HMS Vigo (D231): From Egyptian Unrest to the First Cod War

Laid Down at Govan

HMS Vigo was built by the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company at Govan, launched on 27 September 1945 and commissioned on 9 December 1946, a Battle-class destroyer that arrived just too late to see action in the war that had shaped her design.

Mediterranean Service Amid Egyptian Unrest

After an initial period in reserve, Vigo joined the 3rd Destroyer Flotilla in the Mediterranean in 1949, taking part in regional operations during a turbulent period that included unrest in Egypt, exactly the kind of tense, watchful presence that so much of the postwar Royal Navy's Mediterranean deployment involved.

Two Fires and a New Role

Vigo suffered fires aboard in both 1953 and 1954, incidents that speak to the ever-present hazards of naval service even away from combat, before settling into a new role from 1954 onward as a gunnery training vessel at Portsmouth, also serving as Captain (D) of the Portsmouth Squadron.

Patrolling During the First Cod War

In 1958 and 1959, Vigo conducted patrols off Iceland during the opening rounds of the first Cod War, the long-running dispute over fishing rights that would eventually draw the Royal Navy into repeated confrontations with Icelandic gunboats, while also taking part in NATO exercises and visiting a number of European ports.

Scrapped at Faslane

By 1959, Vigo's hull was considered beyond economic repair, and she was decommissioned that October, eventually being scrapped at Faslane in 1964. Her final commanding officer, Captain Michael Pollock, went on to reach the very top of the service as Admiral of the Fleet, a fitting footnote for a destroyer whose own career had spanned Mediterranean tension and the earliest skirmishes of the Cod Wars.