HMS Petard underway at speed. As seen from the aircraft carrier HMS Formidable.
HMS Petard was a P-class destroyer of the British Royal Navy that saw service during the Second World War. She was one of only three P-class ships, out of the original eight, to survive the war in a serviceable condition.[1]
Originally to have been named HMS Persistent, Petard was launched in March 1941.[2] She initially carried the pennant number G56, which was changed after the war to F56.
Petard had the distinction of sinking a submarine from each of the three Axis navies: the German U-559, the Italian Uarsciek and the Japanese I-27.[3]
Members of the ship’s crew recovered from U-559 a new, four-wheel Enigma cypher machine and the books to go with it,[4] albeit at the cost of the lives of her First Lieutenant and an Able Seaman, both of whom were drowned when the U-boat they were searching sank with them inside.
The early years[edit]
Petard was launched on 27 March 1941 at Walker’s shipyard in Newcastle, on the River Tyne.[5] Accommodation was basic, the officers had a cabin each in the aft of the ship, which doubled as office space. The ratings were housed in messes forward and slept in hammocks. As a result of these locations, confusion could arise when ‘action stations’ were sounded which might involve the officers making their way forward towards the bridge while gun-crews attempted to move aft to the stern armament.[6]
She was fitted out and handed over to “a mainly untried crew”[5] on 15 July 1942. Although the ship was fitted with radar, it was relatively primitive, so the need for a good visual watch was regarded as crucial. Her first captain was Lieutenant Commander Stephen Beattie who would go on to win the Victoria Cross in the St Nazaire raid. He was replaced by Lt Cmdr Mark Thornton DSC on 28 April, (he had come from the destroyer Harvester; his DSC was for sinking a German U-boat). He worked the ship’s company hard in training