HMS Zodiac (R54): From the Kattegat to Sunk by an Israeli Missile

Built at Southampton

HMS Zodiac was built by Thornycroft in Southampton, laid down on 7 November 1942, launched on 11 March 1944 and commissioned on 23 October that year, a Z-class destroyer that entered service under Lieutenant Commander Henry Richard Rycroft in the final year of the war; her pennant number changed from R54 to D54 in 1945.

Striking Norwegian Targets

Zodiac carried out anti-submarine exercises and escort duties for capital ships and convoys, taking part in Operations Spellbinder and Gratis against Norwegian targets in January 1945, part of the sustained campaign to disrupt German operations along the Norwegian coast.

The Last Arctic Convoys

In April and May 1945, Zodiac served on convoy JW 66 and RA 66 to Russia, among the very last of the gruelling Arctic convoys of the war, before supporting Operation Cleaver, the entry into the Skagerrak and Kattegat that May as Allied forces moved to secure the final stretches of German-controlled Scandinavian waters.

Sold to Israel

HMS Zodiac was purchased by Israel in 1955 and served in the Israeli Navy as INS Yafo, pennant K-42, going on to give the young Israeli fleet fourteen years of further service until 1969, a substantial second career for a destroyer whose Royal Navy record had already spanned the closing months of the Second World War.

Sunk by Her Own Adoptive Navy's Missile

In 1970, the former Zodiac was used as a target ship and sunk after being struck by a Gabriel missile, Israel's own domestically developed anti-ship weapon, a fittingly symmetrical end for a ship that had spent her final active years defending the very nation whose new missile technology ultimately sent her to the bottom.