HMS Barrosa (D68)
HMS Barrosa (D68) was a Royal Navy Battle-class destroyer named after the 1811 Battle of Barrosa. Built by John Brown & Company at Clydebank, she was laid down on 28 December 1943, launched on 17 January 1945, and commissioned on 14 February 1947. She served with several destroyer flotillas and squadrons before being decommissioned in 1968 and scrapped in 1978.
Design and armament
- Class and type: Battle-class destroyer
- Displacement: about 2,480 tons (standard)
- Size: around 379 ft long, beam 40 ft 6 in
- Propulsion: oil-fired boilers and Parsons geared turbines, about 50,000 hp; top speed around 34–36 knots
- Crew: about 268
- Guns and weapons (original): two twin 4.5-inch mounts forward, one 4.5-inch gun aft; eight 40 mm Bofors; ten 21-inch torpedo tubes; Squid anti-submarine mortar
- Later updates: Sea Cat missiles added during radar picket conversion
Service highlights
- Joined the Home Fleet as part of the 4th Destroyer Flotilla; spent time in reserve due to manpower shortages
- 1949: collision with the oiler Black Ranger caused hull damage
- 1953: took part in the Coronation Fleet Review for Queen Elizabeth II
- 1956: served in the eastern Mediterranean during the Suez Crisis
- 1959: collision with HMS Corunna
- Conversion to radar picket, with Sea Cat missiles and updated radar systems
- 1963: served in the Far East with the 8th Destroyer Squadron and later the 26th Escort Squadron; involved in anti-piracy patrols
- 1967: helped tackle the Torrey Canyon oil spill and took part in the Beira Patrol off East Africa
- 1968: towed the stores ship Lyness after its engine failure; decommissioned the same year
- 1974: used as a storage hulk at Portsmouth
- 1978: scrapped at Blyth, Cumbria
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 14:11 (CET).