HMS Blackmore (L43): From Salerno to a Danish Frigate

A Destroyer Built on the Clyde

HMS Blackmore was built by A. Stephen and Sons at their Glasgow yard, her keel laid on 10 February 1941. A Type II Hunt-class escort destroyer displacing up to 1,490 tons full load, she carried six 4-inch guns on twin mounts alongside machine guns, cannon and depth charge throwers, beginning sea trials in April 1942 before joining the 2nd Destroyer Flotilla and starting Atlantic convoy escort duties that June, including Convoy WS 19P alongside the battleship HMS Nelson.

South Atlantic and the Indian Ocean

HMS Blackmore spent from June 1942 to January 1943 on convoy defence duties in the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean out of Simonstown, followed by a refit and further Indian Ocean escort work through May 1943, before transferring to the Mediterranean that August to join the 57th Fleet Division at Malta.

Salerno and the Adriatic

In September 1943, HMS Blackmore took part in the invasion of Italy, escorting Convoy TSF1X to the Salerno beachhead during one of the war's most fiercely contested amphibious landings. She joined the 60th Destroyer Division for operations in the Adriatic that November and December, and in January 1944 took part in the bombardment of Durazzo in Albania, before returning to more northern waters that June, where she engaged German E-boats and sank one, a sharp and successful action ahead of the summer's major operations.

Southern France, Then East Again

HMS Blackmore took part in Operation Dragoon, the invasion of southern France, that July and August, before undergoing a refit at Sheerness between September 1944 and April 1945, after which she deployed with the Eastern Fleet. In May 1945 she served as a weather ship during the landings at Rangoon, and that September and October escorted aircraft carriers to the Malacca Strait for Operation Zipper, the planned (and ultimately unopposed, following Japan's surrender) recapture of Malaya. She sailed homeward that October and was paid off at Devonport.

Fourteen Years as a Danish Frigate

HMS Blackmore was transferred to Denmark on loan on 18 July 1952, renamed HDMS Esbern Snare, and went on to serve as a frigate in the Royal Danish Navy for fourteen years before being stricken from the active list in 1966, closing out a career that had taken her from South Atlantic convoy duty to the Salerno beaches and finally into a long, useful second life defending an entirely different nation's coastline.