Qualla: HMS Daring (H16)

HMS Daring (H16): Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

HMS Daring spent five years on the China Station before the war that killed her. She had been built at Woolston on the Solent in 1932, briefly commanded by Lord Louis Mountbatten in 1934, and then sailed for the Far East where she stayed until war drew her home. She got back to the United Kingdom in January 1940 for the first time in five years. Three weeks later she was on the North Sea, escorting a convoy from Norway. Before dawn on 18 February, a single torpedo from U-23 blew her stern off. She capsized and sank in minutes. 157 of her ship's company went down with her.

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HMS Daring (H16): Built at Woolston

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Daring was ordered on 2 February 1931 under the 1930 Naval Estimates and laid down at John I. Thornycroft's yard at Woolston, Southampton, on 18 June 1931. She was launched on 7 April 1932 and completed on 25 November of the same year, at a total cost of £225,536 excluding weapon...

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HMS Daring (H16): Mountbatten Aboard

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Daring's first assignment was to the 1st Destroyer Flotilla in the Mediterranean, and in September and October 1933 she made a brief deployment to the Persian Gulf and Red Sea. On 29 April 1934, Lord Louis Mountbatten - then a thirty-three-year-old captain with a reputation for i...

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HMS Daring (H16): Five Years East

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Daring stayed on the China Station - based at Hong Kong, working the South China coast, ranging as far as Shanghai - for nearly five years. This was the era of British gunboat diplomacy along the Yangtze and the period when Japan was steadily extending its war in China. When war ...

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HMS Daring (H16): Convoy HN12

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Eight days later Daring was escorting Convoy HN12 from Norway when U-23, commanded by Oberleutnant zur See Otto Kretschmer, found her in the dark before dawn on 18 February 1940. Kretschmer was at the start of a career that would make him the most successful U-boat commander of t...

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