Name HMS Cranstoun Commissioned 13 November 1943 Struck 7 February 1946 Launched 28 August 1943 | Laid down 9 June 1943 Decommissioned 3 December 1945 Construction started 9 June 1943 Draft 2.7 m | |
Honours and
awards English Channel
North Foreland | ||
HMS Cranstoun (K511) was a Captain-class frigate of the British Royal Navy that served in the last two years of World War II. The ship was laid down as a Buckley-class destroyer escort at the Bethlehem-Hingham Shipyard at Hingham, Massachusetts on 9 June 1943, with the hull number DE-82, and launched on 28 August 1943. The ship was transferred to the UK under Lend-Lease on 13 November 1943, and named after Captain James Cranstoun, an officer who served in the American Revolutionary and French Revolutionary Wars.
Service history
Cranstoun served as a convoy escort, and was attached to the Nore Command, and then the 19th Escort Group.
At 21:14 on the evening of 15 April 1945 Cranstoun and Loch Killin, while part of the escort to Convoy TBC 128, detected the U-1063 in Bigbury Bay, Devon. The two ships mounted a coordinated attack, with Loch Killin using her Squid anti-submarine mortar three times and Cranstoun her Hedgehog mortar once, to force the U-boat to the surface. Burges then also joined the attack, as the U-boat was illuminated by the ship's searchlights and fired on with 20 mm and 40 mm guns. U-1063 attempted to escape, but Loch Killin attacked with depth charges and sank her. Only 17 of the crew survived.
Cranstoun was returned to the U.S. Navy on 3 December 1945, struck from the Navy List on 7 February 1946, and sold for scrapping on 20 November 1947.