Wartime service Hitra was originally built as a
SC-497 class submarine chaser for the
United States Navy. She was laid down on 22 September 1942 by the
Fisher Boat Works of
Detroit and launched on 31 March 1943. She was commissioned into the US Navy as USS
SC-718 on 25 May 1943. In August 1943 US Admiral
Harold R. Stark, commander of
US Naval Forces Europe, ordered
SC-718 and two other SC-class subchasers -
SC-683 and
SC-1061 - to be transferred to Britain. Stationed in
Miami at the time, the three subchasers received top secret orders to report to
Brooklyn Navy Yard where they were to await further orders. When they arrived at the Naval Yard, the vessels' commanders were ordered to warn their crews to observe strict silence about their movements and were told that the three ships had been picked for a "special purpose". The three subchasers were hoisted aboard three Liberty Ships and secured as deck cargo,
SC-718 being carried by the Liberty Ship
SS Willard Hall, and preparations made to transport them and their crews to an undisclosed location. It was only when the ships were under way that the crews were told that they were bound for
Belfast. After assuming command at Rosneath, the Norwegian crews sailed their new vessels first to
Derry, and then to
Scalloway in
Shetland, where they completed their fitting-out. The subchasers'
depth charge racks,
Mousetrap anti-submarine rocket launchers, and K-gun depth charge projectors were removed, and an additional set of davits were installed so that each ship could carry two boats, whose motors were equipped with specially muffled exhausts for ultra-quiet running. They also removed one of the
Oerlikon 20 mm cannon from amidships and installed a
2-pounder gun aft and two
cal .50 machine guns on the flying bridge. The ships were christened
Hitra (
SC-718),
Hessa (
SC-683), and
Vigra (
SC-1061).
Postwar harbour in 2014 After the war
Hitra performed
coast guard duties until 1953. All three submarine chasers were
mothballed at
Marvika and formally decommissioned in 1959. She seemingly ended her days in
Karlskrona,
Sweden when she sank after someone had opened the bottom valves. It was not until 1981, when the Soviet submarine
U 137 (
Whiskey on the rocks) ran aground, that S. Moen, the director of the
Royal Norwegian Navy Museum in
Horten saw the abandoned
Hitra in a newspaper image. Subsequently, she was raised and shipped back to Norway, where she was restored to her original condition in 1983–1987. , Shetland, April 2018 Today, while still under naval command,
Hitra is a
museum ship home ported at
Haakonsvern in
Bergen, touring the Norwegian coast in the summer months. == See also ==