HMS Wild Swan

Two ships of the Royal Navy have borne the name HMS Wild Swan:

HMS Wild Swan (1876)

HMS Wild Swan was an Osprey-class sloop built for the Royal Navy in the mid-1870s. She was launched in 1877 and became a base ship in 1904, being renamed Clyde. She was renamed Columbine in 1913 and was sold for breaking in 1920.

Design and construction

Wild Swan was an Osprey-class sloop-of-war, with a composite hull design. The ship had a displacement of 1,130 tons, was 170 feet (52 m) long, had a beam of 36 feet (11 m), and a draught of 15 feet 9 inches (4.80 m). An R & W Hawthorn two-cylinder horizontal returning-rod steam engine fed by three cylindrical boilers provided 797 indicated horsepower to the single 13 ft (4.0 m) propeller screw. This gave Wild Swan a top speed of 10.3 knots (19.1 km/h; 11.9 mph), which failed to meet the required contract speed. After the first commission the engine was replaced by a Devonport Dockyard two-cylinder horizontal compound-expansion steam engine. She had a maximum range of 1,480 nautical miles (2,740 km; 1,700 mi) at 10 kn (19 km/h; 12 mph). In addition to the steam-driven propeller, the vessel was also barque rigged. The standard ship's company was between 140 and 150.

HMS Wild Swan (D62)

HMS Wild Swan was an Admiralty modified W class destroyer built for the Royal Navy. She was one of four destroyers ordered in 1918 from Swan Hunter and Wigham Richardson, Wallsend-on-Tyne under the 14th Order for Destroyers of the Emergency War Program of 1917-18. She was the second Royal Navy ship to carry the name, after the sloop HMS Wild Swan in 1876. Like her sisters, she was completed too late to see action in the First World War.

Pre-war service

Wild Swan was one of seven Modified W-Class destroyers that were completed after World War I, out of an original order of 38, issued in April 1918. She was built by Swan Hunter at Wallsend on Tyne, being laid down in July 1918 and completed on 14 November 1919. She joined the 3rd Destroyer Flotilla, Atlantic Fleet.

During the 1920s, she served in the Baltic, the Mediterranean and Far East. In 1930 she was placed in reserve, but she was re-commissioned in 1931. She joined the 8th Destroyer Flotilla, initially on the China Station, but subsequently transferred to the Mediterranean during the Abyssinian crisis. In 1939, Wild Swan returned to Britain to join the Nore Local Flotilla. She underwent a long refit at Chatham in late 1939 to update her equipment, including the fitting of anti-submarine detection equipment (ASDIC). This refit and consequent trials did not complete until December 1939.