HMS Barrosa (D68) was a later or 1943 fleet destroyer of the Royal Navy.
Design and construction
The Battle-class was developed as a result of operational experience in the early years of the Second World War, which had shown that the Royal Navy's existing destroyers had inadequate anti-aircraft protection, and in particular, lacked a modern dual-purpose main gun armament, capable of dealing with both surface targets and air attack, with guns lacking the high elevation mountings necessary to deal with dive bombers. The resulting design was armed with two twin 4.5 inch high-angle gun-turrets of a new design mounted forward and a heavy close-in anti-aircraft armament, with 16 Battle-class destroyers ordered under the 1942 construction programme.
For the 1943 construction programme, 24 Battle-class destroyers of a revised design (known as "1943 Battles") were ordered, with four destroyers (Barrosa, , Talavera and Trincomalee) to be built by the Scottish shipbuilder, John Brown & Company.
Barrosa was long overall, at the waterline and between perpendiculars, with a beam of and a draught of normal and at full load. Displacement was standard and full load. Close-in anti-aircraft armament was eight Bofors 40 mm gun, with two twin stabilised STAAG mounts, with integrated fire control, aft, one simple Mark V twin mount amidships, and two single mounts on the bridge wings. Two quintuple 21 inch (533 mm) torpedo-tubes were fitted, with a Squid anti-submarine mortar aft. was one of six 1943 Battles ordered on 10 March 1943. The destroyer was laid down by John Brown at their Clydebank shipyard as Yard number 615 on 28 December 1943, launched on 17 January 1945 and completed on 14 February 1947.
Operations
On commissioning, Barrosa joined the 4th Destroyer Flotilla of the Home Fleet, but later in the year, a manpower shortage caused most of the Flotilla, including Barrosa to be laid up in reserve. Barrosa returned to active duties with the 4th Flotilla in 1948. In April 1950, Barrosa was placed in Reserve, as part of a wider transfer of destroyers to reserve with Loch-class frigates being returned to active service to improve the Royal Navy's anti-submarine capability. Barrosa spent much of her time in the Mediterranean, duties including anti-arms smuggling patrols off Cyprus.
In November 1956 Barrosa formed part of the Royal Navy force deployed in the eastern Mediterranean during the Suez Crisis, as part of the 4th Destroyer Squadron.
Refit and conversion to radar picket
On 15 March 1959, Barrosa collided with her sister ship in the Bay of Biscay. Later that year, Barrosa entered an extensive programme of modification to become a radar picket, with the addition of the Sea Cat missile, as well as new anti-aircraft weaponry and new radar. In 1963 Barrosa joined the 8th Destroyer Squadron, based in the Far East, before joining the 26th Escort Squadron. As well as radar picket duties, tasks included operations against pirates, and on 10 February 1963, Barrosa intercepted a pirate boat, with a gun battle occurring between Barrosa s search party and the pirates, with one of the destroyer's crew killed. The ship also carried out anti-infiltration patrols during the Indonesia–Malaysia confrontation.
In March 1967, at the start of her final commission, Barrosa was used in attempts to break up the oil spill from the supertanker Torrey Canyon, which had run aground off Cornwall, with detergent. In November 1967, she formed part of a naval task force deployed to cover the British Withdrawal from Aden. Other duties during this last commission included taking part in the Beira Patrol. On 2 October 1968, Barrosa took the Royal Fleet Auxiliary stores ship Lyness in tow after Lyness engine had broken down east of Shetland, stopping the supply ship from being driven onto rocks until power could be restored. She arrived at Blyth in Northumberland for scrapping on 1 December 1978.