&sq=Facebook&lang=en&file=File:HMS_Fortune_1943_IWM_FL_13249.jpg) Fortune in June 1943
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| History | |
|---|---|
 United Kingdom | |
| Name | Fortune |
| Builder | John Brown & Company, Clydebank |
| Laid down | 25 July 1933 |
| Launched | 29 August 1934 |
| Commissioned | 27 April 1935 |
| Fate | Transferred to the Royal Canadian Navy, 31 May 1943 |
| Canada | |
| Name | Saskatchewan |
| Namesake | Saskatchewan River |
| Acquired | 31 May 1943 |
| Commissioned | 31 May 1943 |
| Out of service | 28 January 1946 |
| Identification | Pennant number: H70 |
| Honours and awards | Atlantic 1943-44, Normandy 1944, Biscay 1944[1] |
| Fate | Sold for scrap, 1946 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type | F-class destroyer |
| Displacement | |
| Length | 329 ft (100.3 m) o/a |
| Beam | 33 ft 3 in (10.13 m) |
| Draught | 12 ft 6 in (3.81 m) (deep) |
| Installed power |
|
| Propulsion | 2 × shafts; 2 × geared steam turbines |
| Speed | 35.5 knots (65.7 km/h; 40.9 mph) |
| Range | 6,350 nmi (11,760 km; 7,310 mi) at 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph) |
| Complement | 145 |
| Sensors and processing systems | ASDIC |
| Armament |
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HMS Fortune was one of nine F-class destroyers built for the Royal Navy in the mid-1930s. Although she was assigned to the Home Fleet upon completion, the ship was detached to the Mediterranean Fleet to enforce the arms blockade imposed by Britain and France on both sides during the Spanish Civil War of 1936–39. Several weeks after the start of the Second World War in September 1939, Fortune helped to sink a German submarine. The ship escorted the larger ships of the fleet during the early stages of World War II and played a minor role in the Norwegian Campaign of 1940. Fortune was sent to Gibraltar in mid-1940 and formed part of Force H where she participated in the Battle of Dakar against the Vichy French. The ship escorted numerous convoys to Malta in 1940–41 until she was badly damaged by Italian bombers in mid-1941.
After repairs were completed, Fortune was briefly assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet before she was transferred to the Eastern Fleet in the Indian Ocean in early 1942. The ship screened an aircraft carrier during the Battle of Madagascar later that year and was assigned to convoy escort duties for the rest of 1942 and early 1943. She returned home in February to begin conversion into an escort destroyer. The ship was transferred to the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) when it was completed in mid-1943 and renamed HMCS Saskatchewan. The ship spent the next year escorting convoys in the North Atlantic before she was transferred to the English Channel to defend convoys during the Normandy landings in June 1944. Saskatchewan engaged some German patrol boats the following month and was lightly damaged. She was sent to Canada for repairs and a general refit and did not return to the UK until January 1945. The ship resumed her former duties until the end of the war in May and then ferried troops back to Canada for several months. Saskatchewan was judged surplus later that year and was sold for scrap, in early 1946.
- ^ "Battle Honours". Britain's Navy. Retrieved 25 January 2019.