Research my Fathers Ships in WW2

[dampflok48]

i am trying to trace the service history of the following ships in which my father served they are -
hms brecon hunt class destroyer , ( l 76 )
hms.whelp " w " class destroyer ( r 37 )
hms .derg river class frigate ( k257 )
hms . demirhisar . this ship was turkish ,commissioned in royal navy in jan 1942 for passage out to turkey .returned to turkish navy mar 1942. was designated with penant no. ( h 3 )

would be grateful for any information . thanking you for any assistance

malcolm

[tim lewin]

HMS Brecon was a very different class of Hunt, a type 4. She had a sister-ship, HMS Brissenden L79.
Brecon was built by Thornycroft, ordered on 27-07-40, launched in June '42 and completed in December. On completion she was attached to the 6th DF of the Home Fleet and served in the English Channel. 28-06-43 she sailed for the Meditierranean escorting convoy KMF17 which was part of the landing force for the invasion of Sicily on 10-07-43. Then on to the 58th destroyer div. until 4-'44. During this time she acted as escort and fire support for the Salerno landings (9-9-43) and managed a minor collision with the bigger destroyer Laforey (29-9-43).From 4-44 to 5-34 Brecon served with the 18th DF participating on 15-8-44 for the landings in the South of France. 19-9-44 she participated in the destruction of U407 south of Melos and during 10-44 participated in the re-occuptaion of the Agean Islands.
In Jan 1945 she was back in the UK attached to the 21st Flotilla based at Sheerness before returning to the Med for a refit at Malta before returning again to UK in May '45.
June '45 saw her sail to the Far East to join the 29th DF at Colombo, was present at the re-occupation of Singapore before returning with many others to the UK for December 1945 and peace. She was reduced to various categories of reserve at Portsmouth but never saw active service again. Eventually she was sold for scrapping and arrived at Faslane Yard on 17-09-62.
This info and the picture of Brecon was extracted from the excellent book "The Hunts" written by John English and published by the World Ship Society in 1987 as part of a truly splendid series on ship classes. (ISBN 0 905617 44 4)

Just had some troubles uploading the picture so will do it later.

I think HMS Whelp, a typical emergency class U, V, W, class destroyer serverd in the Pacific and South China Sea in 1945, and I beleive around this time HRH Prince Phillip was her N0. 1??

[rumrat]

Hi Malcolm,
Here's a few pictures of your old Fathers ships. BRECON , DERG and WHELP
Regards
Dave

[tim lewin]

if you google HMS Whelp you will find plenty of detail related to her career thanks largely to the presence onboard of HRH. As it happens HRH served with my late father first in Valliant then later post war in Chequers. They became good friends, when he died HRH arote an obituary for him in the Times. The books i use for this sort of research all came from his collection, as do most of the photos.
still got trouble uploading my picture but Dave has now beaten me to it, and with better pictures!

[PHILIP TUCKER]

My dad served on HMS Brecon, it is said he was in charge of a Landing Craft on D.Day
his name was Charles Tucker, i do not know any more than that,
Many thanks PhilipTucker