HMS Cheviot: From Palestine Patrols to a Final Job as a Torpedo Target

HMS Cheviot

A Destroyer Built at Linthouse

HMS Cheviot was built by Alexander Stephens and Sons at their Linthouse shipyard, her keel laid on 27 April 1943, launched on 2 May 1944, and commissioned on 11 December 1945, a Ch-subclass C-class destroyer, one of 32 such vessels built for the Royal Navy during the war. She displaced 1,885 tons standard and up to 2,566 tons at deep load, armed with four 4.5-inch guns in superfiring pairs fore and aft, a twin 40mm Bofors mount, two quadruple 20mm Oerlikon mounts and a quadruple 21-inch torpedo tube mount, driven by geared steam turbines producing 40,000 shaft horsepower for a designed speed of 36 knots, achieving 32.3 knots on trials.

Patrolling Palestine

HMS Cheviot was assigned to the 1st Destroyer Squadron at Malta in 1946, and in 1947 took part in operations preventing illegal immigration into Palestine, part of the Royal Navy's difficult and politically fraught task of intercepting ships carrying Jewish refugees attempting to reach Palestine in defiance of British Mandate restrictions during its final, tense years.

A Modernised Destroyer, Renumbered

HMS Cheviot underwent an interim modernisation in 1954 that replaced her rear gun turret with two Squid anti-submarine mortars, and at some point in her career her pennant number changed from R90 to D90, a routine administrative change common to many Royal Navy destroyers of her generation as pennant numbering conventions evolved. She went on to serve with the 8th Destroyer Squadron in the Far East between December 1956 and October 1959, part of the substantial Royal Navy presence maintained east of Suez during this period of continuing regional tension.

A Final Role as a Target

HMS Cheviot was decommissioned in March 1960, and before her eventual disposal was used as a target for homing torpedo trials, a genuinely useful final contribution that helped the Royal Navy develop and test the guided torpedo technology that would go on to equip its submarines and aircraft for decades to come. She was sold to Thos. W. Ward and arrived at their yard in Inverkeithing for scrapping on 22 October 1962, closing out the career of a destroyer whose final job, quite literally being shot at to help develop better weapons, was a fittingly practical end for a ship that had spent her career in the unglamorous but essential work of routine fleet and patrol duties.