HMS ''Kirkliston'' (M1157) 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 ...

, built by

Harland and Wolff Harland & Wolff is a British shipbuilding company based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. It specialises in ship repair, shipbuilding and offshore construction. Harland & Wolff is famous for having built the majority of the ocean liners for the W ...

and launched on 18 February 1954. In a brief episode from 1956 to 1960 she was temporarily renamed HMS ''Kilmorey'' and was assigned to the Ulster division Royal Naval Reserve (RNR).

Construction and design

''Kirkliston'' was ordered on 22 March 1952, was launched at

Belfast Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom ...

shipyard on 18 February 1954 and completed on 21 August 1954. She was

long overall __NOTOC__ Length overall (LOA, o/a, o.a. or oa) is the maximum length of a vessel's hull measured parallel to the waterline. This length is important while docking the ship. It is the most commonly used way of expressing the size of a ship, an ...

and

between perpendiculars Length between perpendiculars (often abbreviated as p/p, p.p., pp, LPP, LBP or Length BPP) is the length of a ship along the summer load line from the forward surface of the stem, or main bow perpendicular member, to the after surface of the ster ...

, with a beam of and a draught of .

Displacement Displacement may refer to: Physical sciences Mathematics and Physics * Displacement (geometry), is the difference between the final and initial position of a point trajectory (for instance, the center of mass of a moving object). The actual path ...

was normal and deep load. ''Kirliston'' was initially powered by a pair of 12-cylinder Mirrlees

diesel engine The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-ca ...

, driving two shafts and giving a total of , giving the ship a speed of . 45 tons of fuel were carried, giving a range of at . Armament consisted of a single

Bofors 40 mm Bofors 40 mm gun is a name or designation given to two models of 40 mm calibre anti-aircraft guns designed and developed by the Swedish company Bofors: *Bofors 40 mm L/60 gun - developed in the 1930s, widely used in World War II and into the 1990s ...

anti-aircraft gun forward and two

Oerlikon 20 mm cannon The Oerlikon 20 mm cannon is a series of autocannons, based on an original German Becker Type M2 20 mm cannon design that appeared very early in World War I. It was widely produced by Oerlikon Contraves and others, with various models em ...

aft. Minesweeping equipment included wire sweeps for sweeping moored contact mines and acoustic or magnetic sweeps for dealing with influence mines. The ship had a crew of 27 in peacetime and 39 in wartime.

Service

On 14 August 1956, ''Kirkliston'' served with the Ulster Division of the

Royal Navy Reserve The Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) is one of the two volunteer reserve forces of the Royal Navy in the United Kingdom. Together with the Royal Marines Reserve, they form the Maritime Reserve. The present RNR was formed by merging the original Ro ...

(RNR), and as such, was temporarily renamed ''Kilmorey'', until replaced by sister-ship in July 1960, when ''Kirkliston'' resumed her original name. From November 1962 to June 1964 she was converted to a

minehunter A minehunter is a naval vessel that seeks, detects, and destroys individual naval mines. Minesweepers, on the other hand, clear mined areas as a whole, without prior detection of mines. A vessel that combines both of these roles is known as a ...

Portsmouth Dockyard His Majesty's Naval Base, Portsmouth (HMNB Portsmouth) is one of three operating bases in the United Kingdom for the Royal Navy (the others being HMNB Clyde and HMNB Devonport). Portsmouth Naval Base is part of the city of Portsmouth; it is l ...

. Her magnetic sweep gear was removed and Type 193 Sonar was fitted to allow mines to be detected so that divers could destroy the mine. She then joined the 4th Mine Countermeasures Squadron at

Port Edgar Port Edgar is a marina on the southern shore of the Firth of Forth, immediately west of the Forth Road Bridge and the town of South Queensferry, in Edinburgh, Scotland. Originally a naval base, HMS Lochinvar (shore establishment), HMS ''Lochinvar ...

. From 1966 she saw service in the Far East as part of the 6th Mine Countermeasures Squadron based at

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

. On 16 August 1971, Typhoon Rose struck Hong Kong. ''Kirkliston'' and the other two minesweepers of the 6th Mine Countermeasures Squadron, and took part in rescue operations following the Typhoon. ''Kirleston'' rescued 40 survivors from stranded ships, including the only four survivors from the Hong Kong–

Macau Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a p ...

ferry ''Fat Shan'', which had foundered off

Lantau Island Lantau Island (also Lantao Island, Lan Tao) is the largest island in Hong Kong, located West of Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Peninsula, and is part of the New Territories. Administratively, most of Lantau Island is part of the Islands ...

, killing 88 passengers and crew. In 1972 she returned to British waters, joining the First Mine Countermeasures Squadron, again at Port Edgar. In 1973 ''Kirkliston'' was refitted at Gibraltar, and following the refit served for six months with the Forth Division of the RNR, being the first minehunter operated by the RNR, before joining the 2nd Mine Countermeasures Squadron based at Portsmouth. From August to December 1975 she was part of STANAVFORCHAN (Standing Naval Force Channel). In 1977 she was used to evaluate equipment planned for the s. HMS ''Kirkliston'' was decommissioned on 2 December 1985 and was sold for scrap on 20 October 1991.

References

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kirkliston (M1157) Ton-class minesweepers of the Royal Navy Ships built in Belfast 1954 ships Cold War minesweepers of the United Kingdom Ships built by Harland and Wolff