The ''Bridgewater''-class sloop was a class composed of two

sloops 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 ...

built for 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 ...

, and . The ships were part of the Royal Navy's 1927 Build Programme as replacements for the .

Design

The ''Bridgewater'' class displaced 1,045 tons and were armed with two . They could achieve speeds of .

Service

Both ships were ordered from

Hawthorn Leslie and Company R. & W. Hawthorn, Leslie and Company, Limited, usually referred to as Hawthorn Leslie, was a shipbuilder and locomotive manufacturer. The company was founded on Tyneside in 1886 and ceased building ships in 1982. History The company was formed ...

Hebburn Hebburn is a town in the metropolitan county of Tyne and Wear, England. It governed under the borough of South Tyneside; formerly governed under the county of Durham until 1974 with its own urban district from 1894 until 1974. It is on the sout ...

in September 1927. They entered service in 1929 and were based at first on the

China Station The Commander-in-Chief, China was the admiral in command of what was usually known as the China Station, at once both a British Royal Navy naval formation and its admiral in command. It was created in 1865 and deactivated in 1941. From 1831 to 18 ...

. ''Bridgewater'' was moved to the Cape in 1935, while ''Sandwich'' remained in China until the outbreak of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

in 1939. Both ships were active in the Battle of the Atlantic, ''Bridgewater'' being based at

Freetown Freetown is the capital and largest city of Sierra Leone. It is a major port city on the Atlantic Ocean and is located in the Western Area of the country. Freetown is Sierra Leone's major urban, economic, financial, cultural, educational and po ...

carrying out patrols and escorting convoys until November 1943, when she moved to cover the

Western Approaches The Western Approaches is an approximately rectangular area of the Atlantic Ocean lying immediately to the west of Ireland and parts of Great Britain. Its north and south boundaries are defined by the corresponding extremities of Britain. The c ...

. For the last two years of the war she was used in submarine training activities. ''Sandwich'' was also used in home waters, being based out of Plymouth,

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 populat ...

, and Freetown between 1940 and 1944, though by 1945 her condition had deteriorated so much that she was kept at

Bizerta Bizerte or Bizerta ( ar, بنزرت, translit=Binzart , it, Biserta, french: link=no, Bizérte) the classical Hippo, is a city of Bizerte Governorate in Tunisia. It is the northernmost city in Africa, located 65 km (40mil) north of the cap ...

. Both ships were decommissioned after the war, with ''Sandwich'' being sold for scrapping in early 1946. ''Bridgewater'' was retained for slightly longer, being used for static bomb trials during 1946 and 1947, until being sold and broken up in May 1947.

Ships

Notes

References

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External links

HMS Bridgewater and HMS Sandwich pictures
{{WWII British ships Ship classes of the Royal Navy Sloops of the Royal Navy