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HMS Samphire
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
HMS Samphire (Lt.Cdr. F.T. Renny, RNR) was a Corvette in the Royal Navy during World War II. She was built by Smiths Dock Co., Ltd. (South Bank-on-Tees, U.K.) and commissioned on 30 June, 1941.
She was a Flower class corvette and one of 267 similar corvettes developed by the Royal Navy and Royal Canadian Navy specifically for the protection of shipping convoys during the Second Battle of the Atlantic in World War II.
The Samphire was one of the original corvettes of the 36th Escort Group that did valuable convoy work, sailing from Liverpool to the Mediterranean. That group of corvettes were under the supreme command of no less a person than Britain’s Ace U-boat killer, the late Captain F. J. Walker, DSO, RN of HMS Stork.
Significant events involving the HMS Samphire included the following:
On December 21, 1941, she successfully released depth charges with the British sloop HMS Deptford resulting in the sinking of the German submarine U-567 in the North Atlantic north-east of the Azores. All 47 men on board the U-567 were killed.
On November 8, 1942, she escorted the USS Leedstown from the Mediterranean after it had been attacked by German aircraft, which hit the USS Leedstown with an aerial torpedo in the stern the day earlier. At 12:55 on November 9th, German aircraft attacked again, however the HMS Samphire shot down one attacker and then successfully escorted the USS Leedstown to anchor near Cape Matifou, about 12 miles from Algiers.
On December 14, 1942, the HMS Samphire also assisted in the rescue of 9 survivors from the British merchant Edencrag, which was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-443 west of Algiers.
On January 30, 1943, the HMS Samphire herself was torpedoed and sunk off Bougie, Algeria, by the Italian submarine Platino (Lt.Cdr. Patrelli Campagnano) in position 36.56N, 05.40E. Samphire was escorting convoy TE-14 which was taking part in the Africa campaign. The Captain, two officers and 42 of the ship’s crew perished.