HMS Porcupine was a P-class

O and P class destroyer

The O and P class was a class of destroyers of the British Royal Navy. Ordered in 1939, they were the first ships in the War Emergency Programme, also known as the 1st and 2nd Emergency Flotilla, respectively...

 destroyer built by Vickers Armstrong

Vickers Armstrong

Vickers-Armstrongs Limited was a British engineering conglomerate formed by the merger of the assets of Vickers Limited and Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth & Company in 1927...

 on the River Tyne

River Tyne

The River Tyne is a river in North East England in Great Britain. It is formed by the confluence of two rivers: the North Tyne and the South Tyne. These two rivers converge at Warden Rock near Hexham in Northumberland at a place dubbed 'The Meeting of the Waters'.The North Tyne rises on the...

. She was ordered on 20 October 1939, laid down on 26 December 1939 and launched on 10 June 1941. She was commissioned on 31 August 1942, but led a relatively short active life. She was torpedoed in 1942 but salvaged and not finally broken up until 1947.

Career

Porcupine did participate in an interesting event while afloat: whilst in company with HrMs Isaac Sweers of the Dutch Navy, she helped rescue 241 men from the ship Nieuw Zeeland. U-380 had torpedoed Nieuw Zeeland, a Dutch troop transport, at position 35º57'N, 03º58'W - about 80 miles east of Gibraltar, in the Mediterranean Sea.

She was under the command of Commander George Scott Stewart RAN when U-602 torpedoed her in the Mediterranean on 9 December 1942 whilst she escorting the depot ship from Gibraltar

Gibraltar

Gibraltar is a British overseas territory located on the southern end of the Iberian Peninsula at the entrance of the Mediterranean. A peninsula with an area of , it has a northern border with Andalusia, Spain. The Rock of Gibraltar is the major landmark of the region...

 to Algiers

Algiers

' is the capital and largest city of Algeria. According to the 1998 census, the population of the city proper was 1,519,570 and that of the urban agglomeration was 2,135,630. In 2009, the population was about 3,500,000...

. U-602 fired four torpedoes at Maidstone, one of which hit Porcupine; the other three missed both British ships.

The attack killed seven men but left most of the ship intact - except for critical localised damage that nearly split the ship in two. took on most of her crew (except a skeleton contingent); then first HMS Exe and later a French tug towed Porcupine to Arzew, Algeria. In March 1943 she was towed to Oran where she was declared a total loss.

In Oran, French dockworkers cut the damaged Porcupine into two halves. Then in March 1943 the decision was made to strip the two halves of all guns, ammunition, mountings, stores, etc. and tow them to Britain. The two parts were ballasted and brought to Portsmouth in June.

Once the two pieces were back in Portsmouth, the fore part of the ship was known informally as HMS Pork, and the rear part as HMS Pine. The two halves were commissioned on 14 January 1944 as Landing Craft Base Stokes Bay, in Portsmouth. They were eventually paid off on 1 March 1946, before being recommissioned for the Commander of Minesweepers on 1 April 1946. Porcupine then became a tender to HMS Victory III.

Fate

Porcupine was finally paid off on 31 August 1946. On 6 May 1946 she was listed as sold, and in 1947 broken up somewhere on the south coast of England - but reports differ as to whether or not this was at Plymouth, Portsmouth or Southampton.