HMS Inglefield (D02) - Anti-submarine Action

Anti-submarine Action

On the outbreak of war, Inglefield was deployed as the leader of the 3rd Destroyer Flotilla, Mediterranean Fleet, and was based at Malta. However, she was transferred to the Home Fleet before the end of September 1939 to patrol the Western Approaches. In this rôle, she escorted HM aircraft carrier Courageous, but was answering a distress signal from SS Kafirstan when Courageous was attacked and sunk. Inglefield searched in vain for the U-boat U-83 that sank the Courageous. One month later, Inglefield, along with her sister-ships HMS Ivanhoe and HMS Intrepid, sunk U-boat U-45 off the south-west coast of Ireland. She again came under attack from German U-boats when U-18 fired numerous torpedoes at her; they all missed. A few days after that last attack, she was required to tow the submarine HMS Triad back to Stavanger, after she was damaged while on patrol in the North Sea. She sank another German U-boat, U-63, in early 1940 with the help of HMS Imogen and HMS Narwhal; 24 Germans were rescued.