HMS Ferret (shore establishment 1940)
Encyclopedia

HMS Ferret was a shore establishment and naval base of the Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

 during the Second World War, located in Derry
Derry
Derry or Londonderry is the second-biggest city in Northern Ireland and the fourth-biggest city on the island of Ireland. The name Derry is an anglicisation of the Irish name Doire or Doire Cholmcille meaning "oak-wood of Colmcille"...

. It was given a ship's name as a stone frigate
Stone frigate
Stone frigate is a nickname for a naval establishment on land. The term has its origin in Britain's Royal Navy after its use of Diamond Rock, off Martinique, as a 'sloop of war' to harass the French...

.

History

With the outbreak of the Second World War and the start of the Battle of the Atlantic, the Admiralty
Admiralty
The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the Kingdom of England, and later in the United Kingdom, responsible for the command of the Royal Navy...

 decided to develop a large new naval base in Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...

 to serve as a base for convoy escorts, providing repair and refuelling facilities. Derry was selected as a prime location due to Londonderry Port
Londonderry Port
Londonderry Port at Lisahally is a port near Derry, Northern Ireland. It is the United Kingdom’s most westerly port, has capacity for 30,000 ton vessels and accepts cruise ships. The current port is on the east bank of the River Foyle at the southern end of Lough Foyle, by the small village of...

 being 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-boat
U-boat
U-boat is the anglicized version of the German word U-Boot , itself an abbreviation of Unterseeboot , and refers to military submarines operated by Germany, particularly in World War I and World War II...

s, and help to escort the convoys in and out of British ports.

The old Ebrington Barracks were taken over by the navy and commissioned on 9 December 1940 as HMS Ferret. The shipyard at Pennyburn was also taken over as "Fort George", and used as a ship repair facility, manned by workers from the Harland and Wolff
Harland and Wolff
Harland and Wolff Heavy Industries is a Northern Irish heavy industrial company, specialising in shipbuilding and offshore construction, located in Belfast, Northern Ireland....

 yards at Belfast
Belfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...

. Ships based at Ferret were under the control of Western Approaches Command
Western Approaches Command
Commander-in-Chief, Western Approaches was the commander of a major operational command of the Royal Navy during World War II. The admiral commanding, and his forces, sometimes informally known as 'Western Approaches Command,' were responsible for the safety of British shipping in the Western...

, located in Plymouth
Plymouth
Plymouth is a city and unitary authority area on the coast of Devon, England, about south-west of London. It is built between the mouths of the rivers Plym to the east and Tamar to the west, where they join Plymouth Sound...

 for the early part of the war. The main headquarters for the Western Approaches Command was moved to Liverpool
Liverpool
Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

 in February 1941 as the North Western Approaches became the most vital area of convoy activity. Ferret was then the backup for the Liverpool headquarters, with the other main bases in the area being at Greenock
Greenock
Greenock is a town and administrative centre in the Inverclyde council area in United Kingdom, and a former burgh within the historic county of Renfrewshire, located in the west central Lowlands of Scotland...

, and later at Belfast. The organisational function of Ferret was to form escort groups of the warships based there, mostly small destroyer
Destroyer
In naval terminology, a destroyer is a fast and maneuverable yet long-endurance warship intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy or battle group and defend them against smaller, powerful, short-range attackers. Destroyers, originally called torpedo-boat destroyers in 1892, evolved from...

s, frigate
Frigate
A frigate is any of several types of warship, the term having been used for ships of various sizes and roles over the last few centuries.In the 17th century, the term was used for any warship built for speed and maneuverability, the description often used being "frigate-built"...

s, corvette
Corvette
A corvette is a small, maneuverable, lightly armed warship, originally smaller than a frigate and larger than a coastal patrol craft or fast attack craft , although many recent designs resemble frigates in size and role...

s and armed trawlers. 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 based at St' John's
St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador
St. John's is the capital and largest city in Newfoundland and Labrador, and is the oldest English-founded city in North America. It is located on the eastern tip of the Avalon Peninsula on the island of Newfoundland. With a population of 192,326 as of July 1, 2010, the St...

 and Argentia
Naval Station Argentia
Naval Station Argentia is a former base of the United States Navy that operated from 1941-1994. It was established in the community of Argentia in what was then the Dominion of Newfoundland, which later became the tenth Canadian province .-Construction:Established under the British-U.S...

. A Coastal Forces
Coastal Forces of the Royal Navy
Coastal Forces was a division of the Royal Navy established duringWorld War II under the command of Rear Admiral Coastal Forces. -History:The Royal Navy had previously operated flotillas of small torpedo- and depth-charge-armed craft during the First World WarThe first Headquarters was set up at ...

 base was established in April 1941, under the name HMS Ferret II.

American presence

The Destroyers for Bases Agreement
Destroyers for Bases Agreement
The Destroyers for Bases Agreement between the United States and the United Kingdom, September 2, 1940, transferred fifty mothballed destroyers from the United States Navy in exchange for land rights on British possessions...

 was finalised between Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill, was a predominantly Conservative British politician and statesman known for his leadership of the United Kingdom during the Second World War. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest wartime leaders of the century and served as Prime Minister twice...

 and Franklin Roosevelt in September 1940, and fifty ageing American destroyers were transferred to the Royal Navy as the Town class
Town class destroyer
The Town class destroyers were warships transferred from the United States Navy to the Royal Navy and the Royal Canadian Navy in exchange for military bases in the Bahamas and elsewhere, as outlined in the Destroyers for Bases Agreement between Britain and United States, signed on 2 September 1940...

, in return for bases across the empire. As part of the deal four hundred American technicians were transferred to HMS Ferret, arriving on 30 June 1941 and started working in civilian clothes as America was not officially at war. The American personnel later moved out of Ferret and into camps constructed in the area, and on 5 February 1942 a US base was officially established. US Marines
United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to deliver combined-arms task forces rapidly. It is one of seven uniformed services of the United States...

 also arrived, and were used to guard the camps and the main base, as well as outlying ammunition dumps. In November 1942 Eleanor Roosevelt
Eleanor Roosevelt
Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was the First Lady of the United States from 1933 to 1945. She supported the New Deal policies of her husband, distant cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and became an advocate for civil rights. After her husband's death in 1945, Roosevelt continued to be an international...

 visited the base, accompanied by Lady Montgomery, the mother of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery
Bernard Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein
Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, KG, GCB, DSO, PC , nicknamed "Monty" and the "Spartan General" was a British Army officer. He saw action in the First World War, when he was seriously wounded, and during the Second World War he commanded the 8th Army from...

.

Later developments

By 1942 Beach Hill Camp had been commissioned as HMS Ferret III, and the base had become an important centre for anti-submarine training
Anti-submarine warfare
Anti-submarine warfare is a branch of naval warfare that uses surface warships, aircraft, or other submarines to find, track and deter, damage or destroy enemy submarines....

. 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
Squid (weapon)
Squid was a British World War II ship-mounted anti-submarine weapon. It consisted of a three-barrelled mortar which launched depth charges. It replaced the Hedgehog system, and was in turn replaced by the Limbo system....

. The base became an important centre to train new crews, and refit ships transferred from America with the more effective British developments. 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.

Surrender of the U-boats

After the end of the war, large numbers of captured German U-boats were surrendered to British forces on the Scottish and Irish coasts and were brought to Lisahally. The American base had been transferred to the Royal Navy on 31 October 1944 and then closed on 2 September 1944. 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. After a period of study and other trials, many were sunk off Lisahally and Loch Ryan
Loch Ryan
Loch Ryan is a Scottish sea loch that acts as an important natural harbour for shipping, providing calm waters for ferries operating between Scotland and Northern Ireland...

 during late 1945 and 1946 in Operation Deadlight
Operation Deadlight
Operation Deadlight was the code name for the scuttling of U-boats surrendered to the Allies after the defeat of Germany near the end of World War II....

. After this had been completed, Ferret IV was paid off to care and maintenance on 19 July 1946.

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, US Navy and the Royal Canadian Navy
Royal Canadian Navy
The history of the Royal Canadian Navy goes back to 1910, when the naval force was created as the Naval Service of Canada and renamed a year later by King George V. The Royal Canadian Navy is one of the three environmental commands of the Canadian Forces...

, as well as ships from the Free French
Free French Naval Forces
Les Forces Navales Françaises Libres were the naval arm of the Free French Forces during the Second World War. They were commanded by Admiral Emile Muselier.- History :...

 and Free Dutch
Dutch resistance
Dutch resistance to the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands during World War II can be mainly characterized by its prominent non-violence, summitting in over 300,000 people in hiding in the autumn of 1944, tended to by some 60,000 to 200,000 illegal landlords and caretakers and tolerated knowingly...

 naval forces and some ships of the 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.

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."
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