HMS Glasgow (C21) - The Far East

The Far East

In January 1941 Glasgow was assigned to the Eastern Fleet and sailed for Singapore. Upon arrival she underwent more repairs. In February the German pocket battleship Admiral Scheer sank the freighters Canadian Cruiser and Rantaupandjang in the Indian Ocean. Both managed to transmit distress signals, that were picked up by Glasgow, which deployed in search of the German ship. On 22 January, the Admiral Scheer was sighted by the spotter aircraft from Glasgow, the East Indies Task Force was deployed to the reported area. However, the Admiral Scheer had escaped by turning away to the south east and further searches were in vain. In March Glasgow, in company with HMS Caledon, two auxiliary cruisers, two destroyers and two anti-submarine trawlers of the Indian navy, escorted two troop transport vessels containing two Indian Battalions and one Somali commando detachment, who were landed on either side of Berbera, in Somaliland, which had previously been occupied by the Italians. The town was taken after only slight Italian resistance, which was soon broken by naval gunfire from Glasgow and the other escorts. At midnight on 9 December 1941, Glasgow sank the RIN patrol vessel HMIS Prabhavati with two lighters in tow en-route to Karachi, with 6 inch shells at 6000 yards. The Prabhavati was alongside the lighters and was mistaken for a surfaced Japanese submarine. Glasgow picked up the survivors and took them to Bombay, arriving there later that day.

On 19 March 1942, Glasgow escorted convoy WS-16 from the UK to South Africa. In April Glasgow again underwent temporary repairs, this time in Simonstown, South Africa. She subsequently sailed to the US for permanent repairs, which were completed in August. She then returned to the UK and joined the 10th Cruiser Squadron at Scapa Flow, where she was assigned to the covering forces of the Arctic convoys.