USS Donnell (DE 56)

Navy	US Navy
Type	Destroyer Escort
Class	Buckley
Pennant	DE 56
Built by	Bethlehem Shipyard Inc. (Hingham, Massachusetts, U.S.A.)
Ordered
Laid down	27 Nov 1942
Launched	13 Mar 1943
Commissioned	26 Jun 1943
End service	23 Oct 1945
History	On 3 May 1944, the USS Donnell was on her fifth transatlantic voyage, when she made a sound contact and sighted a periscope, 450 miles southwest of Cape Clear, Ireland. She prepared for a depth charge attack but was hit at 12.00 hrs by one torpedo from U-473, which hit the after part and the explosion of her own depth charges blew off the stern. 29 men were killed and 25 wounded. The vessel was towed by the destroyer escorts USS Reeves (DD 156) and USS Hopping (DE 155) and the tug HMS Samsonia to Dunnstaffnage Bay, Scotland, arriving on 12 May. The damage was too extensive, that the ship was reclassified as IX-182 on 10 July 1944 and was used as accommodation ship at Lisahally. Later towed via Plymouth to Cherbourg where she supplied electric power to shore. 1945 she laid in Portland and Plymouth and was then towed back to the States and was decommissioned on 23 October 1945. She was stricken on 16 November 1945 and sold for scrap on 29 April 1946.