HMS Ferret (1940 shore establishment)

	Three sailors view numerous destroyers of the escort group B7, which are moored alongside each other after returning home to Londonderry, Northern Ireland from a patrol in the north Atlantic. Identifiable vessels include HMS Versatile, HMIS Godavari, HMS Vanessa, HMS Vidette and HMS Rochester.
History
United Kingdom
Name	HMS Ferret
Commissioned	9 December 1940
Decommissioned	21 June 1947
Fate	Decommissioned, re-established as HMS Sea Eagle
General characteristics
Class and type	Stone frigate

HMS Ferret was a

Second World War, located in Derry. It was given a ship's name as a stone frigate

.

History

With the outbreak of the Second World War and the start of the

UK's most westerly port it provided the fastest access into the Atlantic. Royal Navy warships could then quickly come to the aid of convoys under attack by German U-boats, and help to escort the convoys in and out of British ports.^[1]

Part of

armed trawlers.^[1] From 1 February 1941 these craft had a separate accounting system from the main base. By 1942 this system had been extended to handle the accounts of Royal Navy ships at St John's and Argentia naval bases in Newfoundland. A Coastal Forces base was established in April 1941, under the name HMS Ferret II.^[2]

American presence

The

Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery.^[4]

Later developments

By 1942 Beech Hill Camp had been commissioned as HMS Ferret III, and the base had become an important centre for anti-submarine training.^[2] British and other allied submarines were sometimes used to simulate real conditions. New technological developments were also worked on to improve anti-U-boat measures. One of the innovations developed here was the Squid Mortar.^[4] The base became an important centre to train new crews, and refit ships transferred from America with the more effective British developments.^[4] Some buildings were set aside to train crews in how to handle objects on deck, one building had a full cross-section of a destroyer's deck built inside it.^[4]

Surrender of the U-boats

Type VIIs (also 500 tons), a total of fifty-two U-boats.^[5]

After the end of the war, large numbers of captured German

Lisahally.^[4] The American base had been transferred to the Royal Navy on 31 October 1944 and then closed on 2 September 1944.^[2] The site was commissioned in May 1945 as HMS Ferret IV specifically for the internment. Eventually nearly sixty U-boats were brought in to Ferret IV.^[4] After a period of study and other trials, many were sunk off Lisahally and Loch Ryan during late 1945 and 1946 in Operation Deadlight. After this had been completed, Ferret IV was paid off to care and maintenance on 19 July 1946.^[2]

Postwar

Eventually over twenty thousand allied troops and sailors had passed through Ferret, and the base had been home to over two hundred ships of the Royal Navy,

Royal Indian Marine. There was a debate over the future of the base, but the Admiralty decided to retain the property but to convert it into a proper school for anti-submarine warfare training. There had been plans to commission the establishment under the name HMS Phoenix, but this was changed in preference to HMS Sea Eagle. Ferret was paid off on 21 July 1947, and HMS Sea Eagle commissioned that same day.^[2]

Assessment

Professor J. W. Blake, in his 1956 book Northern Ireland and the Second World War summarised the importance of the work of HMS Ferret:

"Londonderry held the key to victory in the Atlantic. It became our most westerly base for the repair, the working up and refuelling of destroyers, corvettes and frigates. By that critical Spring (1943) when battle for the security of our Atlantic lifelines finally turned our way, Londonderry was the most important escort base in the north-western approaches."