"HMS Garland, also known by her Polish designation ORP Garland, was a G-class destroyer built for the Royal Navy in the mid-1930s. During the Spanish Civil War of 19361939 the ship spent considerable time in Spanish waters, enforcing the arms blockade imposed by Britain and France on both sides of the conflict. Shortly after World War II began, she was badly damaged by the premature explosion of her own depth charges and required over six months of repairs. Before these were completed, Garland was loaned to the Polish Navy in May 1940. The ship was assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet afterwards and escorted convoys there before being assigned to the Western Approaches Command in September for escort duties. She escorted a convoy from Gibraltar to Malta during Operation Halberd in September 1941 and escorted Convoy PQ-16 from Iceland to Murmansk in May 1942. She was badly damaged by a near miss from a German bomber during that operation and required three months of repairs.
Garland was then assigned to the Mid-Ocean Escort Force in the North Atlantic until December 1943, when she was transferred to Freetown, Sierra Leone to escort convoys off West Africa. In April 1944, the ship was transferred to back to the Mediterranean Fleet where she escorted convoys. She sank one German submarine in September before returning to the UK for a lengthy refit that lasted until March 1945. Garland was then assigned to the Western Approaches Command, but carried emergency supplies to coastal towns in Belgium and the Netherlands immediately after the war ended in May. She was paid off and reclaimed from the Polish Navy in July 1946. A few months later, the ship was sold to the Royal Netherlands Navy for use as a school ship. Garland was refitted as an anti-submarine training ship in 1948 and renamed HNLMS Marnix in 1950. Reclassified as a frigate in 1952, the ship was not decommissioned until 1964 and scrapped afterwards." (Wikipedia) |
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