HMS Aldenham: Shipwreck Map, Location & Facts

Name	HMS Aldenham	Wikidata label
Ship type	destroyer	Wikidata P31 instance of
Cause of loss	War action	Keyword match in English Wikipedia lead sentence
Nationality / flag	United Kingdom	Wikidata P137 operator → P17 country
Operator	Royal Navy	Wikidata P137 operator
Conflict	World War II	Wikidata P607 conflict
Sea / ocean	Adriatic Sea	Natural Earth marine areas (public domain), point-in-polygon
Nearest coast	Croatia	Natural Earth (public domain); approx. 6 km from land
Position	44.5000, 14.8333	Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0)

About the wreck

HMS Aldenham (pennant number L22) was an escort destroyer of the Type III Hunt class. The Royal Navy ordered its construction in July 1940. Upon completion in February 1942, she was deployed to convoy escort duty. Aldenham is one of the ships credited with the sinking of the U-587 on 27 March 1942. After circumnavigating Africa, she joined the Mediterranean Fleet, escorting convoys between Alexandria, Malta and Tobruk. She took part in the Allied invasion of Sicily, landings at Salerno and Anzio, the Dodecanese campaign and Operation Dragoon before being assigned to the Adriatic campaign.

On 14 December 1944, Aldenham was sunk by a naval mine in the Adriatic Sea off Pag Island after she led a Royal Navy force in a bombardment mission against targets on the island of Pag and near the town of Karlobag in support of the Yugoslav Partisans. Although the rest of the force came to pick up survivors, cold weather and severe damage to Aldenham permitted the rescue of only 63 of her crew. Her wreck, broken in two by the explosion, was first discovered by specialists of Yugoslav Navy in 1974, and documentary about search and discovery was made by TV Beograd.

Location

Recorded position: 44.5000, 14.8333 (Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0); may be approximate)
Sea / ocean: Adriatic Sea
Nearest coast: Croatia

Wreck positions on this site are for interest only and are not for navigation. Many wrecks are war graves or legally protected: never disturb human remains or remove artefacts, and check local law before diving.

OpenStreetMap

Text adapted from the Wikipedia article HMS Aldenham (revision 1375247506), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; condensed by selecting paragraphs and trimming at sentence boundaries; citations and formatting removed. No text added. This excerpt is available under the same licence.