HMS Meon (K269)

History
United Kingdom
Name: Meon
Namesake: River Meon
Ordered: 24 June 1942
Builder: A. & J. Inglis, Glasgow
Laid down: 31 December 1942
Launched: 4 August 1943
Commissioned: 31 December 1943
Decommissioned: 7 February 1944
Identification: pennant number: K 269
Fate:
  • Transferred to Canada 7 February 1944
  • Returned 23 April 1945
  • broken up 14 May 1966
Canada
Name: Meon
Commissioned: 7 February 1944
Decommissioned: 23 April 1945
Identification: pennant number: K 269
Honours and
awards:		 Atlantic 1944-45, English Channel 1944, Normandy 1944[1] Gulf of St. Lawrence 1944[2]
Fate: returned to Royal Navy 1945
General characteristics
Class and type: River-class frigate
Displacement:
  • 1,445 long tons (1,468 t; 1,618 short tons)
  • 2,110 long tons (2,140 t; 2,360 short tons) (deep load)
Length:
  • 283 ft (86.26 m) p/p
  • 301.25 ft (91.82 m)o/a
Beam: 36.5 ft (11.13 m)
Draught: 9 ft (2.74 m); 13 ft (3.96 m) (deep load)
Propulsion: 2 x Admiralty 3-drum boilers, 2 shafts, reciprocating vertical triple expansion, 5,500 ihp (4,100 kW)
Speed:
  • 20 knots (37.0 km/h)
  • 20.5 knots (38.0 km/h) (turbine ships)
Range: 646 long tons (656 t; 724 short tons) oil fuel; 7,500 nautical miles (13,890 km) at 15 knots (27.8 km/h)
Complement: 157
Armament:
  • 2 × QF 4 in (102 mm) /45 Mk. XVI on twin mount HA/LA Mk.XIX
  • 1 × QF 12 pdr (3 in / 76 mm) 12 cwt /50 Mk. V on mounting HA/LA Mk.IX (not all ships)
  • 8 × 20 mm QF Oerlikon A/A on twin mounts Mk.V
  • 1 × Hedgehog 24 spigot A/S projector
  • up to 150 depth charges

HMS Meon was a River-class frigate that served with the Royal Navy and Royal Canadian Navy in the Second World War. The vessel was used primarily as a convoy escort in the Battle of the Atlantic, but also took part in the Invasion of Normandy. After the war, the ship was converted to a headquarters vessel but never re-entered service. She was named for the River Meon in the United Kingdom.

Meon was ordered on 24 January 1942.[3] The ship was laid down on 31 December 1942 by A. & J. Inglis at Glasgow and launched 4 August 1943.[3][4] She was commissioned into the Royal Navy on 31 December 1943.[3]

War service

After commissioning and trials, Meon sailed with convoy ON 220 to Canada.[4] Once there she was recommissioned into the Royal Canadian Navy at Halifax, Nova Scotia on the 7 February 1944. After working up with her new Canadian crew, she joined convoy escort group 9 in May 1944. Following the ship's arrival in Derry to join the group, the vessel spent until October 1944 in the waters around the United Kingdom.[4] It was during this period that Meon participated in Operation Neptune, the sea component of the invasion of Normandy and was present on D-day.[4][5]

Arriving at Halifax on 19 October 1944, Meon joined local convoy escort group 27 and was named Senior Officer's ship. She remained with the group until the end of March 1945, when the vessel returned to the United Kingdom and was handed back over to the Royal Navy at Southampton on 23 April 1945.[4] The ship did not see any more service for the remainder of the war.

Postwar service

Following the war, Meon was converted into a combined operations headquarters ship. In 1953 she took part in the Fleet Review to celebrate the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.[6] The vessel was commissioned as HQ ship for the Amphibious Warfare Squadron in the Persian Gulf and was still in service there until 1965. The ship then lay idle at Harwich until being sold to Hughes Bolckow Ltd and being broken up at Blyth, Northumberland in 1966.[3][4]

Meon, along with tank landing craft Striker and Reggio, plus two Landing Craft Tanks (LCTs), were indeed the Amphibious Warfare Squadron but in the early 1950s were based at Malta.

References

  1. ↑ "Battle Honours". Britain's Navy. Retrieved 31 August 2014.
  2. ↑ "Battle Honours 2". Veterans Affairs Canada. Retrieved 12 September 2014.
  3. 1 2 3 4 "HMS Meon (K269)". uboat.net. Retrieved 31 August 2014.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Macpherson, Ken; Barrie, Ron (2002). The Ships of Canada's Naval Forces, 1910-2002 (3 ed.). St. Catharines: Vanwell Publishing Limited. p. 98. ISBN 1551250721.
  5. ↑ Zuehlke, Mark (2004). Juno Beach: Canada's D-Day Victory June 6, 1944 (1st ed.). Douglas & McIntyre. p. 355. ISBN 1553650506.
  6. ↑ Souvenir Programme, Coronation Review of the Fleet, Spithead, 15th June 1953, HMSO, Gale and Polden

Publications

Media related to River class frigates at Wikimedia Commons

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