Allied Warships

HMS Perim (K 593)

Frigate of the Colony class

NavyThe Royal Navy
TypeFrigate
ClassColony 
PennantK 593 
Built byWalsch-Kaiser Co., Inc. (Providence, Rhode Island, U.S.A.) 
Ordered10 Jun 1943 
Laid down7 Oct 1943 
Launched5 Nov 1943 
Commissioned16 Mar 1944 
End service 
History

Returned to the USN 22 May 1946.

HMS Perim is not listed as active unit in the October 1945 Navy List

 

Commands listed for HMS Perim (K 593)

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and that we only list Commanding Officers for the duration of the Second World War.

CommanderFromTo
1T/A/Lt.Cdr. Nicholas John Turney Monsarrat, RNVR16 Mar 194424 Dec 1944
2Lt. Arthur Horace Kent, DSC, RD, RNR24 Dec 1944mid 1945

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Notable events involving Perim include:


16 Mar 1944

See mention in HMS Perin's first Captain's autobiography "Life is a Four Letter Word - Volume 2: Breaking Out" in which Nicholas Monsarrat says:

...I was standing by a newly built frigate in Providence, Rhode Island - a frigate which, as soon as she could be made to work, would be my own pride and joy. But she had been built at lightning speed, together with twenty-three others, by Henry J. Kaiser; and I was never surprised to learn, not many years later, that the Henry J. Kaiser car was no bloody good, because the Henry J, Kaiser frigate was no bloody good either.

Mine was called Perim, after the tiny island-colony near Aden (there was another one called Monserrat, but they wouldn't give her to me) and in Perim we ran fourteen sea trials, thirteen of them resulting in damage to our main bearings, before a little man from Tyneside was flown out, put his stubby finger on the trouble, and got the programme moving again.

Monsarrat, who would later write "The Cruel Sea", mentions that each of these ships cost five million dollars each. He also mentions that HMS Perim worked up off Bermuda.

(1)

27 Sep 1944
HMS Upright (Lt. J.A.L. Wilkinson, RN) conducted A/S exercises off Bermuda with HMS Papua (Lt.Cdr. E.H. Lynes, RD, RNR) and HMS Perim (T/A/Lt.Cdr. N.J.T. Mosarrat, RNVR). (2)

20 Dec 1944
Around 0830A/20, the destroyer HrMs Tjerk Hiddes (Lt.Cdr. N.W. Sluijter, RNethN) and the escort destroyer HMS Albrighton (A/Lt.Cdr. J.J.S. Hooker, RN) departed Milford Haven to make rendezvous with the battleship HMS Ramillies (Capt. G.B. Middleton, CBE, RN) and the landing ship HMS Keren (A/Cdr. S.E. Crewe-Read, RN) and their current escort of the escort destroyer HMS Avon Vale (Lt. I. Hall, RN) and frigates HMS Gardiner (A/Lt.Cdr. W.G.H. Bolton, DSC, RD, RNR) and HMS Perim (T/A/Lt.Cdr. N.J.T. Mosarrat, RNVR). The battleship was en-route from Greenock to Portsmouth and the landing ship to Southampton. She had departed Greenock around 1000A/19.

When HrMs Tjerk Hiddes and HMS Albrighton joined around 1000A/20, HMS Gardiner and HMS Perim parted company.

HrMS Tjerk Hiddes, HMS Avon Vale and HMS Albrighton arrived at Plymouth around 1300A/21. They had been relieved at 0855A/21, off Start Point, by an escort coming from Portsmouth. [No further details available for the moment.]

HMS Ramillies and HMS Keren entered the Solent around 1515A/21. (3)

6 Apr 1945
HMS Vulpine (Lt. W.D.S. Scott, RN) conducted A/S exercises off Campbeltown with HMS Shemara (Cdr.(Retd.) H. Buckle, RN) and HMS Fowey (A/Lt.Cdr. G.E. Newey, RNR), HMS St. Helena (T/A/Lt.Cdr. W.G. Pardoe-Matthews, RNR), HMSAS Good Hope (T/Lt.Cdr. R.P. Dryden-Dymond, SANF(V)) and HMS Perim (Lt. A.H. Kent, DSC, RD, RNR). (4)

Sources

  1. Personal communication
  2. ADM 173/19286
  3. ADM 199/1392 + File 2.12.03.2100 (Dutch Archives, The Hague, Netherlands)
  4. ADM 173/20363

ADM numbers indicate documents at the British National Archives at Kew, London.


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