HMS Herald (H138): A Survey Ship That Became a Red Cross Vessel in the Falklands

Built at Leith

HMS Herald was built at the Robb Caledon shipyard in Leith, laid down on 9 November 1972, launched on 4 October 1973 and completed on 22 November 1974, commissioning that same year as a Hecla-class ocean survey vessel, sister ship to HMS Hecla, HMS Hecate and HMS Hydra, all built for the patient, essential work of hydrographic and oceanographic survey around the world's coastlines and oceans.

A Red Cross Ship in the Falklands

HMS Herald's steady survey career was interrupted in dramatic fashion by the 1982 Falklands War, when she was reassigned to serve as a Red Cross ship, ferrying wounded casualties from the landing beaches at San Carlos to Montevideo in Uruguay for onward treatment, a genuinely vital humanitarian role carried out under the protection of the Red Cross emblem amid an active war zone, a considerable departure from her usual chart-making duties.

Supporting the Minehunters Toward the Gulf War

HMS Herald was deployed once again for operational support following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990, this time to the Eastern Mediterranean, where she served as a support ship for the minehunters of the 3rd Mine Countermeasures Squadron. She continued supporting the squadron through the Persian Gulf as the international coalition built up its forces, before being relieved by her sister ship ahead of the air campaign that opened the Gulf War in January 1991, having played a genuinely important logistical role in getting the minehunting force ready for the operations that followed.

A Mayday in the Mediterranean

HMS Herald's career also included notable humanitarian work closer to routine peacetime operations: in 2000, she responded to a Mayday distress call involving a Cypriot ferry, a reminder that a well found, well crewed naval vessel is often among the first and best placed to respond when disaster strikes at sea, regardless of what her primary mission happens to be.

Decommissioning and a Final Voyage

HMS Herald was paid off on 12 April 2001 and formally decommissioned on 31 May that year, superseded by the newer Echo-class survey ships then entering Royal Navy service. Rather than being scrapped immediately, she was refitted and renamed Somerville, going on to conduct further hydrographic surveys in Irish waters, before finally being sold to Indian ship breakers in 2004 and beached for demolition on 18 June that year, closing out the career of a survey ship whose quiet chart-making work had, at critical moments, given way to genuinely vital humanitarian and military support roles.