HMS Hereward (H93)

HMS Hereward (H93)

HMS Hereward (H93), named after Hereward the Wake, was an H-class destroyer built for the Royal Navy in the mid-1930s. She was assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet before and the ship spent four months during the Spanish Civil War in mid-1937 in Spanish waters, enforcing the arms blockade imposed by Britain and France on both sides of the conflict. When World War II began in September 1939, the ship was in the Mediterranean, but was shortly transferred to the South Atlantic Command to hunt for German commerce raiders and blockade runners, capturing one of the latter in November. Hereward was transferred to the Home Fleet in May 1940 and rescued Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands after the Germans had invaded.

The ship was transferred back to the Mediterranean Fleet later that month, and escorted convoys to Malta as well as escorting the larger ships of the fleet. She sank an Italian submarine in December before sinking the Italian torpedo boat Vega the following month. Hereward participated in the Battle of Cape Matapan in March 1941 and helped to evacuate Allied troops from Greece in April. In May the ship sank several small ships of a German convoy attempting to land troops on Crete. Later that month, she was bombed and sunk by German dive bombers as she was evacuating Allied troops from Crete. Her survivors were rescued by Italians and they became prisoners of war.