HMIS ''Kistna'' (U46) was a ''Black Swan''-class

sloop A sloop is a sailboat with a single mast typically having only one headsail in front of the mast and one mainsail aft of (behind) the mast. Such an arrangement is called a fore-and-aft rig, and can be rigged as a Bermuda rig with triangular sa ...

which served in the

Royal Indian Navy The Royal Indian Navy (RIN) was the naval force of British India and the Dominion of India. Along with the Presidency armies, later the Indian Army, and from 1932 the Royal Indian Air Force, it was one of the Armed Forces of British India. Fr ...

(RIN) during World War II. After

independence Independence is a condition of a person, nation, country, or state in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the statu ...

, she was commissioned into the

Indian Navy The Indian Navy is the maritime branch of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Navy. The Chief of Naval Staff, a four-star admiral, commands the navy. As a blue-water navy, it operates sig ...

as INS ''Krisna''.

History

HMIS ''Kistna'' was ordered under the 1940 Build Programme on 10 September 1941. She was built by Yarrow (Shipbuilders), Limited and commissioned in 1943. With World War II underway, she was soon deployed for convoy escort duties between the UK and

West Africa West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of Africa. The United Nations defines Western Africa as the 16 countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Ivory Coast, Liberia, Mali, Maurit ...

. In November 1943, while escorting a convoy to

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

, the convoy was sighted by German aircraft. Wolfpack Schill was formed to attack the convoy, which was repelled by the escorts, including HMIS ''Kistna''. was hit by a

torpedo A modern torpedo is an underwater ranged weapon launched above or below the water surface, self-propelled towards a target, and with an explosive warhead designed to detonate either on contact with or in proximity to the target. Historically, su ...

and took major damage in the attack. A mercantile vessel being escorted was sunk and another damaged by German aircraft with

Hs 293 The Henschel Hs 293 was a World War II German radio-guided glide bomb. It is the first operational anti-shipping missile, first used unsuccessfully on 25 August 1943 and then with increasing success over the next year, ultimately damaging or sink ...

glider bombs. HMIS ''Kistna'' was transferred to the Eastern Fleet and continued to escort convoys en route to

Bombay Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' financial centre of India. According to the United Nations, as of 2018, Mumbai is the second- ...

. In the Eastern Fleet it continued escort duties in the

Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf ( fa, خلیج فارس, translit=xalij-e fârs, lit=Gulf of Persis, Fars, ), sometimes called the ( ar, اَلْخَلِيْجُ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Khalīj al-ˁArabī), is a Mediterranean sea (oceanography), me ...

, the

Bay of Bengal The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, bounded on the west and northwest by India, on the north by Bangladesh, and on the east by Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. Its southern limit is a line between ...

and the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by th ...

. It supported military operations by the

British Indian Army The British Indian Army, commonly referred to as the Indian Army, was the main military of the British Raj before its dissolution in 1947. It was responsible for the defence of the British Indian Empire, including the princely states, which co ...

and the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

. In December 1944, she joined a task force with HMIS ''Jumna'', and to support the advance by the Indian Division down the Mayu peninsula in Burma as a part of Operation Romulus. In January 1945, HMIS ''Kistna'' with , and HMS ''Flamingo'', supported the amphibious landings of the Indian 71st Division and the British 4th Division on

Ramree Island Ramree Island ( my, ရမ်းဗြဲကျွန်း; also spelled Yanbye Island) is an island off the coast of Rakhine State, Myanmar (Burma). Ramree island is the largest island in the entire Rakhine Coast and in Myanmar. The area of t ...

in Burma, as a part of Operation Matador. It continued to provide naval gunfire support as a part of the operation. After a refit in Bombay, in April 1945, she was part of the amphibious assault group for the Indian 26th Division on

Rangoon Yangon ( my, ရန်ကုန်; ; ), formerly spelled as Rangoon, is the capital of the Yangon Region and the largest city of Myanmar (also known as Burma). Yangon served as the capital of Myanmar until 2006, when the military government ...

during

Operation Dracula Operation Dracula was a World War II-airborne and amphibious attack on Rangoon by British and Anglo-Indian forces during the Burma Campaign. The plan was first proposed in mid-1944 when the Allied South East Asia Command was preparing to reoccupy ...

. Other members of this assault group included , , , and . In July, ''Kistna'' was deployed for minesweeping operations to the

Malacca Straits The Strait of Malacca is a narrow stretch of water, 500 mi (800 km) long and from 40 to 155 mi (65–250 km) wide, between the Malay Peninsula (Peninsular Malaysia) to the northeast and the Indonesian island of Sumatra to the southwest, connec ...

during

Operation Collie Operation Collie was a British naval operation in World War II, from 5–11 July 1945. Its objectives were, firstly, naval bombardment and aerial strikes on Japanese positions in the Nicobar Islands,David Wragg, ''The Escort Carrier in the S ...

. In August, she conducted preparatory exercises to participate in

Operation Zipper During World War II, Operation Zipper was a British plan to capture either Port Swettenham or Port Dickson, Malaya, as staging areas for the recapture of Singapore in Operation Mailfist. However, due to the end of the war in the Pacific, it wa ...

to recapture

Malaya Malaya refers to a number of historical and current political entities related to what is currently Peninsular Malaysia in Southeast Asia: Political entities * British Malaya (1826–1957), a loose collection of the British colony of the Straits ...

. At the end of World War II, ''Kistna'' was in

Penang Penang ( ms, Pulau Pinang, is a Malaysian state located on the northwest coast of Peninsular Malaysia, by the Malacca Strait. It has two parts: Penang Island, where the capital city, George Town, is located, and Seberang Perai on the Malay ...

during the Japanese surrender there. After India's independence, she was commissioned into the Indian Navy as INS ''Krisna''. She was a part of the 12th Frigate Squadron, before being used for training purposes. She was decommissioned in 1981 and scrapped.

Notes

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kistna (U46) Black Swan-class sloops of the Royal Indian Navy 1943 ships Training ships of the Indian Navy