HMS Redgauntlet (F97): The Destroyer That Survived Her Own Navy's Minefield

Built at Dumbarton for the Harwich Force

HMS Redgauntlet was an R-class destroyer built by William Denny and Brothers at Dumbarton, laid down in September 1915, launched in November 1916 and completed in February 1917. She joined the 10th Destroyer Flotilla of the Harwich Force, one of the Royal Navy's busiest wartime commands, based on England's east coast and heavily committed to escorting merchant convoys through waters that German submarines and minelayers worked hard to make as dangerous as possible.

Escort Duty and the Zeebrugge Bombardment

The Harwich Force's work was relentless rather than glamorous, shepherding merchant shipping safely through the southern North Sea and Channel approaches, though as one account of the flotilla notes, casualties through direct conflict with the enemy were comparatively rare given the sheer volume of escort work undertaken. Redgauntlet also supported the Royal Navy's bombardment operations against the German-held Belgian coast around Zeebrugge in May 1917, part of the ongoing effort to disrupt the U-boat bases operating from occupied Belgian ports.

Mined on Her Own Patrol

On 21 May 1917, while carrying out an anti-submarine patrol in the English Channel, Redgauntlet struck a British mine, a grimly ironic hazard of a war in which the Royal Navy's own defensive minefields could prove just as dangerous to friendly shipping as to the enemy if a ship strayed into the wrong patch of water. The explosion caused severe damage, but Redgauntlet's crew kept her afloat and brought her home to Sheerness, where she was repaired and returned to active service, a testament to the destroyer's sound construction and her crew's damage control under difficult circumstances.

Helping Build Britain's Submarine-Hunting Science

After the Harwich Force was dissolved at war's end, Redgauntlet transferred to the 4th Destroyer Flotilla under HMS King George V as part of the newly formed Home Fleet. She subsequently joined the anti-submarine school at Portsmouth, where she contributed to the development of ASDIC, the early sonar technology that would go on to define anti-submarine warfare for the rest of the century, a quieter but genuinely significant contribution from a ship whose wartime career had already proven her toughness.

Sold for Scrap in 1927

Redgauntlet's service ended a decade after she was built, sold in July 1927 to J.J. King of Garston and broken up, a fairly typical fate for a First World War-era destroyer as the Navy trimmed its fleet of older vessels through the interwar years. She left behind a record that combined the unglamorous grind of convoy escort with a genuine brush with disaster survived, and a real contribution to the science that would help the Navy hunt submarines in the war still to come.