HMS Sheraton (M1181): Thirty-Three Years, and Fired On in the Singapore Strait

Built at Southampton, Slow Out of the Blocks

HMS Sheraton was built by Whites Shipyard at Itchen, Southampton, laid down on 23 February 1954 and completed on 24 August 1956 after thirty months of construction. Rather than heading straight into front-line service, she did not formally commission until 27 January 1959, taking up duties for Royal Naval Reserve training out of Portsmouth, a slower and more understated start than many of her Ton-class sisters.

From Minesweeper to Minehunter

After several years of training and North European deployments, Sheraton underwent a significant conversion from minesweeper to minehunter between June 1964 and April 1965 at Portsmouth, recommissioning that April for the 6th Minesweeping Squadron, a reflection of how the Royal Navy's mine warfare priorities were evolving through the 1960s.

Fired On in the Singapore Strait

Sheraton departed Portsmouth on 27 August 1965 bound for Singapore via the Suez Canal, arriving that October and completing six Singapore Strait patrols by the year's end. The most alarming moment of her entire career came in May 1966, when she was fired on by Indonesian shore batteries in the Singapore Strait during the tense period of Confrontation between Britain and Indonesia, a genuinely dangerous incident for a small minehunter operating in contested waters.

Two Collisions and a Return to Suez

Sheraton's long career included two collisions, with HMS Bossington in October 1962 and HMS Lewiston in June 1980, the kind of routine hazard that came with decades of continuous small-ship service. Between April and July 1975 she deployed to Port Said for Operation Rheostat Two, bringing her back to the waters around the Suez Canal she had first passed through a decade earlier en route to Singapore.

Fishery Protection and Foreign Deployments

Sheraton spent stretches of the 1970s and 1990s on loan to the Fishery Protection Squadron, making two successful arrests during her first spell between 1977 and 1978, and later serving with STANAVFORCHAN, NATO's standing naval force in the Channel, in 1988. Between these commitments she underwent an extended refit at Gibraltar from 1980 to 1982 and continued Mediterranean deployments through the following decade.

Thirty-Three Years' Service

HMS Sheraton was finally paid off on 5 October 1993, having served the Royal Navy for an impressive thirty-three years across two distinct roles, minesweeper and minehunter, and in waters ranging from the Singapore Strait to the Suez Canal to the English Channel. She was broken up by Pounds of Portsmouth in January 1998, closing out one of the longer careers among her Ton-class contemporaries.