NRP Afonso de Albuquerque

NRP Afonso De Albuquerque

The NRP Afonso de Albuquerque was a warship of the Portuguese Navy, named after the 16th century Portuguese navigator Afonso de Albuquerque. She was destroyed in combat on 18 December 1961, defending Goa against the Indian Armed Forces invasion.

The ship was the first of the Afonso de Albuquerque class, which also included the NRP Bartolomeu Dias. These ships were classified, by the Portuguese Navy, as avisos coloniais de 1ª classe (colonial aviso 1st class) and were designed to maintain a Portuguese naval presence in the Overseas territories of Portugal. They had limited capacity to combat other surface vessels, as they were intended, mainly, to support amphibious operations and troops on land.

After the Second World War, the Afonso de Albuquerque class ships were reclassified as frigates.

In her career Afonso de Albuquerque served mainly in the Indian and the Pacific oceans, protecting the Portuguese territories of Mozambique, India, Macau and Timor.