HMS Grenade (H86): Lost in Dunkirk Harbour

Built on the Clyde

HMS Grenade was laid down by Alexander Stephen and Sons in Glasgow on 3 October 1934, launched on 12 November 1935 and completed on 28 March 1936, a G-class destroyer displacing 1,350 tons and armed with four 4.7-inch guns, eight half-inch machine guns and eight 21-inch torpedo tubes, a well-balanced fleet destroyer for her era.

From the Mediterranean to Norway

Grenade transferred from the Mediterranean Fleet to Plymouth in October 1939 as war clouds gathered closer to home, and went on to take part in the early stages of the Norwegian campaign in April 1940, escorting major warships and providing crucial cover during the difficult evacuation of Allied troops from Namsos, a taste of the desperate evacuation work that would soon define her final days.

Sunk During Operation Dynamo

On 29 May 1940, while helping evacuate Allied troops from Dunkirk during Operation Dynamo, Grenade came under attack from German Junkers Ju 87 Stuka dive bombers in the harbour itself. She was struck by two bombs which set her ablaze, and her magazines exploded later that evening, a rapid and violent end for a ship that had been doing everything possible to bring soldiers home from the beaches. The attack killed 14 of her sailors outright, with a further four men later succumbing to their wounds, a loss that deserves to be remembered with the full seriousness it warrants, part of the wider and often overlooked cost paid by the Royal Navy in delivering the so-called miracle of Dunkirk.