HMS Stonehenge (P232): Lost North of the Strait of Malacca

Laid Down at Birkenhead

HMS Stonehenge was built by Cammell Laird at Birkenhead, laid down on 4 April 1942 and launched on 23 March 1943. She departed Lerwick on 12 June 1943, arriving at Holy Loch where she was commissioned into the Royal Navy three days later under Lieutenant David S. M. Verschoyle-Campbell.

Two Patrols of Note

Stonehenge's first patrol, to Norwegian waters in September 1943, passed without contact with the enemy, but her second, in the Far East in February 1944, was considerably more productive: she destroyed the Koryo Maru No.2 by deck gun on 5 February and sank the minelayer Choko Maru by torpedo on 12 February, solid results against Japanese shipping in a theatre where British submarines were still finding their feet.

Vanished on Her Third Patrol

HMS Stonehenge sailed from Trincomalee in Ceylon on her third war patrol on 25 February 1944, ordered to operate north of the Strait of Malacca and off the Nicobar Islands. She never returned, and was declared overdue on 20 March 1944.

The most probable explanation is that she struck a naval mine, though an accident cannot be entirely ruled out, and her wreck has never been found.

Her entire crew was lost without a single survivor to explain what happened, and services of remembrance for her ship's company continue to be held to this day, a quiet reminder that some losses of the Second World War remain notably unresolved even now.