Minesweeper, Portsmouth Harbour - geograph

HMS ''Fittleton'', originally named HMS ''Curzon'', was a wooden-hulled 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 ...

which spent most of her career in the

Royal Naval 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 ...

. She was sunk in a collision with HMS ''Mermaid'' on 20 September 1976 whilst en route to

Hamburg (male), (female) en, Hamburger(s), Hamburgian(s) , timezone1 = Central (CET) , utc_offset1 = +1 , timezone1_DST = Central (CEST) , utc_offset1_DST = +2 , postal ...

for an official visit. Twelve naval service personnel (eleven from the Royal Naval Reserve along with one from the Royal Navy) lost their lives, making this the worst peacetime accident involving the Royal Naval Reserve.

History

The ship ran aground at the entrance to Shoreham harbour,

West Sussex West Sussex is a county in South East England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the shire districts of Adur, Arun, Chichester, Horsham, and Mid Sussex, and the boroughs of Crawley and Worthing. Covering an ...

on 25 May 1954, but she was refloated the next day. ''Curzon'' was part of the Reserve Fleet based at

Hythe Hythe, from Anglo-Saxon ''hȳð'', may refer to a landing-place, port or haven, either as an element in a toponym, such as Rotherhithe in London, or to: Places Australia * Hythe, Tasmania Canada *Hythe, Alberta, a village in Canada England * T ...

from 1955 until 1959. In March 1959 she had her Mirrlees engines replaced with

Napier Deltic The Napier Deltic engine is a British opposed-piston valveless, supercharged uniflow scavenged, two-stroke diesel engine used in marine and locomotive applications, designed and produced by D. Napier & Son. Unusually, the cylinders were disp ...

engines at Portsmouth, prior to being commissioned into the Royal Naval Reserve as HMS ''Curzon'' on 16 November 1960. She replaced HMS ''Bickington'' and docked at Maxwell's Wharf, Shoreham, home of Sussex Division RNR. She was refitted in January–May 1965 and again in January–May 1967, both at

Chatham Dockyard Chatham Dockyard was a Royal Navy Dockyard located on the River Medway in Kent. Established in Chatham in the mid-16th century, the dockyard subsequently expanded into neighbouring Gillingham (at its most extensive, in the early 20th century ...

. She was renamed HMS ''Fittleton'' on 1 January 1976 and reassigned to the Channel Group of the Royal Naval Reserve.

Sinking

Regularly manned by a combination of Sussex and London Division RNR personnel (from HMS ''President''), she sailed from Shoreham on 11 September 1976 with a crew largely drawn from London Division RNR to take part in Operation Teamwork, a NATO exercise in the North Sea. Following the exercise, on 20 September the ship proceeded in company with six other British minesweepers towards

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for a three-day official visit to the port, after which she was to return to Shoreham. She was detailed to carry out a mail transfer with HMS ''Mermaid'', a considerably larger ship at five times the displacement, north of the island of

Texel Texel (; Texels dialect: ) is a municipality and an island with a population of 13,643 in North Holland, Netherlands. It is the largest and most populated island of the West Frisian Islands in the Wadden Sea. The island is situated north of Den ...

. This required HMS ''Fittleton'' to steam close behind and to the side of ''Mermaid'' at about 3:30pm to pick up a line. ''Fittleton'' was caught in a low pressure area that exists near to the hull of a ship under way and was drawn close to the frigate HMS ''Mermaid'' by hydrodynamic forces. A minor collision ensued and the ''Fittleton'' moved forward to try and exit the situation but instead was hit amidships by the bow of the much larger ''Mermaid'' and turned over within a minute. Thirty-two survivors were picked from the sea and the upturned hull by the accompanying ships, and German and Dutch vessels joined Royal Navy ships in searching for survivors, with divers entering the floating upturned hull. Attempts to keep ''Fittleton'' afloat by passing minesweeping cables underneath her propeller shafts failed when the lines parted. The ship sank several hours later, between 9 and 10 pm, in of water.

Aftermath

The following day, 21 September 1976, a marine crane, ''Magnus'' lifted the wreck of the ''Fittleton'' from the seabed and the ship was taken to Den Helder in the Netherlands where she was made watertight. She was then towed back to

. Five bodies were found on the ship but seven were missing, presumed drowned. Naval police were called in when the ship arrived at Chatham on 11 October to investigate the theft of cash following the salvage of the vessel. ''Fittleton's'' crew had been paid just an hour before the sinking, with seamen receiving £50 or £87 depending upon rank, and large amounts of sodden money were scattered around the wreck when it was raised. However, when the ship reached Chatham only £174 could be found, and six of the ten wallets also recovered were found to be empty. ''Fittleton'' was sold to Liguria Maritime Ltd for scrapping and scrapped the following year. HMS ''Mermaid'' was later sold to the

Malaysian Navy The Royal Malaysian Navy (RMN, ms, Tentera Laut Diraja Malaysia; TLDM; Jawi: ) is the naval arm of the Malaysian Armed Forces. RMN is the main agency responsible for the country's maritime surveillance and defense operations. RMN's area of op ...

. An enquiry into the disaster took place between 24 September 1976 and 13 October 1976, and the full report was made public in 2005 under the

Thirty-year rule The "thirty-year rule" is the informal name given to laws in the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, and the Commonwealth of Australia that provide that certain government documents will be released publicly thirty years after they were creat ...

. A memorial window was commissioned for the church at

Fittleton __NOTOC__ Fittleton cum Haxton is a civil parish in Wiltshire, England, north of Salisbury. The parish contains the adjacent settlements of Fittleton and Haxton, which lie on the east bank of the River Avon opposite the village and parish of ...

Wiltshire Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...

References

External links

* https://web.archive.org/web/20111003104051/http://www.wessex.hampshire.org.uk/Page/Newsletters/Wessex_O_B_News_3.pdf Wessex News article {{DEFAULTSORT:Fittleton Ton-class minesweepers of the Royal Navy Ships built in Southampton 1954 ships Cold War minesweepers of the United Kingdom Maritime incidents in 1954 Maritime incidents in 1976 Ships sunk in collisions