Dates: 1942 - 1944
H.M.S. Mourne (K261)
Built by Smiths Dock Co., South Bank-on-Tees
Laid Down: 21st March 1942
Launched: 24th September 1942
Commissioned: 30th April 1943
Paid Off: 15th June 1944
Fate: Torpedoed and sunk by U-767 on 15th June 1944 in the English Channel at 49-35N, 05-30W
Displacement: 1,375 Tons
Historical Notes
The last operation of the war of the 5th Escort Group
Commander McIntyre chose the Buckley Class H.M.S.Bickerton as his SO ship,the rest of the group consisted of H.M.S.Bligh, H.M.S.Keats, H.M.S.Kempthorne, H.M.S.Balfour and H.M.S.Goodson.
Their first deployment on the 21st April was as support to an Atlantic convoy(ONS233), and they immediately ran into very bad weather which caused the crew quite a lot of discomfort, due to the antics of the ships which seemed to corkscrew and spend as much time under the sea as well as on it, by the time the crew had recovered from their mal de mer the group were clear of the area where the U-Boats usually operated.
U-Boat activity was reported in a totally different area and the 5th EG were directed to proceed to the designated area to search for the enemy, having arrived in the area specified they spent a whole day sweeping but there was no sign of any kind of submarine activity and on the following day 26th April they were directed to rendezvous with the Escort Aircraft Carrier H.M.S.Vindex.
It was the 2nd May when they made the rendezvous with the Vindex and the Canadian group EGC9 and proceeded to the area where a U-Boat was reporting the weather back to U-Boat HQ, also by this time the Turbo division were getting low on fuel, Captain Bayliss of the Vindex reluctantly agreed to let the three turbos have some of his own, the Canadian group were also getting low on fuel and were ordered to return to base to refuel and investigate a new U-Boat report on their way back.
Bligh reported an HF/DF contact and Vindex flew off an aircraft to search along the bearing but nothing was found. The three turbo’s now pressed on to the designated area and left the three diesel’s to give close escort to Vindex. The three turbos searched the area for three days but no trace of the U-Boat was found, the Vindex was flying off aircraft as well in the search, and on 6th May one of her aircraft crashed in to the sea a fair distance from Vindex so some time elapsed before Goodson arrived to pull the unconscious airman out of the sea, but sadly he never recovered. Later in the day as it was getting dark the U-Boat surfaced, and an aircraft was able to get a radar fix on it, and managed to locate and mark the position with flares, the three turbo ships headed for the position at maximum speed and at about 0400 Keats obtained a radar contact, fired a starshell and almost immediately got an asdic contact, she proceeded to make a number of depth charge attacks and Bickerton also joined in, but the U-Boat had dived deep.
Commander McIntyre decided to set up a creeping attack, and guided Bligh on to the bearing, it was now about 0600 when Bligh started to drop her charges, and with only four left to be dropped in the pattern, charges from her re-load racks broke loose due to the vibrations from her charges exploding, and rolled about causing a good degree of panic among the depth charge crew as they rolled about the quarter deck area, and damaged the flaps on the stern rails, and to add to the confusion one of the charges exploded at a very shallow depth and threw a column of water about a hundred feet into the air, the explosion threw the depth charge crew off their feet and they got drenched when the column of water descended on them, and also caused a cloud of soot to belch from the funnel.
As all the confusion subsided and everyone calmed down the U-Boat surfaced about half a mile astern of the two ships, which immediately opened fire with their main three inch guns, only to see their shells bouncing off the U-Boat, The Oerlikon gunners kept the U-Boat gunners away from their guns, but ho
