HMS Balfour (K464): The Borrowed American Escort That Helped Sink U-672

An American Hull for a British Crew

HMS Balfour began life as USS McAnn, a Buckley-class destroyer escort laid down for the US Navy on 19 April 1943 at the Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corporation's Hingham Shipyard in Massachusetts.

Before she could be completed as an American ship, she was allocated to Britain under Lend-Lease on 10 June 1943, becoming one of the Captain-class frigates that supplemented the Royal Navy's own escort fleet during the war's most demanding years.

She was launched on 10 July 1943 and commissioned into the Royal Navy on 7 October that year as HMS Balfour, carrying the pennant number K464. At 306 feet long and displacing 1,430 tons, she carried three 3-inch guns, Bofors and Oerlikon cannon, torpedo tubes and a full anti-submarine outfit, powered by an unusual turbo-electric drive that gave her a respectable 23 knots.

Guarding the D-Day Flank

Balfour served with the 1st and 18th Escort Groups across the North Atlantic, off Normandy and in the English Channel, and in June 1944 played her part in the D-Day landings by forming part of an anti-submarine barrier west of Land's End, helping ensure German U-boats could not slip through to attack the vast invasion fleet from an unguarded flank.

A Contested Kill and a Confirmed One

On 25 June 1944, under the command of Lieutenant Commander Cecil Bluett, who led the ship throughout this period, Balfour attacked a sonar contact with her Hedgehog mortar and was initially credited with sinking U-1191, a claim that was later withdrawn once the full picture of the submarine's actual fate became clear, a fairly common occurrence in the fog of anti-submarine warfare, where confirming a kill was often far harder than achieving one.

She had more definitively verified success on 18 July 1944, when she damaged U-672 with depth charges, forcing the submarine to the surface; her crew scuttled the boat themselves the following day rather than risk further attack, a result that counted as a genuine, confirmed success for Balfour's escort group. All 52 of U-672's officers and men were picked up and spent the rest of the war as prisoners.

Back to America

With the war won, Balfour returned to the United States under the command of Lieutenant Commander J.D.

Davey, formally transferring back to the US Navy at New York on 25 October 1945, and was sold on 28 October 1946, her brief but properly useful loan to Britain complete, having spent barely two years in Royal Navy service but making a real, measurable contribution to the Battle of the Atlantic and the security of the D-Day invasion fleet in that short time.