page_title: HMS Whirlwind (R87)
section_title: Royal Navy service
hierarchical_section_title: HMS Whirlwind (R87) / Royal Navy service
caption_attribution_description: English: Type 15 Frigate HMS Whirlwind, c1965 (IWM HU 130047)
context_page_description: The second HMS Whirlwind was a W-class destroyer of the British Royal Navy and was built by Hawthorn Leslie and was launched on 30 August 1943. She saw service during World War II and the Cold War.
context_section_description: On commissioning, when the ship was assigned the pennant number R87, Whirlwind was allocated to serve with the Eastern Fleet, and left Britain in October 1944. While on passage, she was briefly diverted to operations in the Mediterranean, escorting the battleship King George V during a bombardment of the island of Milos in the Aegean on 13 November 1944, before continuing to the Eastern Fleet's base at Trincomalee in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). Whirlwind joined the British Pacific Fleet when it formed on 22 November 1944, and took part in the fleet's first operation, Operation Robson, a strike by carrier-borne aircraft from Indomitable and Illustrious against targets in Sumatra on 17–23 December 1944. On 16 January 1945, the British Pacific Fleet, including Whirlwind, left Trincomalee for the Pacific. The task force's carriers launched two raids against oil refineries in Sumatra, Operation Meridian on 24 January and 29 January before completing passage to the Pacific when the Fleet reached Fremantle in Australia on 4 February 1945.
  Following service in the Second World War, Whirlwind was based at Rosyth in 1947 and 1948 as a boys training ship. Between 1952 and 1953 she was converted into a Type 15 fast anti-submarine frigate by Palmers, with the new pennant number F187.
  She recommissioned on 28 July 1953 and was allocated to the 5th Frigate Squadron for service in the Mediterranean.  In 1954 she participated in the recovery of the wreckage of the crashed de Havilland Comet off the island of Elba. In 1956 she was part of the Royal Navy force deployed to the Eastern Mediterranean as part of the Suez Crisis.  At this time she was part of the 5th Frigate Squadron. She also undertook patrols off the Cyprus coast.  Between June 1959 and May 1961 she underwent a refit at Rosyth.
  In 1961 Whirlwind recommissioned to the 8th Frigate Squadron for service at Home and in the West Indies. In December 1962 Whirlwind was at Bermuda during the talks between British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and American President John F. Kennedy that resulted in the Nassau Agreement  which allowed Britain to purchase Polaris nuclear-armed missiles. Whirlwind's crew provided security for the meeting while the ship formed a communications link for the Ministry of Defence. In 1964, along with HMS Rothesay, Whirlwind deployed for patrol off Bahamas to intercept illegal traffic from Cuba.
caption: Whirlwind after conversion to Type 15 Frigate, c1965 (IWM)
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