Hunt class destroyers of the Royal Navy

Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 37. Chapters: French destroyer La Combattante, Greek destroyer Adrias (L67), Greek destroyer Kanaris (L53), Greek destroyer Miaoulis (L91), Greek destroyer Pindos (L65), HMS Avon Vale (L06), HMS Badsworth (L03), HMS Beaufort (L14), HMS Bicester (L34), HMS Blackmore (L43), HMS Blean (L47), HMS Bramham (L51), HMS Brecon (L76), HMS Calpe (L71), HMS Croome (L62), HMS Derwent (L83), HMS Dulverton (L63), HMS Eridge (L68), HMS Exmoor (L61), HMS Grove (L77), HMS Hursley (L84), HMS Ledbury (L90), HMS Mendip (L60), HMS Middleton (L74), HMS Penylan (L89), HMS Quorn (L66), HMS Tanatside (L69), HMS Tetcott (L99), HMS Tynedale (L96), HMS Wensleydale (L86), HMS Whaddon (L45), HMS Zetland (L59), ORP Krakowiak (L115), ORP Kujawiak (L72), ORP Slazak (L26). Excerpt: HMS Ledbury (Pennant L90) was an escort destroyer of the Hunt Type II class. The Royal Navy ordered Ledbury's construction two days after the outbreak of the Second World War and J. I. Thornycroft Ltd laid down her keel at their Southampton yard on 24 January 1940. Air raid damage to the yard delayed her construction and she did not launch until 27 September 1941. Her initial assignment was to perform escort duties between Scapa Flow and Iceland. She remained in this theatre for the first part of the war, during which time she served with the ill-fated Arctic convoy PQ17 in June 1942, from which twenty-four ships were lost. Only two months later she took up the role of close escort in the Pedestal convoy to Malta. During the fierce attacks that dogged the convoy, Ledbury claimed three enemy aircraft destroyed and five damaged, and was one of three destroyers that helped the crippled oil tanker SS Ohio into the Grand Harbour. She added to her battle honours with the Allied landings in Sicily, Salerno, and operations in the Adriatic and Aegean. The Royal Navy finally scrapped Ledbury in 1958. Ledbury was engaged in escorting major warships and Fleet auxiliaries in the North Sea until late June 1942, when she was attached to the ocean escort of the convoy PQ17. Mariners that took part in convoys delivering supplies to Russia remember vividly the biting cold and the continual fear of attack by air or sea. The supplies were vital in that they were needed to keep Russia in the war following her invasion by German forces in 1941. The PQ17 convoy, which left Iceland at the end of June 1942, is known particularly for the tremendous losses among the merchant ships. The problems for convoy PQ17 started early on the morning of 4 July 1942, with the appearance of a copper-yellow warhead of a torpedo, clearly visible just below the surface of the sea. The freighter SS Carlton sounded her siren to warn the leading ships in column eight, but it was too late: the weapon was heading