HMS ''Dittisham'' was one of 93 ships of the of inshore

minesweepers A minesweeper is a small warship designed to remove or detonate naval mines. Using various mechanisms intended to counter the threat posed by naval mines, minesweepers keep waterways clear for safe shipping. History The earliest known usage of ...

built for the British

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 ...

. Their names were all chosen from villages ending in ''-ham''. The minesweeper was named after Dittisham in

Devon Devon ( , historically known as Devonshire , ) is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South West England. The most populous settlement in Devon is the city of Plymouth, followed by Devon's county town, the city of Exeter. Devo ...

Design and description

In the early 1950s, the

had a requirement for large numbers of minesweepers to counter the threat to British shipping from Soviet mines in the event of a conventional Third World War. The navy's existing minesweepers were obsolete, while the increasing sophistication of modern mines meant the mine warfare forces could not be supplemented by requisitioned fishing vessels as had been done in previous wars. Large orders were placed for coastal minesweepers (the ) and for smaller inshore minesweepers and minehunters intended to operate in inshore waters such as river estuaries (the and classes). As the navy did not have sufficient manpower to operate all the required ships in peacetime, it was planned to lay a large number up in reserve, so they could be manned by reservists (in many cases the crews of the fishing boats which would previously have been used in the same role) in time of emergency. ''Dittisham'' was one of the first series of Ham-class ships, with a composite (wooden planking on aluminium framing) hull, and 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 standard and full load. Two Paxman 12-cylinder

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 ...

s gave a total of and drove two shafts, giving a top speed of , which corresponded to a speed when sweeping of . The design armament for the class was a single

Bofors 40 mm L/60 gun The Bofors 40 mm Automatic Gun L/60 (often referred to simply as the "Bofors 40 mm gun", the "Bofors gun" and the like, see name) is an anti-aircraft autocannon, designed in the 1930s by the Swedish arms manufacturer AB Bofors. The g ...

, although this was generally replaced by an

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 ...

Service

''Dittisham'' was built by Fairlie Yacht and was launched on 23 October 1953 and completed on 29 June 1954. She was placed in reserve in 1955, being laid up at

Hythe, Hampshire Hythe () is a town near Southampton, Hampshire, England. It is located by the shore of Southampton Water, and has a ferry service connecting it to Southampton. Hythe has a small shopping area, a pier, and a marina for yachts. History The name ...

and Gosport. In 1968 she became a training tender to HMS ''Ganges'', the Royal Navy's boys' training establishment at

RNTE Shotley Royal Naval Training Establishment Shotley, known in the Royal Navy as , was a naval training establishment at Shotley, near Ipswich in Suffolk. Starting in 1905, it trained boys for naval service until 1973 (The school-leaving age was raised ...

, where she was used to teach seamanship to the school's students. In 1973 she transferred to

HMS Raleigh Six ships and one shore establishment of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS ''Raleigh'', after Sir Walter Raleigh: * HMS ''Raleigh'' was a 32-gun fifth rate, previously the American . She was captured in 1778 by and and was commissioned int ...

Torpoint Torpoint ( kw, Penntorr) is a civil parish and town on the Rame Peninsula in southeast Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated opposite the city of Plymouth across the Hamoaze which is the tidal estuary of the River Tamar. Torpoint ha ...

in 1973. In March 1983, she was sold to the Kingston Sea Cadets and became TS ''Steadfast''. In April 1997, she was towed to Pounds Shipyard at Portsmouth and broken up.

References

* Blackman, R.V.B. ed. ''Jane's Fighting Ships'' (1953) * * * * * * Ham-class minesweepers Royal Navy ship names 1953 ships {{UK-minesweeper-stub