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Busy Year for 'Cheery Chid'
It's been a packed year for HMS Chiddingfold. She started
2002 working fishery protection, with an impressive record
of arrests and hard work building up the relationship between
the fishing community.
Such was her success that the 'Cheery Chid' received the Soberton
trophy for outstanding duties in the fishery protection squadron.
Once her fish duties were finished in March, HMS Chiddingfold
went back into her minehunting and sweeping role, with back
to back MCM Group, weeks and Royal Naval Reserve training
weekends.
She was also readying herself to start trials on the new 2193
minehunting sonar.
Early May proved a special day in the minehunter's calendar.
The Chid was asked to be the host ship for the re-enactment
of the liberation of Jersey at the end of World War II.
The minehunter provided a guard and officers to recreate the
moment when the islands were reclaimed back into allied hands.
Next to her hectic schedule was a trip to Kent to represent
the Royal Navy at Chatham Navy Days. The visiting public had
a chance to tour the whole ship including the living quarters
and to check out life on the high seas.
Next came the expected testing time for which they had been
preparing. This was a month-long trials period of the 2193
sonar.
This autumn has seen the Cheery Chid return from one months
circumnavigation of the United Kingdom on a recruiting drive.
Places visited include Port Talbot, Rosyth and London before
returning to her Portsmouth home.
The only previous HMS Chiddingfold was a Type II Hunt-class
destroyer ordered at the outbreak of World War II.
Launched in March 1941, her first operation was the Commando
raid on Vaagso, where she bombarded enemy positions to cover
the landings and played a part in the destruction of enemy-controlled
shipping.
After this, Chiddingfold was allocated to the Orkneys and
Shetland Command, undertaking patrols and escort duties to
the distant shores of Iceland and nearer home around the coast
of Scotland.
In 1945, HMS Chiddingfold returned to the UK to join the 16th
Destroyer Flotilla at Harwich to reinforce the anti-submarine
forces escorting the convoys to and from the Scheldt.
The last eight weeks of the war in Europe she operated from
Harwich, before being modified to join the 18th Destroyer
Flotilla at Trincomalee after the end of the war in Far East.
She took part in the re-occupation of Singapore in early September
before leaving the East Indies Fleet in October and returning
to the UK to go into reserve at Portsmouth.
The destroyer then remained in reserve, first in Portsmouth
then in Harwich, before being towed to Liverpool to refit
for service with the Indian Navy to which she was transferred
on loan.
The transfer took place in June 1953 and she was renamed Ganga.
She was later purchased outright in the late 1950s and continued
in service, latterly in reserve, until 1975 when she and her
sister-ship Gomati (formerly the Laberton) were paid off and
scrapped.
(Ship of the Month November 2002)
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