HMS Challenger (1931)

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For other ships with the same name, see HMS Challenger.

HMS Challenger FL7843.jpg
History
NameHMS Challenger
BuilderChatham Dockyard
Laid down1930
Commissioned15 March 1932
DecommissionedJanuary 1954
Fatescrapped
General characteristics
Typesurvey ship
Displacement1,140 tons
Length220 ft (67 m)
Beam36 ft (11 m)
Draught12 ft 6 in (3.81 m)
Speed12.5 knots (23.2 km/h; 14.4 mph)
Complement84
ArmamentNone

HMS Challenger was a survey ship of the United Kingdom's Royal Navy. She was laid down in 1930 at Chatham Dockyard and built in a dry dock. Afterwards she was moved to Portsmouth for completion and commissioned on 15 March 1932.

Service history[]

Until the outbreak of the Second World War, Challenger surveyed the waters around the United Kingdom, Labrador, the West Indies, and the East Indies. On 23 September 1932, she struck a rock 6 nautical miles (11 km) north of Ford's Harbour, Labrador, in the Dominion of Newfoundland (

 WikiMiniAtlas
56°28′30″N 61°10′00″W / 56.47500°N 61.16667°W / 56.47500; -61.16667) and was beached. She was later refloated.[1]

From 1939 to 1942 she served in home waters and as a convoy escort. In June and July 1941 she and three Flower-class corvettes escorted the troop ship Anselm from Britain en route for Freetown, Sierra Leone. When the troop ship was torpedoed north of the Azores, Challenger and the corvette HMS Starwort rescued hundreds of survivors and then transferred them to the armed merchant cruiser HMS Cathay.[2]

From 1942 to 1946 Challenger surveyed in the Indian Ocean and the Western Pacific. She returned to Chatham in 1946 for a refit before returning to the Persian Gulf in late 1946. She left the Gulf in 1947 and went to Cyprus where a shore party logged tides. She then proceeded to Gibraltar for another refit in dry dock.

In December 1947 men from Challenger and from the two destroyers Cockade and Contest were landed in Aden in an attempt to restore order following anti-Jewish rioting.[3]

She circumnavigated the world from 1950 to 1953, surveying in the West Indies and the Far East. It was on this mission in 1951 that Challenger surveyed the Mariana Trench near Guam, including the deepest known point in the oceans, 11,033 metres (36,198 ft) deep at its maximum, near

 WikiMiniAtlas
11°21′N 142°12′E / 11.350°N 142.200°E / 11.350; 142.200.[4] This point had been named Challenger Deep after it was first surveyed in 1875 during an expedition by a previous HMS Challenger. In January 1954, Challenger returned to Britain, was paid off, and was broken up at Dover.

References[]

  1. ^ "Mishap to British survey ship". The Times. No. 46249. London. 27 September 1932. col B, p. 14.
  2. ^ Helgason, Guðmundur (1995–2013). "Anselm". uboat.net. Guðmundur Helgason. Retrieved 10 December 2013.
  3. ^ Thursfield 1948, p. 510
  4. ^ Explore the Mariana Trench

Sources[]

  • Gaskell, T.F. (18 March 1954). "Seismic Refraction Work by H.M.S. Challenger in the Deep Oceans". Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A, Mathematical and Physical Sciences. 222 (1150): 356–361. doi:10.1098/rspa.1954.0079.
  • Gaskell, Thomas Frohock (1960). "Voyages of HMS Challenger II". Under The Deep Oceans: Twentieth Century Voyages of Discovery. New York: Norton.
  • Ritchie, George Stephen (1958), Challenger the life of a survey ship, New York: Abelard-Schuman, OL 6245841M
  • Thursfield, H. G., ed. (1948). Brassey's Naval Annual 1948. New York: The Macmillan Company.
  • Wyatt, A.G.N. (July 1934). "Surveying Cruises of H.M.S.Challenger off the Coast of Labrador in 1932 and 1933". Journal of the Geographical Society. 84 (1): 33–53. doi:10.2307/1786831. JSTOR 1786831.
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