HMS Matapan (D43)

HMS Matapan Matapan just after completion, 1947
History
United Kingdom
Name:	HMS Matapan
Ordered:	1943
Builder:	John Brown & Company
Yard number:	616
Laid down:	11 March 1943
Launched:	30 April 1945
Commissioned:	5 September 1947
Decommissioned:	1977
Reclassified:	Sonar Trials Ship, 1973
Fate:	Broken up 1978
General characteristics
Class & type:	Battle class destroyer
Displacement:	2,480 tons standard
Length:	379 ft (116 m)
Beam:	40 ft 6 in (12.34 m)
Draught:	12 ft 8 in (3.86 m) mean 17 ft 6 in (5.33 m) maximum
Propulsion:	Oil fired, two three-drum boilers, Parsons geared turbines, twin screws, 50,000 hp (37 MW)
Speed:	35.75 knots (66.21 km/h)
Complement:	268
Armament:	5 × 4.5-inch (114 mm) gun 8 × Bofors 40 mm guns 10 × 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes 2 × Squid mortar All armament was removed during the conversion to Sonar Trials Ship.
Service record
Part of:	Admiralty Underwater Weapons Establishment
Commanders:	Cdr.R.E. Hopkins, 1974-1976.

HMS Matapan (D43) was a later or 1943 Battle-class fleet destroyer of the Royal Navy (RN). She was named after the Battle of Cape Matapan between the Royal Navy and the Regia Marina, and which ended in a decisive victory for the RN force, resulting in the destruction of three cruisers and two destroyers of the Italian Navy and was a heavy blow to the Italians. So far, she has been the only ship of the Royal Navy to bear that name.

Matapan was built by John Brown & Company. She was launched on 30 April 1945 and commissioned on 5 September 1947.

She was placed in Reserve just before she commissioned and would remain in such a state for a lengthy period of time, yet in the process she outlived all her sister-ships in Royal Navy service. In 1970, Matapan was towed to Portsmouth where she began her conversion to a Sonar Trials Ship that resulted in her appearance becoming radically different from when she was launched in 1945.

In 1973, upon her conversion being completed, Matapan entered active service for the very first time, joining the Admiralty Underwater Weapons Establishment (AUWE), based in Portland. It was to be quite a short career for Matapan, when after a variety of sonar trials, which included co-operation with foreign navies, Matapan was decommissioned in August 1977. She was broken up the following year at Blyth in Northumberland.