HMS Atherstone (1916)

HMS Atherstone
History
United Kingdom
Name	HMS Atherstone
Builder	Ailsa Shipbuilding Company
Launched	14 April 1916
Fate	Sold into civilian service on 12 August 1927
United Kingdom
Name	Queen of Kent
Owner	New Medway Steam Packet Co.
Acquired	12 August 1927
Fate	Requisitioned by Admiralty 1939
United Kingdom
Name	HMS Queen of Kent
Commissioned	1939
Decommissioned	1946
Fate	Released back to civilian service
United Kingdom
Name	Queen of Kent (1946–1949) Lorna Doone (1949–1952)
Owner	New Medway Steam Packet Co. Red Funnel
Fate	Scrapped in 1952
General characteristics
Class and type	Racecourse-class minesweeper
Displacement	810 long tons (823 t)
Length	235 ft (72 m)
Beam	29 ft (8.8 m) 58 ft (18 m) at the paddles (both types)
Draught	6.75–7 ft (2.06–2.13 m)
Propulsion	Inclined compound. Cylindrical return tube. 1,400 hp (1,000 kW).
Speed	15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph)
Range	156 tons coal
Complement	50–52 men
Armament	2 × 12-pounder guns

HMS Atherstone was a Racecourse-class minesweeper of the Royal Navy. The Racecourse class comprised 32 paddlewheel coastal minesweeping sloops.

Built by Ailsa SB at Troon in Scotland, she was launched on 14 April 1916. For the rest of the war she served with the Auxiliary Patrol. Post war she was transferred to the Mine Clearance Service.^[1]

She was sold to The New Medway Steam Packet Company on 12 August 1927 and converted for excursion work on the Medway and Thames. She was renamed Queen of Kent. For the next twelve years she could be found working from Sheerness and Southend. Regular excursions took her to Gravesend, Margate, Clacton and Dover as well as cross-channel voyages to Calais, Boulogne and Dunkirk.

In September 1939 she was requisitioned by the Admiralty for minesweeping duties once more and commissioned as HMS Queen of Kent, pennant number J74.^[2] For Operation Overlord in June 1944 she was stationed at Peel Bank off the Isle of Wight as the Mulberry Accommodation & Despatch Control Ship. Subsequently, she was stationed at Dungeness. In August 1944 she was converted to an anti-aircraft vessel and fitted with 9 20mm Oerlikon AA guns. In December 1944, she was deployed to Antwerp in Belgium to assist in the protection of the city and its vital docks from Luftwaffe bombing raids and V1 and V2 rockets. On 28 February 1945, whilst she was moored on the River Scheldt in Antwerp, a V2 rocket landed in the river and shrapnel ripped through the starboard side of the ship. Eleven members of the crew were killed and were buried in what is now the CWGC cemetery at Schooneshof, Wilrijk in Belgium. She was no longer in a fit operational state and returned to the United Kingdom for repair.^[3] After the war she was returned in 1946 to her owners to recommence excursion work around the Thames Estuary.

In January 1949 she was sold to Red Funnel and transferred to Southampton. After refitting at Thorneycroft's yard at Northam she was commissioned in the spring as the company's second Lorna Doone. For the next three years she operated excursions from Bournemouth in the summer.^[4] She was finally withdrawn and scrapped by Dover Industries Ltd at Dover Eastern Docks in 1952.^[5]

• Colledge, J. J.; Warlow, Ben (2006) [1969]. Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy (Rev. ed.). London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-281-8.

• Boyle, Ian (2010). "The New Medway Steam Packet Company". Simplon Postcards. Details of service as Queen of Kent