HMS Aimwell
HMS Aimwell (W 113) was a Favourite-class tugboat of the Royal Navy during the Second World War.
History | |
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United Kingdom | |
Builder | Defoe Shipbuilding Company, Bay City, Michigan |
Launched | 8 April 1942 |
Commissioned | 6 June 1942 |
Stricken | 1 May 1946 |
Fate | Returned to US Navy, transferred to merchant service in 1948, mined in Mekong River, 1975 |
General characteristics | |
Displacement | 852 tons light |
Length | 143 ft (44 m) |
Beam | 33 ft 4 in (10.16 m) (extreme) |
Draught | 13 ft 2 in (4.01 m) (limiting) |
Propulsion | one General Motors Diesel-electric model 12-278A
single Fairbanks Morse Main Reduction Gear Ship's Service Generators one Diesel-drive 60 kW 120 V D.C. one Diesel-drive 30 kW 120 V D.C. single propeller, 1,500shp |
Speed | 13 knots (24 km/h; 15 mph) |
Complement | 45 |
Armament |
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Service history
Aimwell was laid down on 15 November 1941 at the Defoe Shipbuilding Company in Bay City, Michigan, as BAT-7. She was delivered to the United States Navy and was transferred to the Royal Navy under the Lend-Lease Act on 6 June 1942. HMRT Aimwell was visited by Franklin D. Roosevelt on 26 January 1943, when Roosevelt was returning from the Casablanca Conference.[1] The tug was stationed with West Africa Command between 1942 and 1943.[2] She returned to American custody postwar on 30 March 1946. BAT-7 was struck on 1 May 1946 and sold to Moller on 6 January 1948. Renamed Patricia Moller, she was again renamed Golden Cape in 1952 and finally sold in 1971 to the Luzon Stevedoring Corporation.[3] She was renamed Hawkeye and was mined and sunk in the Mekong on 3 February 1975.[4]
References
This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships.
- Roosevelt, Franklin D. (January 1950). Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: F.D. Roosevelt, 1943, Volume 12. p. 48. ISBN 9781623769727.
- "Admiralty War Diaries, West Africa Command".
- "Aimwell (W-113)". Great Lakes Vessels Online Index. Bowling Green State University. Retrieved 1 April 2015.
- "Navsource Service Ship Photo Archive".