HMS Crane (U23): Two U-Boats, D-Day, Okinawa, Korea and an Israeli Air Attack

Built at Dumbarton

HMS Crane was built by William Denny and Brothers at Dumbarton, her keel laid on 13 June 1941, launched on 9 November 1942, and commissioned on 10 May 1943, a Modified Black Swan-class sloop displacing between 1,350 and 1,490 long tons, capable of 19.75 knots, and built specifically for the escort and anti-submarine role that would come to define the first half of her long and genuinely remarkable career.

Two U-Boats in the Atlantic

HMS Crane joined the 7th Escort Group at Greenock in May 1943 and immediately went to work escorting convoys across the North Atlantic and down to Gibraltar, before taking part in Operation Husky in July 1943, escorting assault convoys to the invasion of Sicily. Deployed off Cape Finisterre from September 1943 specifically to hunt U-boats, HMS Crane helped sink U-538 on 21 November 1943, working alongside HMS Fowey in a depth charge attack that left no survivors, and later helped sink U-962 on 8 April 1944, this time working with HMS Cygnet northwest of Cape Finisterre.

HMS Crane also came close to a third kill on 18 December 1943, subjecting U-515 to a ten-hour depth charge attack that badly damaged the German submarine before it managed to escape, and during that same general period of activity, an acoustic homing torpedo fired by U-515 struck and damaged her sister ship HMS Chanticleer, a reminder of just how dangerous the hunt could be even for the hunters themselves.

D-Day and a Collision

HMS Crane transferred to the English Channel in May 1944 and, on 6 June 1944, escorted an assault convoy to Gold Beach as part of the Normandy landings, direct participation in the largest amphibious invasion in history. That August, while heading to Hull for a refit, HMS Crane collided with the merchant steamer Tilapia, damage that extended her repair period through to November 1944, and in April 1946 she was involved in a further collision, this time with the destroyer HMS Cockade, giving HMS Crane a somewhat eventful relationship with the art of ship-handling even outside of actual combat.

Tokyo Bay and the Japanese Surrender

HMS Crane arrived in Sydney on 17 February 1945 and joined the British Pacific Fleet on 4 March that year, going on to escort fleet replenishment ships during the Battle of Okinawa between March and May 1945. On 2 September 1945, HMS Crane was present in Tokyo Bay for the formal signing of Japan's surrender aboard USS Missouri, a genuinely historic moment for any ship to have witnessed firsthand, closing out her Second World War service in about as significant a location as any warship of her size could hope to occupy.

Korea and a North Korean Shell

HMS Crane returned to active duty in August 1951 as leader of the 3rd Frigate Squadron, taking up blockade and bombardment duties off Korea's west coast during the Korean War and firing some 1,756 rounds of 4-inch ammunition over the course of her deployment. On 27 March 1952, HMS Crane was struck by a shell from a North Korean shore battery off He Do Island, though fortunately without any casualties resulting from the hit, a reminder that shore bombardment duty carried real risks of its own even against an enemy without a functioning navy of its own to speak of.

Attacked by Israeli Aircraft at Suez

HMS Crane's most bizarre wartime encounter came during the 1956 Suez Crisis, when she was attacked by five Israeli Air Force Dassault Mystère IV fighter aircraft after apparently being mistaken for an Egyptian warship, an extraordinary case of mistaken identity between two nominally allied forces operating in the same crowded and chaotic theatre. The attack penetrated her hull, destroyed two of her anti-aircraft guns and her depth charge thrower, and wounded three of her crew; HMS Crane herself claimed to have shot down one of the attacking fighters in return, a genuinely dramatic and unusual episode for a ship by then well into the second decade of her active service.

HMS Crane was refitted and modernised at Singapore following the Suez attack, returning to service in January 1958, and went on to serve during the Malayan Emergency, shelling Malayan National Liberation Army targets and carrying out fishery protection patrols and training duties.

The Last of Her Class

HMS Crane became the last Modified Black Swan-class sloop still in active Royal Navy service, finally paying off at Portsmouth at the end of 1962, and was scrapped at Lacmots Ltd in Queenborough, Kent, in March 1965, after transfer to the British Iron and Steel Corporation for disposal. Her ship's bell survives today on display in the foyer of Tower Hamlets Town Hall, a lasting link to her wartime adoption by the Metropolitan Borough of Bethnal Green, a fitting small memorial for a ship whose two decades of service had carried her from the Battle of the Atlantic to Tokyo Bay, Korea, and a genuinely bizarre air attack in the Suez Canal Zone.