HMS Tartar (F133): Rammed Twice in the Third Cod War

HMS Tartar (F133)

Built at Devonport

HMS Tartar was built at Devonport Dockyard at a cost of £4,140,000, launched on 19 September 1960 and commissioned on 26 February 1962, one of the postwar Tribal-class frigates built specifically for East of Suez colonial patrol duties, entirely distinct from the wartime destroyer that had carried the same name a generation earlier.

Hurricane Relief and a Cuban Arms Cache

In 1963, Tartar provided humanitarian assistance to Trinidad after Hurricane Flora struck the Caribbean, and that same year apprehended nine armed Cubans along with a cache of weapons near Cay Sal in the Bahamas, a genuinely dramatic interception for a frigate more usually engaged in routine patrol work.

Facing Down Iran in the Gulf

Deploying to the Persian Gulf in 1968 alongside HMS Intrepid, Tartar patrolled the Greater and Lesser Tunbs in an effort to deter Iranian occupation of the disputed islands, part of the delicate late-colonial diplomacy Britain was managing in the region during its withdrawal from East of Suez commitments.

Rammed Twice in the Cod Wars

Tartar's most memorable service came during the Third Cod War with Iceland, spending six weeks on fishery protection patrols in the Barents Sea during 1975 and 1976. In that time she was rammed by the Icelandic gunboat ICGV Tyr on 1 April 1976 and again by ICGV Aegir just over a month later on 6 May, two of four collisions she was involved in during this uniquely combative fisheries dispute between Britain and Iceland.

Finding a Downed Airliner

In 1976, Tartar located the wreckage of Cubana Flight 455 in the West Indies, a passenger aircraft brought down by a terrorist bombing, and the following year took her place at the Spithead Fleet Review marking Queen Elizabeth II's Silver Jubilee, a proud public moment amid an otherwise operationally varied career.

A West Indies Rescue

During a West Indies guardship deployment in 1982 and 1983, Tartar rescued the crew of the stricken vessel MV Spearfish before sinking the abandoned ship that June, standard but genuinely useful maritime safety work carried out far from home waters.

Sold to Indonesia

Placed in the Standby Squadron in 1980 and briefly reactivated during the Falklands War without deploying south, Tartar was finally decommissioned in March 1984. Following a refit by Vosper Thornycroft at Woolston, she was delivered to Indonesia on 22 January 1986 and commissioned into the Indonesian Navy as KRI Hasanuddin, named for the Sultan who resisted Dutch colonisation, serving on until she was finally stricken in 2000.