HMS ''Cadiz'' was a of the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

. She was named after the Battle of Cádiz, in which the French besieged the Spanish town in 1810, which was eventually lifted in 1812 after the French defeat at the

Battle of Salamanca The Battle of Salamanca (in French and Spanish known as the Battle of Arapiles) on 22July 1812 was a battle in which an Anglo-Portuguese army under the Earl of Wellington defeated Marshal Auguste Marmont's French forces at Arapiles, so ...

. She was transferred to the

Pakistan Navy ur, ہمارے لیے اللّٰہ کافی ہے اور وہ بہترین کارساز ہے۔ English language, English: Allah is Sufficient for us - and what an excellent (reliable) Trustee (of affairs) is He!(''Quran, Qur'an, Al Imran, 3:173' ...

in 1956, and commissioned as PNS ''Khaibar''. She was sunk off her home port of

Karachi Karachi (; ur, ; ; ) is the most populous city in Pakistan and 12th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 20 million. It is situated at the southern tip of the country along the Arabian Sea coast. It is the former cap ...

by 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 ...

missile boat A missile boat or missile cutter is a small, fast warship armed with anti-ship missiles. Being smaller than other warships such as destroyers and frigates, missile boats are popular with nations interested in forming a navy at lower cost. They a ...

, during the

Indo-Pakistan War of 1971 The Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 was a military confrontation between India and Pakistan that occurred during the Bangladesh Liberation War in East Pakistan from 3 December 1971 until the Pakistani capitulation in Dhaka on 16 Decemb ...

History in the Royal Navy

''Cadiz'' was built by Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company. She was launched on 16 September 1944 and commissioned on 12 April 1946. Upon her commissioning, ''Cadiz'' joined the

5th Destroyer Flotilla The British 5th Destroyer Flotilla, or Fifth Destroyer Flotilla, was a naval formation of the Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the ...

, part of the

Home Fleet The Home Fleet was a fleet of the Royal Navy that operated from the United Kingdom's territorial waters from 1902 with intervals until 1967. In 1967, it was merged with the Mediterranean Fleet creating the new Western Fleet. Before the First ...

. In 1947, ''Cadiz'', along with her

sister ship A sister ship is a ship of the same class or of virtually identical design to another ship. Such vessels share a nearly identical hull and superstructure layout, similar size, and roughly comparable features and equipment. They often share a ...

, escorted the

aircraft carrier An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft. Typically, it is the capital ship of a fleet, as it allows a ...

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

, where the small group visited a variety of ports in the Scandinavian country. In 1950, ''Cadiz'' along with many other vessels of the Home Fleet, including three aircraft carriers and the

battleship A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of large caliber guns. It dominated naval warfare in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The term ''battleship'' came into use in the late 1880s to describe a type of ...

, undertook a Spring Cruise, visiting the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the e ...

where they performed a number of naval exercises as well as visiting a variety of ports in the region. In 1953, ''Cadiz'' took part in the Coronation Review to celebrate the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. ''Cadiz'' was positioned in the middle of her sister-ships and . In the same year, ''Cadiz'' was placed in Reserve, along with the rest of the ships in the 5th Destroyer Squadron.

History in the Pakistan Navy

On 29 February 1956 the Admiralty announced that ''Cadiz'' was being sold to the

. She was refitted and modernized with funds made available by the United States Mutual Defence Assistance Programme and commissioned as PNS ''Khaibar''. The refit was undertaken by Alex Stephens and Sons Ltd, Govan, Glasgow. She was handed over to the Pakistan Navy on the 1 February 1957.

The sinking of PNS ''Khaibar''

During the

, the

launched a fast naval strike on the Pakistani Naval Headquarters of

. On the night of 4 December 1971 as a part of Operation Trident, a task group consisting of 3 s from the 25th "Killer" Missile Boat Squadron, , , and , escorted by two anti-submarine s, and . approached Karachi. At 2150 hrs, when the task group was south of

, they detected Pakistani naval vessels. ''Nirghat'' launched 2

SS-N-2 Styx The P-15 ''Termit'' (russian: П-15 "Термит"; en, termite) is an anti-ship missile developed by the Soviet Union's Raduga design bureau in the 1950s. Its GRAU designation was 4K40, its NATO reporting name was ''Styx'' or SS-N-2. China ...

missiles on the largest target, which was ''Khaibar'', 45 miles to its northwest. Both missiles struck the destroyer, sinking it. ''Khaibar'' went down with most hands on board. A Pakistani minesweeper, , was also sunk and another destroyer, was severely damaged, later scrapped as a result. The missile boats then hit the fuel storage tanks at

Karachi Harbour Karachi Harbour is a narrow bay and river estuary located west of the Indus River Delta in Karachi, Pakistan. The harbour lies between the Lyari River delta and Chinna Creek to the north, and the Arabian Sea to the south. Since 1886, sections of t ...

, setting them ablaze.

Notes

Publications

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Cadiz (D79) Battle-class destroyers of the Royal Navy Ships built in Govan 1944 ships Cold War destroyers of the United Kingdom Battle-class destroyers of the Pakistan Navy Shipwrecks in the Arabian Sea Maritime incidents in 1971