HMS Exmoor (L08): From a U-Boat Kill Off Madeira to Every Mediterranean Landing

Named for a Lost Sister Ship

HMS Exmoor was originally ordered as HMS Burton on 20 December 1939 from Swan Hunter at Wallsend, laid down on 7 June 1940 and launched on 12 March 1941. She was renamed Exmoor in June 1941, taking the name of the previous HMS Exmoor, a Type I Hunt-class destroyer that had been torpedoed and sunk earlier that year, a fittingly determined gesture of continuity from a Royal Navy that had no intention of letting a lost name, or a lost ship's fighting spirit, simply disappear.

A Type II Hunt-class destroyer, HMS Exmoor displaced 1,050 tons standard, rising to 1,430 tons at full load, and her Parsons turbines produced 19,000 shaft horsepower for a top speed of 27 knots. She carried six 4-inch guns, 2-pounder and Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns, and a substantial fit of 110 depth charges, a genuinely well-equipped escort destroyer for the demanding convoy and coastal work she would spend her entire war carrying out. She commissioned on 18 October 1941 and completed her work-up exercises with the Home Fleet at Scapa Flow that November.

A U-Boat Kill Within Weeks

HMS Exmoor wasted no time proving herself. On 17 December 1941, barely two months after commissioning, she took part in a depth-charge attack that forced the German submarine U-131 to the surface northeast of Madeira, where the crippled submarine was finished off by gunfire, a genuinely impressive early result for a ship still very much finding her feet.

Malta and the Mediterranean Convoys

HMS Exmoor spent much of 1942 supporting the desperate effort to keep Malta supplied, taking part in Operations Spotter and Picket between February and March, delivering aircraft to the besieged island, and escorting Convoy MW 11 during Operation Vigorous in June, an operation ultimately cancelled in the face of a serious Italian naval threat. She went on to take part in the successful Operation Stone Age in November 1942 and Operation Portcullis that December, both further contributions to keeping vital supplies flowing to Malta at a time when the island's survival still hung genuinely in the balance.

Between January and March 1943, HMS Exmoor supported the British Eighth Army's advance across Libya and Tunisia, and rescued 13 survivors from the merchant ship City of Guildford on 27 March 1943. In May that year, she took part in Operation Retribution, blockading Cape Bon to prevent Axis forces evacuating to Sicily as the North African campaign reached its conclusion, a role that helped ensure a substantial haul of Axis prisoners and equipment fell into Allied hands rather than escaping across the Mediterranean.

Sicily, Salerno and Anzio

HMS Exmoor was assigned to Escort Force P for Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of Sicily, departing Port Said on 5 July 1943 and escorting Convoy MWF 36 to the Bark West landing beach on 10 July, before defending the beachhead and engaging coastal artillery at Augusta the following day. She went on to support the Salerno landings in September 1943 as part of Task Force 65, departing Tripoli on 6 September and escorting Convoy TSF 1 to the landing beaches on 10 September, providing anti-aircraft defence and gunfire support through to 16 September, a genuinely demanding stretch of continuous combat operations.

HMS Exmoor took part in the ill-fated Dodecanese Campaign in the Aegean between October and December 1943, one of the more disappointing Allied efforts of the Mediterranean war, attempting to intercept German invasion craft and supply isolated British garrisons before the campaign collapsed. She helped evacuate the damaged Greek destroyer Adrias in December, arriving at Alexandria on 6 December 1943. Early in 1944, she protected shipping supporting Operation Shingle, the landings at Anzio, and on 10 March 1944 took part in a depth-charge attack that forced the German submarine U-450 to scuttle south of Ostia, a further confirmed success against the U-boat threat still lurking in Mediterranean waters even as the Allied advance up the Italian peninsula continued.

Final Wartime Duties

HMS Exmoor became flotilla leader of the 3rd Destroyer Flotilla in October 1944, escorting convoys to Greece in support of Operation Manna, the relief effort supporting liberated Greece, and continued supporting ground operations into early 1945, carrying out further Aegean operations right through to April that year, a genuinely long and continuous run of active Mediterranean service stretching across nearly the entire second half of the war.

A Second Career in Denmark

HMS Exmoor was under refit at Taranto when Germany surrendered in May 1945, and her planned deployment to the Eastern Fleet was cancelled following Japan's own surrender that August. She decommissioned in November 1945 and entered reserve at Portsmouth, before being placed on the sale list in 1953 and sold to Denmark in 1954, entering Danish service as HDMS Valdemar Sejr, pennant F343. The Danish Navy placed her on the disposal list in 1962, and she was finally sold for scrapping in Denmark in 1966, closing out a career that had taken her, in her Royal Navy years alone, through practically every major Allied landing and campaign the Mediterranean theatre had to offer.