HMS Churchill (I 45)
| Navy: | Royal Navy |
| Type: | Destroyer |
| Class: | Town |
| Pennant: | I 45 |
| Built by: | Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Co. (Newport News, Virginia, U.S.A.) |
| Laid down: | 25 Nov, 1918 |
| Launched: | 31 May, 1919 |
| Commissioned: | 9 Sep, 1940 |
| End service: | 16 Jul, 1944 |
| History: | |
| USS Herndon (DD 198) was decommissioned and turned over to Great Britain under the lend lease program at Halifax, Nova Scotia on 9 September 1940. As HMS Churchill (I 45), she served as leader of the first Town-class flotilla in transatlantic convoys and patrol duty off the western approaches to the British Isles. High points in her career in the Royal Navy include participation in the search for Bismarck after the German battleship had sunk HMS Hood (51), and a visit by her namesake, the redoubtable Prime Minister, on his way home from the momentous Atlantic Conference with President Roosevelt in August 1941. HMS Churchill (I 45) also served as an escort for the pre- and post-invasion build up for Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of North Africa. Transferred to the Russian Navy 16 July 1944, the destroyer was renamed USSR Dejatelnyj (Active) and was probably sunk by an U-boat on 16 January 1945 about 40 miles east of Cape Tereberski while escorting the convoy KB-1 over the treacherous route from Kola Inlet to the White Sea. | |
| Ex-USS Herndon DD-198 | |
| Events |
9 Jun, 1942 HMS Churchill picks up 37 survivors from the American tanker Franklin K. Lane that was torpedoed and damaged by the German submarine U-502 about 35 miles northeast of Cape Blanco, Venezuela in position 11.12N, 66.39W. Churchill later sank the damaged tanker with gunfire.
13 Aug, 1942 |
