Thursday, November 10, 2005

Uganda's bit in WW2

I learn something new everyday. Today I just learned that there was a major warship doing major business all over the world during WWII. The was ship was called.....drumroll please.....HMS Uganda.

Commissioned in 1942, HMS Uganda did its bit for the war effort. It did escort duty for Winston Churchill in '43, participated in the invasion of Sicily and whole lot of other stuff until it was hit by a German bomb.

After repair,Uganda ended being the top Canadian ship for a while, but then it was eventually rechristened HMCS Quebec and finally scrapped in Japan in 1961.

Why the interest in this ship? I Guess I find it somewhat amusing that HM King George (or whoever was the overlord of the British empire at that time) named a ship after the country in which sunny Kampala basks.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

No intention of bursting your bubble, but I was watching a program on the World War II last night and apparently there was also a HMS Somalia and a HMS Kenya too :)

Jay said...

The bubble is truly burst.

Anonymous said...

They were all 'Tribal' class destroyers, rather larger than other destroyers.

A relation of mine was Signals Officer aboard the Somalia. He found vital parts of the Enigma machine in a locked drawer on the German converted trawler 'Krebs'.

Rick said...

My dad was aboard the Uganda when it was hit by the German Glider bomb, first of the guided missiles. It punctured the main deck passed through 7 decks in all through the hull and exploded 6 feet under the ship. It was saved from total destruction since it blew beneath the ship. She was towed into Malta for quickie repairs after which it chugged across the Atlantic to Charleston, SC.