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HMS RICHMOND G88
Wickes Class Destroyer - USN
Town Class Destroyer - RN
This page is not meant to be a comprehensive history of HMS RICHMOND, but a record of sailors of the ROYAL CANADIAN NAVY who served in her, photos they took and stories they may have shared with their families.
The former Fairfax was commissioned in the Royal Navy as HMS RICHMOND G88, on 5 December 1940. She arrived at Plymouth, England, on 1 February 1941, undergoing a refit to better suit her for escort work. This refit was completed in March, but Richmond ran aground at Holyhead on 23 March while on passage to Liverpool, and was under repair at Southampton until June.
Following repair, RICHMOND joined the Newfoundland Escort Force, responsible for escorting transatlantic convoys between Newfoundland and mid-Atlantic, when British based ships took over the escort. In October 1941, the ship returned across the Atlantic for refit at Cardiff, this continuing until December that year. RICHMOND then joined the 27th Escort Group based at Greenock on the Clyde. On 26 March RICHMOND formed part of the escort for the Arctic convoy PQ 14 on the initial leg from Scotland to Iceland, but was badly damaged in collision with the merchant ship Francis Scott Key and was under repair at Liverpool until July. In September 1942, RICHMOND joined the Halifax, Nova Scotia based Western Local Escort Force, escorting convoys from North American ports to off Newfoundland. In February 1943 RICHMOND was involved in another collision, this time with the merchant ship SS Reinholt, being sent to Liverpool for repair. In June 1943, she returned to Halifax, and convoy operations along the Canadian coast, serving as part of the Royal Canadian Navy from June until December 1943, when to free her crew for more modern escorts, she returned to the United Kingdom and was laid up on the Tyne. On 16 July 1944 she was transferred to the Soviet Navy. She was returned to the Royal Navy on 24 Jun 1949 and was sold for scrap in Jul 1949
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