HMS Castle Harbour
Castle Harbour, prior to her armament and commissioning as a Royal Navy warship.
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History | |
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United Kingdom | |
Name | Castle Harbour |
Builder | Blythswood Shipbuilding Co. Ltd |
Launched | 1929 |
Completed | 1929 |
Homeport | Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda |
Fate | Sunk 16 October 1942 by U-160 |
General characteristics |
HMS Castle Harbour was a civilian harbour vessel of 730 tons that was
Pre-war civil history
Built by Blythswood Shipbuilding Co. Ltd in
On the 17 June 1931, the Furness-Withy liner MV Bermuda was consumed by a catastrophic fire at Front Street in the City of Hamilton, which threatened to spread to the city buildings. The Hamilton Fire Brigade and the ship's crew were joined by soldiers and marines, and the fire was finally brought under control after sailors from the Royal Naval Dockyard, trained for fighting fires on warships, arrived with asbestos suits and equipment. From the harbour, Castle Harbour and Royal Navy (RN) tugs Sandboy and Creole trained thirty hoses on Bermuda. Another vessel, the tender Bermudian (originally a Royal Naval vessel named HMS Arctic Whale),[5] was also sent to help. Although heavily damaged, Bermuda was able to be taken to Belfast in Ireland to be rebuilt, but was destroyed there by a second fire on 19 November 1931, and sold for scrap. She broke loose in a storm while under tow to a Rosyth scrapyard and was wrecked on the Scottish coast in Eddrachillis Bay, near Scourie, Sutherland.[6][7][8]
With the outbreak of the
The Great Sound was also the landing area used by
All of these sites were inviting targets for
As the war progressed, and the threat of German
Loss
Along with the new US Naval Operating Base, the
With the concentration of Allied anti-submarine forces that had built-up in and over Bermuda's waters by late 1942, and the resultant diminished threat from enemy submarines inside the reefline, HMS Castle Harbour was deemed unnecessary at Bermuda and was consequently ordered to the Mediterranean. She was travelling as part of Convoy TRIN-19 from Trinidad, with a Merchant Navy crew, when at 2120 hours on 16 October 1942, she was torpedoed by the German submarine U-160. The explosion broke her in two and she sank within twenty seconds with the loss of nine of her twenty-two crewmembers.[28][29]
References
- ^ ISBN 0-921560-03-6[page needed]
- ^ "The Ships List: Fleet of the Quebec SS Co. / Bermuda & West Indies S.S. Co. / Trinidad Shipping & Trading Co". theshipslist.com.
- ^ "Bermuda's St. George's Parish". bermuda-online.org.
- ^ "Talbot Brothers' Enduring Musical Legacy". bernews.com. 10 March 2013.
- ^ Staight, Alan (30 March 1958). ""Whaler" Class Gunboats". The Royal Gazette. City of Hamilton, Pembroke, Bermuda. p. 7.
- ^ "History: Ship Fire That Threatened Hamilton, BERNEWS, November 4, 2019". bernews.com. 4 November 2019.
- ^ "Luxury Liner Gutted! 1931. British Pathé". britishpathe.com.
- ^ Fire Continues all Day on M. V. Bermuda: Magnificent liner mass of smouldering ruins. Page 1 and Page 10. The Royal Gazette, City of Hamilton, Pembroke, Bermuda. 18 June 1931
- ^ "Building the Navy's Bases in World War II, Volume II (Part III). Part III: The Advance Bases, Chapter XVIII, Bases in South America and the Caribbean Area, Including Bermuda: Part I - The Caribbean Area". Naval History and Heritage Command website. Naval History and Heritage Command. 13 February 2018. Retrieved 23 February 2021.
- ^ Wiberg, Eric T. (1 December 2015). "History: Survivors & Bermudians During WWII". BERNEWS. Retrieved 23 February 2021.
- ISBN 9781532997648
- ISBN 0-921560-11-7
- ISBN 0-921560-00-1
- ^ "The Bermuda Pilot Gig, by Peter Backeberg. The Bermudian Magazine, Bermuda. 3 January, 2021". thebermudian.com. 30 July 2021.
- ^ a b "Pilot Service . Department of Marine & Ports Services. Government of Bermuda". marineandports.bm.
- ^ "William E. Meyer. The Bermudian magazine, 14 September, 2016". thebermudian.com. 14 September 2016.
- ^ Klein, Joanna (27 March 2017). "They Mixed Science, Art and Costume Parties to Reveal Mysteries of the Sea. By Joanna Klein. The New York Times, 27 March, 2017". The New York Times.
- ^ "The Fine Art of Exploration, by Edith Widder. Oceanography: THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF THE OCEANOGRAPHY SOCIETY. Vol. 29, No.4170. The Oceanography Society, December 2016" (PDF). tos.org.
- ^ [14][15][16][17][18][1]
- ^ "The Bermuda Pilot Gig, by Peter Backeberg. The Bermudian Magazine, 3 January, 2021". thebermudian.com. 30 July 2021.
- ^ Yankee R.N., by Commander Alex H. Cherry, OBE, RNVR. Jarrold's Publishers (London) Ltd, Portland Street, London W1
- ^ "US Navy sub hunters to be based in Bermuda 25 years after the NAS shut down. By Sarah Lagan. The Royal Gazette. Hamilton, Bermuda. 18 November, 2020". royalgazette.com. 18 November 2020.
- ISBN 0-9698332-4-5
- ISBN 978-1-927750-32-2
- ^ [22][23][24]
- ^ Tucker, Gilbert Norman (1952). The Naval Service of Canada, Its Official History – Volume 2: Activities on Shore During the Second World War. Ottawa: King's Printer. OCLC 4346983.
- ^ "From Dam Neck to Okinawa: A Memoir of Antiaircraft Training in World War II. By Robert Wallace. Edited by Jeffrey G. Barlow. US Naval History and Heritage Command". history.navy.mil.
- ^ "Castle Harbour". uboat.net.
- ^ Stranack[page needed]