Saumarez

HMS Saumarez

(Optatus OPT-S-29)

Class: S - 8 destroyers of 1941
Displacement: 1,800 tons
Dimensions: 348 (wl) 363 (oa) x 36 x 10 ft.
Machinery: 2-shaft geared turbines, S.H.P. 40,000 = 36 knots
Armament: 4-4.7in QF Mk IX (4x1), 2-40mm Mk IV (1x2), 4-20mm (4x1); 8-21in (2x4) TT
Complement: 225

Service: 5th Emergency Flotilla. Leader Saumarez and sisters Savage, Scorpion, and Norwegian Stord were screening battlehsip HMS Duke of York during the Battle of North Cape with the German battlecruiser Scharnhorst on 26 Dec 1943. The destroyers fired 28 torpedoes and claimed 4 hits, but Saumarez was badly damaged. During 1944 the flotilla took part in carrier sweeps against the Norwegian coast, and then supported the Normandy invasion, during which Swift and Norwegian Svenner were lost. In early 1945 Saumarez was sent to the Eastern Fleet, where she participated in various carrier raids in the Indian Ocean. On 16 May 1945, leading the 26th Destroyer Flotilla (Verulam, Virago, Vigilant, and Venus) the Japanese cruiser Haguro was torpedoed and sunk, although Saumarez was again damaged. Postwar, serving in the Mediterranean in 1946, she was damaged yet again in the Corfu incident when she hit mines laid in international waters by Albania in October. Although brought home, she was never repaired. Her surviving sisters finished the war in Norwegian waters; four were transferred to the Netherlands postwar.