HMS Defender 1941
_underway_in_the_1930s.jpg){kind=link}
Marker: recorded wreck position (Second World War).
Key facts
| Name | HMS Defender | Wikidata label |
|---|---|---|
| Year lost | 1941 | English Wikipedia lead text (year following a loss verb, parsed) |
| Era | Second World War | derived from year |
| Ship type | destroyer | Wikidata P31 instance of |
| Cause of loss | Scuttled | 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 | Mediterranean Sea | Natural Earth marine areas (public domain), point-in-polygon |
| Nearest coast | Egypt | Natural Earth (public domain); approx. 29 km from land |
| Position | 31.7500, 25.5167 | Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0) |
About the wreck
HMS Defender was a D-class destroyer built for the Royal Navy in the early 1930s. The ship was initially assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet before she was transferred to the China Station in early 1935. She was temporarily deployed in the Red Sea during late 1935 during the Abyssinia Crisis, before returning to her assigned station where she remained until mid-1939. Defender was transferred back to the Mediterranean Fleet just before World War II began in September 1939. She briefly was assigned to West Africa for convoy escort duties in 1940 before returning to the Mediterranean. The ship took part in the Battles of Calabria, Cape Spartivento, and Cape Matapan over the next year without damage. Defender assisted in the evacuations from Greece and Crete in April–May 1941, before she began running supply missions to Tobruk, Libya in June. The ship was badly damaged by a German bomber on one of those missions and had to be scuttled by her consort on 11 July 1941.
Location
- Recorded position: 31.7500, 25.5167 (Wikidata P625 coordinate location (CC0); may be approximate)
- Sea / ocean: Mediterranean Sea
- Nearest coast: Egypt
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.
Text adapted from the Wikipedia article HMS Defender (H07) (revision 1375232378), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; condensed by selecting paragraphs; citations and formatting removed. No text added. This excerpt is available under the same licence.
Wreck facts from Wikidata (CC0).
Nearby wrecks
- U-652 1942 · 34 km
- HMS Grove 37 km
- HMAS Waterhen 1941 · 58 km
- HMS Gurkha 1942 · 70 km
- HMS Imperial 1941 · 72 km
- HMS Jaguar 1942 · 75 km
Other wrecks of the World War II
- SS Gracechurch 1940
- SS Rio de Janeiro 1940
- U-13 1940
- U-25 1940
- U-54 1940
- Armando Diaz 1941
- Bismarck 1941
- Fiume 1941
- HMAS Sydney 1941
- HMAS Waterhen 1941
All 599 wrecks of the World War II →
Browse more: Africa wrecks · wrecks off Egypt · Mediterranean Sea · Second World War