HMS Badsworth (L03): Mined Twice, Repaired Twice, and Sold to Norway

A Destroyer Ready by Late 1941

HMS Badsworth was built by Cammell Laird at Birkenhead, her keel laid on 15 May 1940 and completing trials on 18 August 1941. A Type II Hunt-class escort destroyer, she displaced 1,050 tons standard and carried six 4-inch guns alongside machine guns, 20mm cannon and depth charge throwers. She proceeded to Scapa Flow that August and joined the Londonderry Escort Force in September, beginning a war that would see her survive two separate mine strikes, an achievement not every Hunt-class destroyer managed.

Arctic Convoys and a Mercy Killing

After North Western Approaches convoy work through 1941, Badsworth supported Operation Myrmidon, a commando raid on Bayonne, in April 1942, before escorting the Arctic convoy PQ 15 to Murmansk between 28 April and 5 May that year. On 2 May, she was ordered to sink the stricken merchant vessel Botavon by gunfire, a grim but necessary act of finishing off a ship too badly damaged to save, part of the harsh practical realities of Arctic convoy warfare. She escorted the return convoy QP 12 from North Russia later that month.

A Mine in Grand Harbour

Badsworth took part in Operation Harpoon, the Malta convoy operation, in June 1942, and on 16 June suffered major structural damage after detonating a mine while entering Grand Harbour itself, tearing a gash roughly twelve by fifteen feet in her forward hull below the waterline and causing fourteen casualties, a genuinely dangerous way to arrive at your destination after already surviving the gauntlet of the convoy run itself. Temporary repairs were completed by August and she departed Malta on 11 August.

Mined a Second Time

After further North Atlantic convoy defence work into early 1943, Badsworth transferred to the Mediterranean with the 60th Destroyer Division that March, and on 22 April was mined a second time, off Bône in Algeria, sustaining major structural damage to her aft section. She underwent temporary repairs at Malta before being towed all the way to Liverpool for the extensive rebuilding work she now genuinely needed.

A Long Norwegian Career

Badsworth was transferred on loan to the Royal Norwegian Navy on 8 August 1944, renamed HNoMS Arendal, and formally decommissioned from the Royal Navy that November. She served with the 16th Destroyer Flotilla out of Harwich on North Sea and Channel patrols, and fought German E-boats in the Thames Estuary on 25 March 1945. After VE Day, still on loan to Norway, she took part in Operation Kingdom, escorting Crown Prince Olav back to Oslo, helped escort German repatriation vessels, and in September 1945 retrieved 400 urns containing the remains of Norwegian war dead from Britain, a genuinely moving final wartime duty.

Norway purchased her outright in 1946, and she was reclassified as a frigate in 1956, going on to serve as a training ship for naval cadets until being removed from the active list in 1961 and finally scrapped in 1965, a long, varied and occasionally dangerous career for a ship that had, quite literally, survived being blown up twice before her war was even over.