HMS Edinburgh (16) - War Service

War Service

Edinburgh was launched on 31 March 1938, and after commissioning in July 1939 was immediately attached to the 18th Cruiser Squadron at Scapa Flow, in Scotland, as part of the British Home Fleet. For a time, she was assigned to patrol between Iceland and the Faroe Islands, but in 1939, she was transferred to the 2nd Cruiser Squadron, serving with the Humber Force.

However, Edinburgh was still in the Firth of Forth when the Luftwaffe made their first raid on the naval bases at Rosyth on 16 October 1939. She sustained minor damage from the attack, but no direct hits.

She left Rosyth on 23 October, on escort duties with the convoys heading to and from Narvik, in Norway. When the armed merchant cruiser HMS Rawalpindi was attacked and sunk defending her convoy on 23 November, Edinburgh was among the flotilla detached to search for the German commerce raider, the battleship Scharnhorst, responsible. However, the search was unsuccessful, and Edinburgh returned to escort duties.

On 18 March 1940, she arrived in the Tyne for a lengthy refit which lasted until 28 October. After these repairs, she was re-attached to the 18th Cruiser Squadron, and on 18 November left Faslane Naval Base, on the Clyde, escorting the troop convoy WS4B as far as Freetown (now Sierra Leone) before returning to Scapa Flow on 12 November. Shortly before Christmas, Edinburgh participated in a hunt for a German surface raider that had been reported as breaking out into the North Atlantic. The force consisted of the battlecruiser HMS Hood, Edinburgh, and the destroyers Electra, Echo, Escapade, and Cossack. After spending a week at sea, including Christmas Day, after the report turned out to be false, she returned to port on New Year's Eve.

During the winter of 1940, Edinburgh took part in several minor operations with the Home Fleet. She escorted convoy WS7 to the Middle East, returning to Scapa Flow on 15 April. She supported several mine-laying operations off the Danish coast, and supportedr Operation Claymore, the successful Allied raid on the German-occupied Lofoten Islands, on 4 May 1941.

Edinburgh also played a minor role in the hunt for the German battleship Bismarck in May 1941. She was on patrol in the Bay of Biscay, where she intercepted the German vessel SS Lech on 22 May 1941. Edinburgh was sent to intercept Bismarck on her projected course for Brest, and then shadow her, but Bismarck never reached that area.

On 1 June, she was sent to relieve the Dido class light cruiser HMS Hermione on the Denmark Strait patrol route. After an uneventful assignment, she was ordered to cover another Middle East-bound convoy, WS9B, and docked in Gibraltar again in early July. Later that month, Edinburgh took part in Operation Substance, arriving in Malta on 24 July. The next day, she had a close call when a German torpedo bomber attacked her. However, the ship sustained no damage, and continued on her course back to the Clyde.

In August 1941, Edinburgh escorted convoy WS10 to Simonstown, South Africa, and later sailed to Malta once more, this time as part of Operation Halberd, arriving at Malta on 28 September. She returned to Gibraltar shortly afterwards, departing from there on 1 October 1941, with supplies and prisoners of war aboard, and bound once more for the Clyde. After repairs at Faslane, she rejoined the Home Fleet on Iceland Forces Patrol during November.

In December 1941, she provided cover to Arctic convoys bringing aid to the Soviet Union. From January 1942, she refitted in the Tyne, until 4 March, when she was once again placed on the Iceland-Faroes patrol.

She escorted two convoys to the Soviet Union (QP4 and PQ13), returning to Scapa Flow on 28 March. On 6 April, she left Scapa Flow to escort convoy PQ 14 to Murmansk. Of the 24 ships in PQ14, 16 were forced by unseasonal ice and bad weather to return to Iceland, and another was sunk by a U-boat. Edinburgh and the remaining seven vessels arrived in Murmansk on 19 April.