HMIS
Lawrence was ordered under the Emergency War Programme of the
First World War, being launched at
William Beardmore and Company on 30 July 1919 and completed on 27 December 1919. In 1925 while conducting anti-slavery patrols the ship conducted a bombardment of
Fujairah Fort, destroying three of the forts towers. On the outbreak of the Second World War, the
Lawrence, whose armament had been increased by the addition of four
3-pounder guns and a second 2-pounder pom-pom, deployed to
Masirah Island off the coast of
Oman where it was used to carry out patrols, taking part in the unsuccessful search for the missing airliner
Hannibal in March 1940. Immediately prior to the outbreak of the
Anglo-Iraqi War,
Lawrence helped to cover the landing of the
20th Indian Infantry Brigade at Basra on 18 April 1941. When Britain and the Soviet Union
invaded Iran in August 1941,
Lawrence took part in the attack on
Abadan on 25 August 1941, boarding and capturing the Iranian gunboats
Karkas and
Shahbaaz and two Italian merchant ships. In late 1944
Lawrence was assigned to HMIS
Himalaya, the Gunnery school in
Karachi as a Gunnery School Firing Ship, and joined the Bombay training squadron in November 1945.
Lawrence was decommissioned and scrapped in 1947, two years after the end of the war. ==Notes==