page_title: HMS Vanoc (H33)
section_title: Second World War
hierarchical_section_title: HMS Vanoc (H33) / Service / Second World War
caption_attribution_description: Able Seaman W Connor loads a 12 pounder 12 hundredweight anti-aircraft gun on board the destroyer HMS VANOC while at action stations during a convoy escort mission.
context_page_description: HMS Vanoc was a British V-class destroyer, launched in 1917. The ship saw service in both the First and Second World Wars. During the First World War, Vanoc served as part of two destroyer flotillas, undertaking minelayer and convoy escort roles. In 1919, the destroyer took part in British operations in the Baltic as part of Allied efforts to intervene in the Russian Civil War. During the Second World War, Vanoc was involved in evacuation efforts to remove troops from Norway and France, and was utilised as a convoy escort, protecting convoys from German U-boats. In this role, Vanoc sank a German submarine, U-100 in March 1941 in the Atlantic, and assisted in the destruction of another, U-99. Three years later, Vanoc was involved in sinking U-392 in the Straits of Gibraltar in concert with a British frigate and several US anti-submarine aircraft. In January 1945, she was involved in a collision with another Allied vessel off Normandy, before being placed into reserve in June. She was later sold for scrap and was broken up after mid-1946.
context_section_description: Vanoc was commanded by Lieutenant Commander James Godfrey Wood Deneys from 9 February 1939 to 15 December 1941. At the outbreak of the war, the ship was assigned to the 11th Destroyer Flotilla, based out of Plymouth, and in the early stages of hostilities undertook patrols in the English Channel and South Western Approaches areas. In February 1940, Vanoc accompanied HMS Scarborough escorting a Gibraltar bound convoy, before escorting two Liverpool bound convoys in March. In mid April, she accompanied Chrobry into Namsos in Norway. On 29 April 1940, she deployed with the destroyers HMS Echo, Firedrake, Havelock and Arrow to evacuate troops from Mo and Bodø to Harstad. Later, in June 1940, Vanoc took part in Operation Ariel, the evacuation of British and Allied troops from ports in western France, escorting a convoy of 10 ships from St Nazaire on 18 June.
  In early March 1941, Vanoc was assigned to the 5th Escort group and on 15 March the group joined Convoy HX 112 as escort. On the night of 15/16 March, the German submarine U-110, commanded by Fritz-Julius Lemp, sighted the convoy, and made a surface attack, torpedoing the tanker Erdona, which did not sink. The destroyer Scimitar spotted U-110 and summoned Vanoc and Walker. Together, the three destroyers attacked U-110 with depth charges, and Vanoc and Scimitar were assigned to keeping the submarine submerged while the convoy sailed away. Despite this, Lemp evaded the destroyers and re-sighted the convoy later that night, sending location signals that helped to direct more U-boats against the convoy.
  At about 10:00 pm on the night of 16/17 March U-99 under the command of the U-boat ace Otto Kretschmer infiltrated the convoy and fired U-99's remaining eight torpedoes, hitting six merchant ships and sinking five of them. At 01:30, Walker's sonar detected a submerged submarine, and after an initial attack by Walker and Vanoc, Walker left to rescue survivors from U-99's attack, leaving Vanoc to continue the attack. The depth charges caused serious flooding aboard the German submarine, U-100, under the command of Joachim Schepke, and Schepke, fearing the submarine would sink, and hoping that he could torpedo the British destroyer, ordered U-100 to the surface. Vanoc spotted U-100 on the recently fitted but primitive Type 286M radar, the first confirmed British surface ship radar sighting of a U-boat, and rammed the German submarine, sinking her. Only six of U-100's crew, not including Schepke, survived. Shortly afterwards, U-99, which was trying to slip out of the convoy on the surface, spotted Walker and dived. Walker picked up U-99 on her sonar and attacked with depth charges, forcing the submarine to the surface. Vanoc spotted the surfaced U-99, and both destroyers opened fire on the stricken U-boat, which was scuttled by her crew as they abandoned ship.
  From March 1942 she joined the Escort Group B-5 team of destroyers HMS Havelock, Caldwell, Walker, frigate Swale, and corvettes Pimpernel, Godetia, Saxifrage, Buttercup and Lavender.  Escort Group B-5 was reassigned to Caribbean trade convoys from March 1942; and returned to the Mid-Ocean Escort Force a year later to escort Convoy SC 122.
  On 16 March 1944, in the Straits of Gibraltar at position 35°55′N 05°41′W she co-operated with the frigate HMS Affleck and three 3 US Catalina aircraft (VP 63) to sink the submarine U-392 with a hedgehog attack, resulting in 52 dead (all hands) from U-392. On 21 January 1945, Vanoc collided with, and sank, the naval trawler HMS Computator off Normandy. (49°42′N 00°37′W).
  In June 1945, the ship was placed into reserve before being sold for scrap to T.W. Ward the following month. She was broken up sometime after mid-1946 in Falmouth.
caption: Able Seaman W. Connor loading a 12-pounder AA gun, 1941.
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