HMS Broadwater (H81)
| Navy: | Royal Navy |
| Type: | Destroyer |
| Class: | Town |
| Pennant: | H 81 |
| Built by: | Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co. (Newport News, Virginia, U.S.A.) |
| Laid down: | 10 Jul, 1918 |
| Launched: | 8 Mar, 1919 |
| Complement: | 146 |
| Commissioned: | 9 Oct, 1940 |
| Lost: |
18 Oct, 1941 (57-00'N, 19-00'W) North Atlantic, west of Ireland by 1 torpedo from German U.101 (Lt. Cdr. Mengersen). during the night of 17/18 Oct. |
| History: | On 15 October 1940 HMS Broadwater
departed Halifax for the
British Isles, via St. John\'s, Newfoundland, arriving in the Clyde
River, Scotland, the 26th for service with the 11th Escort Group,
Western Approaches Command. During the early part of 1941 the
indispensable destroyer escorted convoys, carrying troops and military
supplies, around the Cape of Good Hope to the Middle East. She spent
May and June at Southampton, England.
Assigned to the Newfoundland Escort Force in July, the ship patrolled the North Atlantic and guarded convoys against the German submarine wolfpacks into the autumn of that year. Early in the morning of 17 October she attacked a U-boat, one of a pack assaulting the convoy SC-48 some 400 miles south of Iceland. Twenty four hours later she herself fell victim to a torpedo from German U-101 (Mengersen). and sank at 13;40 the same day. |
| Former name: | USS Mason (DD 191) |
