HMS Ursa (F200): The Collision That Wrote Off Another Frigate

Built at Woolston

HMS Ursa was built by Thornycroft at Woolston in Southampton, laid down on 2 May 1942, launched on 22 July 1943 and completed on 1 March 1944, a U-class destroyer that joined the Arctic convoy effort in March 1944 before turning to preparations for the invasion of France.

Gold Beach and the Bay of Biscay

Ursa supported the D-Day landings on Gold Beach on 6 June 1944, before taking part in fierce actions off the French coast that summer, engaging German torpedo boats and attacking enemy convoys in the Bay of Biscay and off Brittany in August 1944, exactly the kind of close, dangerous coastal work that fell to destroyers in the months after the initial landings.

Striking Sumatran Oil Refineries

Transferred to the Far East in late 1944, Ursa joined the British Pacific Fleet that November and took part in Operation Lentil in January 1945, a strike against Japanese-controlled oil refineries in Sumatra, before returning to the United Kingdom and paying off in 1946.

Rebuilt as a Type 15 Frigate

Between 1953 and 1954, Ursa underwent extensive reconstruction into a Type 15 anti-submarine frigate, receiving the new pennant number F200 and recommissioning on 29 June 1955 for service with the 6th Frigate Squadron on the Mediterranean Station, including anti-gunrunning patrols off Cyprus and anti-submarine screening duties during the 1956 Suez Operation.

A Collision in the Firth of Clyde

On 1 and 2 August 1962, Ursa collided with her sister frigate HMS Battleaxe in the Firth of Clyde. Ursa herself came away with only minor bow damage, but Battleaxe was judged beyond economic repair and was decommissioned and scrapped as a direct result, a striking illustration of just how much damage even a glancing naval collision could inflict.

Scrapped at Newport

HMS Ursa paid off for the final time on 28 October 1966 and was sold for scrap, arriving at Cashmore's yard in Newport in 1967, bringing to a close a career that had taken her from the beaches of Normandy to a collision that ended the life of another ship entirely.