visited Prince Edward Island in Canada. There, her then captain, Commander Cornwallis, his officers and petty officers were entertained by Senator Creelman MacArthur at his summer home on Foxley River . WAR TIME MODIFICATIONS ''Scarborough'' was disarmed and used as a survey ship in 1938/39, but at the outbreak of the war in September, 1939 , she was rearmed with 1 x 4 inch (102 mm) Quick Fire high angle gun, suitable against either surface or air targets. During late 1941 and 1942 , she carried a 12 pounder (5 kg) high angle Quick Fire anti aircraft gun and gradually a number of 20 mm antiaircraft guns were added. For anti Submarine work,'' Scarborough'' was given 15 Depth Charges in 1939, later increased to 40 then 80. She carried a crew of 100 men. CONVOY ESCORT IN WORLD WAR TWO ''Scarborough'' was most suited in wartime to convoy escort duty and was early assigned to this role. Britain was short of suitable ships, especially after Italy entered the war in June 1940 and destroyers had to be sent to the Mediterranean. THE MASSACRE OF CONVOY SC-7 ''HMS Scarborough'' was sole naval escort for the first three quarters of the journey for the slow Convoy SC-7 which left Sydney, Nova Scotia on October 4, 1940 bound for Liverpool and other British ports. The convoy was supposed to make 8 knots, but a number of its 35 merchant ships were much slower than this. The convoy consisted of older, smaller ships, mostly with essential cargoes of bulk goods. Much of the freight on these ships originated on Canada's east coast, especially from points to the north and east of Sydney. Typical cargoes included pit props from eastern New Brunswick for the British coal mines, lumber, pulpwood, grain from the Great Lakes ports, steel and steel ingots from the Sydney plant, and iron ore from Newfoundland bound for the huge steel plants of Wales . The largest ship in the convoy was the 9,512-ton oil tanker SS ''Languedoc'', belonging to the British Admiralty , which was bound for the Clyde with fuel for the Royal Navy . Another ship, the British SS ''Empire Brigand'', carried a valuable cargo of trucks. Many of the ships were British, but the convoy also included Greek, Swedish, Norwegian and Dutch vessels. The Convoy Commodore , Vice Admiral L. D. I. Mackinnon , a retired naval officer who volunteered for this civilian duty, sailed in the SS ''Assyrian'', a British ship of 2,962 tons. As convoy commodore, Mackinnon was in charge of the good order of the merchant ships, but did not command the escort. The sloop HMS ''Scarborough'' was sole naval escort for the first three quarters of the journey. There was no aircraft protection in 1940 for Allied ships in the Atlantic Ocean after leaving coastal regions. ''Scarborough'' would have had no chance against a surface attack by a German raider. Many of the merchant ship captains would have preferred to take their chances on their own rather than risk such a slow crossing with a weak escort. They were resentful and often unco-operative. At one point early in the voyage ''Scarborough's'' captain was shocked to find a Greek merchant ship in the convoy travelling at night with her lights on. For the first days all was quiet, but as the convoy entered the Western Approaches on October 16 th, 1940, seven U-boats launched a coordinated attack. They were ''U-38'', ''U-46'', '' U-48 '', '' U-99 '', ''U-100'', ''U-101'' and ''U-123''. ''U-99'' was captained by the famous ace Otto Kretschmer . The attack was coordinated from Lorient by Admiral Karl Dönitz and his staff. First to go down on the 16th was a straggler, the SS ''Trevisa'', a small Canadian vessel of 1,813 tons with a cargo of lumber destined for Scotland . SC7 was just the second convoy to be attacked by a Wolf Pack , groups of German U-boats making coordinated attacks. Convoy Tactics were rudimentary at this early stage of the war, and in any event it is difficult to see what tactics would have helped a single rather slow and weak ship trying to protect 35 even slower targets from a pack of Submarine s. There was little that the ''Scarborough'' could do, even when reinforced from Britain the next day, October 17 , by the sloop ''Fowey'' and the new Corvette ''Bluebell'' . The escort ships stayed behind from time to time to rescue drowning sailors, leaving the other ships unescorted. Perhaps it was a bad decision to stop for rescue work, but those saved were certainly grateful. On the 17th the U-boats sank three more ships including the tanker ''Languedoc''. The 18th was worse with seven ships torpedoed and sunk including the iron ore ship, SS ''Creekirk'', bound for Cardiff , Wales. With her heavy cargo, she sank like a stone, taking all 36 crew members with her. During the day the escort was augmented from Britain by the sloop ''Leith'' , and the corvette ''Heartsease'' . October 19 , 1940 was the blackest day of all with the U-boats sinking nine ships, including the SS ''Empire Brigand'' with her cargo of trucks. She went down with six of her crew. Also casualties were the commodore's ship, SS ''Assyrian'', down with 17 crew (though Admiral Mackinnon was rescued), and the SS ''Fiscus'' with its cargo of steel ingots from Sydney. She sank like a stone as well, taking with her 38 of her 39 man crew. The convoy lost 20 ships out of 35, of which seven fell to Kretschmer's '' U-99 ''. The total tonnage lost was 79,592 tons. The arrival in the vicinity of Convoy HX-79 diverted the U-boat s and they went on to sink 14 ships from HX-79, making a total of 34 ships in 48 hours. No U-boats were lost. LATER CONVOY WORK As the war progressed British antisubmarine tactics and equipment improved and more ships and reconnaissance aircraft were deployed. On April 5 , 1941, ''Scarborough'' in company with the Destroyer HMS Wolverine sank the German Submarine , U 76 with depth charges south of Iceland . Only one of the submarine's crew was lost, the other 42 surviving. Also in the spring of 1941, ''Scarborough'' intercepted and sank two German-manned ex-Norwegian Whalers . These had been captured by the German Auxiliary Cruiser Pinguin in the South Atlantic and were being sent to German occupied Bordeaux with their valuable cargo of whale oil. The Star XIX was of 360 tons displacement and the Star XXIV was of 250 tons displacement. On February 7th, 1943, ''Scarborough'' was part of the escort of Convoy MJS-7 when three of its merchant ships hit mines west of Gibraltar that had been laid by a German submarine on February 1 and 2, 1943. The ''Emperor Mordred'' sank taking 12 crew and 3 gunners down with her, but ''HMS Scarborough'' rescued the master, 41 crew and 13 gunners. She landed them safely in Liverpool . D DAY Just ahead of the Allied landings in Normandy on D Day in June 1944 , ''Scarborough'' was assigned to follow closely behind British Minesweepers which were making a path through the German minefields near the coast of Normandy . She dropped Buoys to mark the clear path for the assault convoys. ''FINIS'' ''Scarborough'' was sold for break up in 1949 . |
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