HMS ''Albury'' was a Hunt-classminesweeper of the ''Aberdare'' sub-class built for the Royal Navy during World War I. She was not finished in time to participate in the First World War and survived the Second World War to be sold for scrap in 1947.
Design and description
The ''Aberdare'' sub-class were enlarged versions of the original Hunt-class ships with a more powerful armament. The ships displaced at normal load. They measured
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, and ...
with a
beam
Beam may refer to:
Streams of particles or energy
*Light beam, or beam of light, a directional projection of light energy
**Laser beam
*Particle beam, a stream of charged or neutral particles
**Charged particle beam, a spatially localized grou ...
of . They had a draught of . The ships' complement consisted of 74 officers and ratings.Gardiner & Gray, p. 98
The ships had two vertical triple-expansion steam engines, each driving one shaft, using steam provided by two Yarrow boilers. The engines produced a total of and gave a maximum speed of . They carried a maximum of of coal which gave them a range of at .Cocker, p. 76
The ''Aberdare'' sub-class was armed with a quick-firing (QF) gun forward of the bridge and a QF twelve-pounder (76.2 mm)
anti-aircraft gun
Anti-aircraft warfare, counter-air or air defence forces is the battlespace response to aerial warfare, defined by NATO as "all measures designed to nullify or reduce the effectiveness of hostile air action".AAP-6 It includes surface based, ...
aft. Some ships were fitted with six- or three-pounder guns in lieu of the twelve-pounder. ''Albury'' was fitted with a single six-pounder gun in 1931, but by 1939 was listed as having an armament of 1 × 4 inch and 1 × 12-pounder gun.
shipyard
A shipyard, also called a dockyard or boatyard, is a place where ships are built and repaired. These can be yachts, military vessels, cruise liners or other cargo or passenger ships. Dockyards are sometimes more associated with maintenance a ...
Ayrshire
Ayrshire ( gd, Siorrachd Inbhir Àir, ) is a historic county and registration county in south-west Scotland, located on the shores of the Firth of Clyde. Its principal towns include Ayr, Kilmarnock and Irvine and it borders the counties of Re ...
. She was launched on 21 November 1918,Dittmar & Colledge, p. 112. and commissioned on 17 February 1919.Worth p. 7 On 21 November 1919, ''Albury'' was laid up in reserve at the
Nore
The Nore is a long bank of sand and silt running along the south-centre of the final narrowing of the Thames Estuary, England. Its south-west is the very narrow Nore Sand. Just short of the Nore's easternmost point where it fades into the cha ...
.
''Albury'' served in the 1st Minesweeping Flotilla in Home waters from 1927 to 1935. In 1939 ''Albury'' was in reserve at Malta, part of the 3rd Minesweeper Flotilla. On 3 March 1940, ''Albury'' was one of five minesweepers ordered back to British waters from the Mediterranean, joining the 5th Minesweeping Flotilla at
Harwich
Harwich is a town in Essex, England, and one of the Haven ports on the North Sea coast. It is in the Tendring district. Nearby places include Felixstowe to the north-east, Ipswich to the north-west, Colchester to the south-west and Clacton-on- ...
on 2 April 1940. She took part in the
Dunkirk
Dunkirk (french: Dunkerque ; vls, label=French Flemish, Duunkerke; nl, Duinkerke(n) ; , ;) is a commune in the department of Nord in northern France.Operation Dynamo, from 28 May–4 June 1940, carrying out six evacuation trips and landing 1851 evacuees back in Britain.Winser, pp. 16, 81. By June 1941, ''Albury'' was part of the 4th Minesweeping Flotilla. On 7 November that year, she was attacked by German bombers off the East coast of Scotland. She was near missed by German bombs, which caused minor machinery damage, which took five weeks to repair.
On 19 January 1942 ''Albury'' was involved in a collision with HMS ''Sutton'', another Hunt-class minesweeper, and took serious damage. On 6 June 1944, ''Albury'', still part of the 4th Minesweeping Flotilla, took part in
Operation Overlord
Operation Overlord was the codename for the Battle of Normandy, the Allies of World War II, Allied operation that launched the successful invasion of German-occupied Western Front (World War II), Western Europe during World War II. The operat ...
, the Allied invasion of Normandy.
From January 1945, ''Albury'' was laid up as part of the Reserve Fleet at Falmouth, and on 13 March 1947 was sold to Dohman & Habets of
Liège
Liège ( , , ; wa, Lîdje ; nl, Luik ; german: Lüttich ) is a major city and municipality of Wallonia and the capital of the Belgian province of Liège.
The city is situated in the valley of the Meuse, in the east of Belgium, not far from b ...
, Belgium for mercantile conversion.Worth p. 8.
Pennant numbers
See also
* Albury is the name of a number of places in England