HMS Fife (D20): A World Cruise, a Hurricane Relief Mission, and a Second Life in Chile

The First of the Batch 2 Counties

HMS Fife was the first unit of the Batch 2 County-class destroyers, ordered by the Ministry of Defence on 26 September 1961, laid down by Fairfield Shipbuilding on 1 June 1962, launched on 9 July 1964, and commissioned on 21 June 1966. A Mark 2 guided missile destroyer, she was designed around area air defence, carrying the Seaslug Mark 2 surface-to-air missile system on a twin-rail launcher, backed by Seacat missiles, Oerlikon cannon and twin 4.5-inch gun turrets, one of which was later replaced by four Exocet anti-ship missile launchers during a mid-1970s upgrade.

She displaced 6,200 tons, rising to 6,800 tons at full load, a properly substantial destroyer built to project British naval power across the globe.

A World Cruise

HMS Fife departed Portsmouth on 1 April 1970 for an epic round-the-world deployment, visiting Safi in Morocco, Lagos in Nigeria, and Simon's Town in South Africa, taking in a stint on the Beira Patrol off Mozambique enforcing sanctions against Rhodesia along the way. She conducted the first live firing trials of the Seaslug Mark 2 missile system in the South China Sea, a significant technical milestone for the weapon system she had been specifically designed to carry, before continuing on to Hong Kong, Kobe, Pearl Harbor, Long Beach and Acapulco, transiting the Panama Canal and returning home via the Mediterranean, a truly remarkable itinerary that took her to every ocean the Royal Navy had any meaningful presence in.

A Silver Jubilee and a Hurricane

HMS Fife took part in the Silver Jubilee Fleet Review of 1977, marking twenty-five years of Queen Elizabeth II's reign, and in 1979 provided significant humanitarian assistance to the Caribbean island of Dominica after it was severely struck by Hurricane David, one of the most destructive storms to hit the region that decade. Her relief efforts there were formally recognised with the Wilkinson Sword of Peace, an award given for outstanding contributions to peace and humanitarian causes, a fitting tribute to work carried out far from the missile trials and fleet reviews that otherwise defined her career.

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A Training Ship, Then Chile

HMS Fife was converted to a training ship in her later Royal Navy years, and between 1985 and 1987 carried out a series of Dartmouth Training Ship deployments to the Mediterranean, the Caribbean and North America, including a voyage all the way into the Great Lakes, an unusual destination for a Royal Navy destroyer. She was decommissioned in June 1987 after 21 years of service, and sold to Chile on 12 August that year, renamed Blanco Encalada in Chilean service.

She underwent a further refit at Talcahuano, receiving an extended deck and a new hangar, completed in May 1988, giving her a particularly substantial second career with the Chilean Navy that would ultimately outlast her original British service by more than a decade and a half.

The End

The former HMS Fife, by then the Chilean destroyer Blanco Encalada, was finally decommissioned from the Chilean Navy on 12 December 2003, sold for scrap in November 2005, and eventually broken up by the Turkish shipbreaking firm Leyal Gemi Sokum in 2013, closing out an extraordinarily long working life spanning nearly half a century and two navies, from a round-the-world Cold War deployment under British colours to decades of further service flying the Chilean flag.

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