HMS Castle Harbour

HMS Castle Harbour was a civilian harbour vessel of 730 tons that was taken-up from trade (TUFT) during the Second World War by the Royal Naval Dockyard in Bermuda for use by the Royal Naval Examination Service and later armed and commissioned as a warship, providing harbour defence from submarines.

Castle Harbour, prior to her armament and commissioning as a Royal Navy warship.
History
United Kingdom
Name: Castle Harbour
Builder: Blythswood Shipbuilding Co. Ltd
Launched: 1929
Completed: 1929
Homeport: Royal Naval Dockyard, Bermuda
Fate: Sunk 16 October 1942
General characteristics

Pre-war civil history

Built by Blythswood Shipbuilding Co. Ltd in Glasgow, Scotland, for the Bermuda and West Indies Steamship Company (part of Furness-Withy) as the Mid-Ocean in 1929, Lieutenant-Commander Ian Stranack, in The Andrew And The Onions: The Story Of The Royal Navy In Bermuda, 1795–1975, described her as a tug.[1] Other sources describe her as a tender, used to transport passengers between liners at an anchorage and the shore.[2] Possibly she was used in both roles. She was used to service Furness-Withy liners that maintained passenger service between Bermuda and North America. She was renamed in 1930 in commemoration of Castle Harbour at the East End of Bermuda where Furness-Withy was building the Castle Harbour Hotel and the Mid-Ocean Golf Course on land forcibly appropriated from the inhabitants of Tucker's Town.[3][4]

On the 17 June, 1931, the Furness-Withy liner MV Bermuda, considered the most luxurious liner on the Atlantic, was consumed by a catastrophic fire at Front Street in the City of Hamilton, which threatened to spread to the city buildings. The Hamilton Fire Brigade and the ships crew were joined by soldiers and marines, and the fire was finally brought under control after sailors from the Royal Naval Dockyard arrived with asbestos suits and equipment and training for fighting fires on warships. From the harbour, the Castle Harbour and the Royal Navy tugs Sandboy and Creole trained thirty hoses on the Bermuda. Another Furness-Withy vessel, the tender Bermudian was also sent to help. Although heavily damaged, the Bermuda was able to be taken to Belfast in Ireland to be rebuilt, but was destroyed there by a second fire on 19 November, 1931, and sold for scrap. She broke loose in a storm while under tow to a Rosyth scrapyard and was wrecked on the coast of Scotland.[5][6][7]

Royal Naval Examination Service
The crew of HMS Castle Harbour in Royal Naval Examination Service use

With the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, Castle Harbour was taken over by the Royal Naval Examination Service (RNXS). Ships arriving at Bermuda were obliged to stop at Five-Fathom Hole, which had been designated the Examination Anchorage. This body of water lies just within the outer reefline, and ships can travel from it directly into St. George's Harbour, or can follow Hurd's Channel around St. Catherine's Point to reach the Northern Lagoon, enclosed by the barrier reef. From here, ships can enter the Great Sound, where the North America and West Indies Station anchorage is located at Grassy Bay (east of the Royal Naval Dockyard on Ireland Island and west of Spanish Point on the Main Island, where the Admiralty House was located. The Great Sound was also the landing area used by Royal Air Force and airline flying boats operating from Darrell's Island and Fleet Air Arm seaplanes operating from the Royal Naval Air Station on Boaz Island; the US Navy began building a third flying boat air station, combined with naval docklands, the US Naval Operating Base, on the Great Sound even before the US entry into the war). During the course of the war, when Allied trans-Atlantic shipping was organised into convoys, Bermuda became a forming up point for convoys (coded BHX, these joined at sea with HX-coded convoys from Halifax to complete the passage to Europe), with large numbers of vessels anchoring on the Northern Lagoon and the Great Sound. From the Great Sound, ships could also reach Bermuda's main commercial port, the City of Hamilton, on Hamilton Harbour.[8]

All of these sites were inviting targets for German naval vessels and their floatplanes, raiding parties, saboteurs, and spies. The RNXS was tasked with sending a naval examiner along with the civil government pilot who would steer arriving vessels through the reefs. Only after the examiner had cleared the vessel would the pilot steer it inwards. St. David's Battery, on the cliffs of St. David's Head, was designated Examination Battery during the war, with its gunners ready to fire upon any vessel that attempted to move from the anchorage without authorisation.[9][10]

Castle Harbour, which at this point remained on the civil register, was used to deliver the naval examiner and pilot to arriving ships. She herself was crewed by a mix of merchant seamen and local service Royal Naval ratings. [11]

HMS Castle Harbour
HMS Castle Harbour at sea

As the war progressed, and the threat of German submarines became acute, Castle Harbour's role was expanded. She was refitted, armed with a 3-inch gun on the bow, four machine guns and sixteen depth charges, and commissioned as HMS Castle Harbour. Crewed mostly by local-service ratings, she was tasked with anti-submarine patrols within the reefline to prevent attacks like that carried out at Scapa Flow by the German submarine U-47 under the command of Günther Prien on 14 October 1939. It was also thought German submarines might be used to land raiding parties, saboteurs, or spies. Outside the reefs, Charles Fairey's similarly converted yacht carried our anti-submarine patrols as HMS Evadne.[12]

Loss

By late 1942, the threat of enemy submarines in the area had so diminished that HMS Castle Harbour was deemed unnecessary at Bermuda. She was consequently ordered to the Mediterranean. She was travelling as part of Convoy TRIN-19 from Trinidad, evidently with a Merchant Navy crew, when at 2120 hours on 16 October 1942, she was torpedoed by the German submarine U-160. The explosion broke her in two and she sank within twenty seconds with the loss of nine of her twenty-two crewmembers.[13][14]

References
  1. The Andrew And The Onions: The Story Of The Royal Navy In Bermuda, 1795–1975, Lt. Commander Ian Stranack, The Bermuda Maritime Museum Press, The Bermuda Maritime Museum, The Keep, Royal Naval Dockyard, Ireland Island, Sandys Parish, Bermuda. Postal address: P.O. Box MA 133, Mangrove Bay, Bermuda MA BX. ISBN 0-921560-03-6
  2. The Ships List: Fleet of the Quebec SS Co. / Bermuda & West Indies S.S. Co. / Trinidad Shipping & Trading Co.
  3. Bermuda's St. George's Parish. Bermuda Online
  4. Talbot Brothers’ Enduring Musical Legacy. Bernews
  5. History: Ship Fire That Threatened Hamilton. BERNEWS. November 4, 2019
  6. Luxury Liner Gutted! 1931. British Pathé
  7. Fire Continues all Day on M. V. Bermuda: Magnificent liner mass of smouldering ruins. Page 1 and Page 10. The Royal Gazette, City of Hamilton, Pembroke, Bermuda. 18 June, 1931
  8. Fortress Bermuda: A Visitor's Guide to the Naval and Military Heritage Sites of the Imperial Fortress Colony of Bermuda. By Seán Pòl Ó Creachmhaoil. ISBN 9781532997648
  9. Bermuda Forts 1612–1957, Dr. Edward C. Harris, The Bermuda Maritime Museum Press, The Bermuda Maritime Museum, ISBN 0-921560-11-7
  10. Bulwark Of Empire: Bermuda's Fortified Naval Base 1860-1920, Lt.-Col. Roger Willock, USMC, The Bermuda Maritime Museum Press, The Bermuda Maritime Museum, ISBN 0-921560-00-1
  11. The Andrew And The Onions: The Story Of The Royal Navy In Bermuda, 1795–1975, Lt. Commander Ian Strannack, The Bermuda Maritime Museum Press, The Bermuda Maritime Museum, P.O. Box MA 133, Mangrove Bay, Bermuda MA BX. ISBN 0-921560-03-6
  12. Yankee R.N., by Commander Alex H. Cherry, OBE, RNVR. Jarrold's Publishers (London) Ltd, Portland Street, London W1
  13. Castle Harbour, Uboat.net
  14. Stranack

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