First Time in The Far East
She was laid down on 22 July 1940, launched on 11 June 1941 and completed on 12 December of that year. She was allocated to the Eastern Fleet which was then under the command of Admiral Sir James Somerville, leaving Greenock on 17 February 1942, arriving in Colombo via the Cape on 24 March. She was at sea with the fleet when the Japanese made their Indian Ocean raid with air attacks on Ceylon, now Sri Lanka. Paladin took part in rescue operations following the sinking of the heavy cruisers Cornwall and Dorsetshire on 5 April and assisted in the recovery of approximately 1,120 men from both crews, many of whom were in the water for 30 hours in a shark-infested sea. In the first week of May 1942, she took part in Operation 'Ironclad', the capture of Diego Suarez, Madagascar, from Vichy French forces, forming part of the screen for the heavy ships.
Read more about this topic: HMS Paladin (G69)
Famous quotes containing the words time and/or east:
“I should like a lover to think of the things that I think about. It is all very well being steady when you have got babies of your own; but that should be after ever so long. I should like to keep my lover as a lover for two years. And all that time he should like to dance with me, and to hear music, and to go about just when I would like to go.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“Ah! on Thanksgiving day, when from East and from West,
From North and from South, come the pilgrim and guest,
When the gray-haired New Englander sees round his board
The old broken links of affection restored,
When the care-wearied man seeks his mother once more,
And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before.
What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye?
What calls back the past, like the rich Pumpkin pie?”
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)