HMS Beagle (H30)

Beagle off Gold Beach during the Normandy Landings, 6 June 1944
History
United Kingdom
Name	Beagle
Namesake	Beagle
Ordered	4 March 1929
Builder	John Brown & Company, Clydebank
Laid down	11 October 1929
Launched	26 September 1930
Completed	9 April 1931
Decommissioned	24 May 1945
Identification	Pennant number: H30[1]
Fate	Sold for scrap, 15 January 1946
General characteristics (as built)
Class and type	B-class destroyer
Displacement	1,360 long tons (1,380 t) (standard)
Length	323 ft (98.5 m) (o/a)
Beam	32 ft 3 in (9.8 m)
Draught	12 ft 3 in (3.7 m)
Installed power	3 × Admiralty 3-drum boilers 34,000 shp (25,000 kW)
Propulsion	2 × shafts; 2 × geared steam turbines
Speed	35 knots (65 km/h; 40 mph)
Range	4,800 nmi (8,900 km; 5,500 mi) at 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph)
Complement	142 (wartime)
Sensors and processing systems	Type 119 ASDIC
Armament	4 × single 4.7 in (120 mm) guns 2 × single 2 pdr (40 mm (1.6 in)) AA guns 2 × quadruple 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes 1 × depth charge rail and 2 throwers; 20 × depth charges

HMS Beagle was a B-class destroyer built for the Royal Navy (RN) around 1930. Initially assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet, she was transferred to the Home Fleet in 1936. She spent most of World War II on escort duty, taking part in the Norwegian Campaign, the Battle of the Atlantic, Operation Torch, the Russian Convoys, and in the Normandy landings before accepting the surrender of the German garrison of the Channel Islands the day after the formal German surrender on 9 May together with another ship.

One exception to this pattern was when she helped to evacuate British soldiers and civilians in the Battle of France in 1940. During the war Beagle assisted in sinking one German submarine and claimed to have shot down two German aircraft. Redundant after the war, she was broken up for scrap in 1946.