HMS Zulu

On the outbreak of the First World War the 6th Flotilla formed the basis of the Dover Patrol. Zulu captured the German sailing ship Perhns on 5 August 1914, and collided with sister ship Crusader in both August and September that year. On 24 April 1916, Zulu took place in a large scale operation off the Belgian coast to lay mines and nets, in an attempt to limit use of the ports of Ostend and Zeebrugge to German U-boats. Zulu and Nubian laid lines of dan-buoys to mark to positions for the minefields and nets to be laid. In total, 1,565 mines were laid by the minelayers Princess Margaret, Orvietto, Paris and Biarritz. The minefield probably caused the loss of one U-Boat, UB-13, although at the time it was thought that four or five German submarines had been sunk. The destroyer Melpomene was badly damaged by shellfire from German coast-defence batteries, while one drifter, Clover Bank, was sunk by a mine On 8 November 1916, Zulu was sailing from Dover to Dunkirk when she struck a mine, laid by UC-1, that exploded under the ship's engine-room. Three men were killed, and the ship's stern broke off and sunk. Zulu was towed to safety in Calais by the French destroyer Capitaine Mehl It was decided to join the front end of Zulu with the stern of Nubian, another Tribal-class destroyer that had had her bows blown off by a torpedo during the Battle of Dover Strait on the night of 26/27 October 1916. Although these ships were not of identical design, the two sections were joined at Chatham Dockyard to produce a new destroyer Zubian that commissioned on 7 June 1917