HMS Exe (1903): A River-Class Destroyer's Long War Against U-Boats and Mines

Built by Palmers

HMS Exe was built by Palmers, laid down on 14 July 1902 and launched on 27 April 1903, part of the very first batch of River-class destroyers, a remarkably significant design generation that moved away from the small, lightly built torpedo boat destroyers of the previous century towards larger, more seaworthy vessels better suited to operating in truly rough weather.

The three Palmer-built ships of this first batch, including HMS Exe, were distinguished by their four funnels arranged in two pairs, a visually distinctive layout compared to later River-class ships.

She displaced 550 tons standard, rising to 620 tons loaded, measured 233.5 feet in length, and could reach 25.5 knots, though her forward 6-pounder guns, mounted on sponsons, proved rather wet in anything approaching rough seas, a design flaw corrected on subsequent vessels of the class.

She was completed in March 1904, following coal consumption trials that October which initially failed due to leaking condensers before succeeding on a second attempt, ultimately achieving 25.273 knots.

Malta, China, and Home Waters

HMS Exe departed Plymouth on 1 May 1904 bound for Malta, serving with the Mediterranean Destroyer Flotilla through 1905, before moving on to the China Station between 1905 and 1906, and subsequently rotating through a series of home fleet assignments, the fairly typical peacetime pattern of overseas and home postings that shaped most destroyer careers of the era.

Hunting Submarines Off Portsmouth

HMS Exe joined the Second Battle Squadron at Scapa Flow when war broke out in August 1914, before transferring south by March 1915 to form part of the Portsmouth Escort Flotilla, replacing Beagle-class destroyers that had been sent to reinforce the Dardanelles campaign. It was in this role, defending the vital shipping lanes along Britain's own south coast, that HMS Exe spent the bulk of her war.

On 15 December 1916, HMS Exe and HMS Cherwell discovered the German submarine UC.17 attacking the merchant ship SS Red Rose.

The two destroyers succeeded in saving the merchant vessel, though an attempt to deploy a paravane against the submarine went wrong when its charge exploded almost immediately, probably due to an operating error, a reminder of just how unreliable and dangerous some of the improvised anti-submarine technology of the era could be, even for the crews operating it.

On 27 February 1917, HMS Exe dropped depth charges on the German submarine U.B.40, forcing it to submerge and abandon whatever attack it had been pressing. On 13 May 1917, while escorting SS Irwell, she engaged an unidentified U-boat and attempted to ram it, only for the submarine to escape into a rain squall before the attack could be completed, a frustratingly narrow miss after an aggressive pursuit.

Struck by Mines

HMS Exe's own luck ran out, at least partially, on 27 March 1918, when she struck mines while operating off the east coast, sustaining serious damage and losing five of her crew.

Her sister ship HMS Kale was sunk outright in the same incident, a grim illustration of just how persistent and lethal the threat of enemy minefields remained right through to the closing months of the war, even for ships and crews as experienced in anti-submarine and coastal patrol work as HMS Exe's had become by that stage.

The End

HMS Exe survived the mine strike and the remainder of the war, and by January 1920 was listed for sale, subsequently being broken up later that year, closing out a seventeen-year career that had carried her from the pioneering early days of the River-class design through years of dangerous anti-submarine patrol work in home waters during the First World War.