 Adrias on the River Tyne, 31 July 1942. Shortly after she was taken over by the Hellenic Navy | |
| History | |
|---|---|
 United Kingdom | |
| Name | Border |
| Namesake | Border Hunt |
| Builder | Swan Hunter,Tyne and Wear, United Kingdom |
| Laid down | 1 May 1941 |
| Launched | 3 February 1942 |
 Greece | |
| Name | Adrias - ΒΠ Αδρίας |
| Namesake | Adria/Adriatic Sea |
| Acquired | 20 July 1942 |
| Commissioned | 5 August 1942 |
| Decommissioned | 1945 |
| Identification | Pennant number: L67 |
| Fate | Returned to UK and sold for scrap |
| General characteristics | |
| Class & type | Type IIIHunt-classdestroyer |
| Displacement |
|
| Length | 85.3 m (280 ft) |
| Beam | 11.4 m (37 ft) |
| Draft | 2.4 m (7 ft 10 in) |
| Propulsion | Boilers: 2 Admiralty three-drum boilers, Engines: 2 shaft Parsons turbine, Shafts: 2 (twin screw ship), Power: 19,000 shp, (14.2 MW) |
| Speed |
|
| Range | 2,350 nautical miles (4,350 km) at 20.0 knots (37 km/h) |
| Complement | 170 |
| Armament | 4 ×4-inch (102 mm) (2 × 2) guns, one 4 × 40 mm A/AQF 2-pounder pompom gun, 3 ×20 mm A/A, 2 ×21-inch (533 mm) T/T, onedepth charge track |
Adrias (Greek:ΒΠ Αδρίας) was a Type IIIHunt-classdestroyer that was originally built for theRoyal Navy as HMSBorder but never commissioned. Before her completion, she was loaned to theRoyal Hellenic Navy on 20 July 1942 and commissioned asAdrias on 5 August 1942 in order to relieve heavy losses of ships sustained by the Royal Hellenic Navy during theGerman invasion of 1941 and throughout the war.[1]Adrias took her name from the ancientGreek town ofAdria inItaly, at the mouth of thePo river, after which theAdriatic Sea is named (Herodotus vi. 127, vii. 20, ix. 92; Euripides, Hippolytus, 736).
Command ofAdrias was accepted by Cmdr.Ioannis Toumbas inNewcastle, England, on 20 July 1942. Upon completion of the training period on 26 August, while sailing under foggy conditions with only the left engine functioning, she ran aground nearScapa Flow. The damage took four months to repair. No responsibility was attributed to the captain for the accident. In the beginning of January, 1943, after the completion of repairs,Adrias sailed to the Mediterranean where she participated in missions escorting convoys.
On 27 January 1943, while positioned 360 nautical miles (667 km) NW offCape FinisterreAdrias was believed to have sunk theGerman submarine U-553 (British Admiralty's signal presumed her possibly sunk). When the war ended the loss of the German submarine was officially confirmed to have occurred on 27 January. However, the name of the ship that caused the sinking was not mentioned. During that same operation on 13 February 1943,Adrias sunk or seriously damagedU-623 (the last report from that submarine was dated 9 February 1943).
Adrias took part in numerous convoy escorts in the Mediterranean as well as in theSicily landing operations, where on the night of 20 July 1943, in cooperation with British escort destroyerHMS Quantock she successfully confronted 3 German torpedo boats during a night engagement and sunk two of them.[2] On 20 September 1943Adrias represented Greece when a force of four Allied ships accepted the surrender of a contingent of theItalian Royal Navy (out ofTaranto) that was sailing towards Malta following thearmistice with Italy.
On 22 October 1943, duringoperations in the Dodecanese, while near the island ofKalymnos with the British destroyerHMS Hurworth,Adrias struck a mine. The explosion tore her bow off. The English Flotilla Commander onboardHurworth ordered Cmdr. Toumbas to abandon ship.Hurworth, while trying to come toAdrias's rescue, also hit a mine and sunk taking 133 men with her.[3] In spite of the damage suffered,Adrias took on the survivors ofHurworth (among them her CO) and managed to reach the nearby coast ofGümüşlük in neutral Turkey with 21 men of her crew dead and 30 wounded. After some minor repairs, the ship sailed on 1 December forAlexandria, despite her missing bow. After a trip of 730 nautical miles (1,350 km), of which 300 were within the range of Luftwaffe'sJunkers Ju 88 bombers based in occupied Greece, (the threat of them forced her to sail only at night despite her limited maneuverability), she managed to reach Alexandria on 6 December (day of the Feast ofSt. Nicholas, patron saint of seamen) where she was enthusiastically greeted by the British Fleet and other Allied ships. This achievement was considered a brilliant example of seamanship, and provided a morale boost to the Royal Hellenic Navy and other allied ships in the Mediterranean.
After the liberation of Greece from the Germans,Adrias, with her bow temporarily repaired, arrived inFaliro with the rest of the ships of the Hellenic Fleet. The ship was never fully repaired due to the termination of war operations in the Mediterranean and sailed to England where she was returned to the Royal Navy.Adrias was scrapped shortly thereafter.[4] Of the same class of ships serving in the Hellenic Navy were:Adrias (D06) formerlyHMS Tanatside (loaned to Hellenic Navy as a replacement of this ship),Hastings formerlyHMS Catterick loaned to Hellenic Navy in 1946,Kanaris built asHMS Hatherleigh,Miaoulis built asHMS Modbury,Pindos built asHMS Bolebroke.
The Hellenic Navy gave the same name to commemorate this ship toStandard typefrigateAdrias (F-459) in 1994.
| |||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||||||
Shipwrecks and maritime incidents in October 1943 | |
|---|---|
| Shipwrecks |
|
| Other incidents |
|
