British service The W-class destroyers were ordered on 3 December 1941 and
Whelp was
laid down by
Hawthorn Leslie and Company at their
shipyard in
Hebburn on 1 May 1942. The ship was
launched on 3 June 1943 and completed on 14 July 1944. She was initially assigned to the
3rd Destroyer Flotilla (DF) of the
Home Fleet and was based in
Scapa Flow. During her active service, her
captain and
first lieutenant were
Commander G. A. F. Norfolk and
Lieutenant His Royal Highness Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, the future Duke of Edinburgh. In mid-June,
Whelp sailed to
Spitsbergen to resupply the small Allied garrison there.
Whelp was then assigned to the
27th Destroyer Flotilla which left for the Far East on 2 August and arrived in
Trincomalee,
Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), on 12 September.
Whelp rescued the crew of a crashed
Grumman TBF Avenger,
Sub-Lieutenant Roy Halliday and his gunner, Norman Richardson, during the second attack. On 28 February, the BPF sailed for their forward base at
Manus Island and arrived on 7 March and exercised together before sailing for
Ulithi on 18 March. The BPF joined the American
Fifth Fleet there two days later to participate in the preliminary operations for the
invasion of Okinawa. The British role during the operation was to neutralise airfields on the
Sakishima Islands, between Okinawa and
Formosa, beginning on 26 March. They later attacked airfields in
Formosa before returning to the Sakishima Islands. The BPF retired to
Leyte Gulf to rest and resupply on 17 April and
Whelp, together with
Wager, was tasked to escort the badly damaged carrier to Sydney on 3 May. They arrived on 14 May and
Whelp continued on to
Melbourne to begin a refit that lasted until July. She rejoined the BPF at Sydney (now attached to the
United States 3rd Fleet) and on 31 July escorted the
battleship to
Guam, together with
Wager, where they arrived on 9 August. Admiral
Bruce Fraser,
Commander-in-chief of the BPF, conferred with U.S. Admiral
Chester Nimitz, the
Commander-in-Chief Pacific Fleet Headquarters. The ships then proceeded to rendezvous with the main body of the fleet off the coast of Japan on the 16th.
Whelp was the first Allied ship to enter
Sagami Bay on 27 August, leading the way for
Duke of York and the American battleships and . She was present at
Tokyo for the
formal surrender of the Japanese on 2 September. She left Tokyo on 9 September and, following an overnight stop at Okinawa on 11/12 September, arrived at
Hong Kong with Admiral Fraser aboard. He accepted the surrender of the Japanese forces in Hong Kong on 16 September.
Whelp was remained in Hong Kong and conducted anti-piracy patrols along the Chinese coast. On 12 November, the ship departed Hong Kong for Sydney, via
Darwin, and arrived there on the 24th to begin a brief refit. She sailed for Britain on 7 December and arrived at
Portsmouth on 17 January 1946.
Whelp was
paid off and was in Category B reserve by 30 May.
South African service Whelp was offered to South Africa in 1950, together with
Wessex, but she was not purchased until 25 April 1952 for
£420,000. This role, however, declined as South Africa became increasingly isolated during the
apartheid years. The ship was placed in reserve from 1957, but was modernised at
Simon's Town Naval Dockyard from 1962 to 1964, and re-commissioned on 27 February 1964. She was modernised according to a modified
Type 16 frigate standard, her main armament became four
4-inch guns Mk XVI in two twin positions and she was able to carry two
Westland Wasp helicopters.
Simon van der Stel remained in commission for just over a year as manpower shortages mandated that she be reduced back to reserve in March 1965. The ship was recommissioned on 17 June 1968 and was briefly assigned to the 10th Frigate Squadron until she was redesignated as a training ship on 1 October.
Simon van der Stel visited
Portuguese Mozambique later that month. In June 1969, she was ordered to proceed to
Gough Island to search for two missing members (Jan Seyffert and Fanie Grobler) of the
weather station there, but only found their bodies. The ship was replaced in her training role by her sister in 1972 and she was paid off on 27 March.
Simon van der Stel was reactivated with a skeleton crew in early 1975 for a refit at Durban, but she was deemed too expensive to repair and was scrapped there by
Sandock-Austral in late 1976. ==Footnotes==