page_title: HMS Eclipse (H08)
section_title: Operation Menace
hierarchical_section_title: HMS Eclipse (H08) / Construction and career / Operation Menace
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Leading Seaman Walker of the Royal Navy vessel HMS Eclipse, by Eric Kennington
context_page_description: HMS Eclipse was an E-class destroyer of the Royal Navy that saw service in the Atlantic, Arctic, and Mediterranean theatres during World War II, until sunk by a mine in the Aegean Sea on 24 October 1943.
context_section_description: In autumn 1940, Eclipse was deployed as part of the protective screen for troopships sailing to West Africa in Operation Menace (for proposed landings at Dakar, later abandoned). She returned home to join the 3rd Destroyer Flotilla after repairs – first at Freetown, Sierra Leone, and subsequently at Gibraltar.  In this period, one member of her crew was Charles Causley, the Cornish poet and broadcaster, who served as a Coder. He subsequently published two poems about the ship and this voyage: 'HMS Eclipse Approaches Freetown'; and 'Immunity', which recounts an inoculation session, and then anticipates the ship's loss later in the war.
  From 12 April 1941 Eclipse was refitted at Devonport Dockyard, sailing in early June to rejoin the 3rd Destroyer Flotilla. On 25 June she was deployed to protect the ships of the 1st Minelaying Squadron during a minelay in the Northern Barrage, replacing the destroyer Brighton, which had been damaged in a collision with the cruiser Kenya. At the end of July she was part of the destroyer screen of Force P—the carriers Furious and Victorious, and the cruisers Devonshire and Suffolk—during the raid on Kirkenes and Petsamo (Operation EF).
caption: Leading Seaman Walker of HMS Eclipse, by Eric Kennington
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