HMS Lowestoft (F103): Sunk by the Submarine That Sank the Belgrano

HMS Lowestoft (F103)

Built at Linthouse

HMS Lowestoft was laid down on 9 June 1958 by Alexander Stephen and Sons at their Linthouse shipyard in Glasgow, launched on 23 June 1960 and commissioned on 18 October 1961, joining the 5th Frigate Squadron in March 1962, a Rothesay-class anti-submarine frigate displacing 2,800 tons and capable of 30 knots on twin steam turbines.

A Search and a Collision

HMS Lowestoft took part in search operations following a 1962 helicopter crash involving government politicians, unglamorous but essential work in the aftermath of a genuine emergency. In 1964 she suffered a rather more embarrassing incident, colliding with the cruiser HMS Lion during the opening ceremonies for the Forth Road Bridge, sustaining bow damage in front of what was presumably a rather large and well-dressed crowd gathered to celebrate the new crossing.

Modernised for Towed Array Trials

HMS Lowestoft underwent comprehensive modernisation between 1967 and 1969, receiving new radar, a helicopter hangar for Wasp operations and Seacat missile armament, bringing her broadly into line with the capability of the newer Leander-class frigates. Between 1976 and 1977 she served as a trials ship for towed array sonar, a genuinely significant piece of Cold War anti-submarine technology development that would go on to transform how the Royal Navy tracked Soviet submarines for decades afterward.

Sunk by the Belgrano's Nemesis

HMS Lowestoft was paid off at Portsmouth on 29 March 1985, and was sunk as a target off the Bahamas on 8 June 1986 by a Tigerfish torpedo fired from the submarine HMS Conqueror, a genuinely notable footnote given that Conqueror was the same submarine that had, four years earlier, sunk the Argentine cruiser ARA General Belgrano during the Falklands War, the only occasion a nuclear-powered submarine has sunk an enemy ship in wartime. That a former front-line frigate should end her days as a live-fire target for one of the Royal Navy's most historically significant submarines gives HMS Lowestoft's quiet retirement a rather more notable final chapter than most.