Name HMS Puma (F34) Laid down 16 November 1953 Decommissioned 1972 Launched 30 June 1954 | Ordered 28 June 1951 Commissioned 27 April 1957 Construction started 16 November 1953 | |
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Builder Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering Co Ltd | ||
HMS Puma (F34), was a Leopard-class Type 41 anti aircraft frigate of the British Royal Navy, named after the puma (Puma concolor).
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Operational Service
In 1958 Puma began her third commission from Portland. During this commission she visited many foreign ports including Gibraltar, Las Palmas, Dakar, Bathurst, Freetown, Monrovia, Abidjan, Port Harcourt, Takoradi, Simonstown, Tristan da Cunha and Gough Island, East London, Diego Suarez, Durban, Montevideo, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, Ascension Isles, Port Elizabeth, St. Helena, Copenhagen, and Gdynia. She was paid off at Plymouth in 1961. During this commission she took part in naval exercises and served in the Iceland Patrol.
A major refit of Puma took place in Portsmouth Dockyard between 1963 and 1964 and the ship eventually re-commissioned for service in 1965, where she spent the year touring the UK recruiting. In 1966 she sailed for a foreign leg of her commission travelling to West and South Africa, as well as the South Atlantic, and South America, before returning to Plymouth in 1967. In 1971 she undertook a Fishery Protection patrol in the Arctic and Barents Seas, using the northern Norwegian town of Honingsvag as a base, before paying off in Chatham in early 1972.