Operational History
Black Swan was initially deployed on convoy escort missions along the British East Coast, before the German invasion of Norway caused Black Swan to be attached to the Home Fleet, where it was used to provide anti-aircraft cover to the Allied landings at Åndalsnes. Black Swan was heavily engaged by German bombers before being hit by a bomb which passed through the ship before exploding on 27 April 1940.
After repair, in June Black Swan returned to escort duty in the North Sea, before being damaged by a mine on 1 November 1940. This time, the ship was under repair until May 1941, when it was transferred to Western Approaches command, esorting convoys in the Irish Sea. Black Swan was again slightly damaged by bombing in August that year, and was transferred to Londonderry as part of the 37th Escort Group, escorting convoys to and from Gibraltar.
Black Swan escorted convoys in support of Operation Torch in October 1942. On 2 April 1943, when escorting Convoy OS 45, from Liverpool to Freetown, Black Swan and the corvette HMS Stonecrop sank the top-scoring U-boat U-124 off the coast of Portugal.
During 1943, HMS Black Swan for a short time saw action near Iceland to provide escort against the U-Boat threat. After which she served in the Mediterranean, on Malta and Adriatic convoy protection duties. From there, HMS Black Swan passed through the Suez Canal en-route to the Asia / Far East and Pacific theatres against the Japanese forces. The ship was on active duties as far as Australia and the Philippine Islands.
At the cease of hostilities in 1945, HMS Black Swan followed the cruiser HMS Belfast into Shanghai and were the first Royal Navy warships to liberate the British concentration camps run by the Japanese.
In 1949 she took part in the Yangtze Incident, when she, with others went to aid of HMS Amethyst. Black Swan suffered 12 men wounded, and severe damage to her superstructure in a fierce engagement with Chinese batteries, and fell back. Overall the failed relief effort cost 46 killed and 64 injured. HMS Black Swan also served in the Korean War and was involved in the Battle of Chumonchin Chan.
HMS Black Swan was scrapped in 1956 at Troon in Scotland.
Read more about this topic: HMS Black Swan (L57)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“No one is ahead of his time, it is only that the particular variety of creating his time is the one that his contemporaries who are also creating their own time refuse to accept.... For a very long time everybody refuses and then almost without a pause almost everybody accepts. In the history of the refused in the arts and literature the rapidity of the change is always startling.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)