HMS Daring spent five years on the China Station before the war that killed her. She had been built at Woolston on the Solent in 1932, briefly commanded by Lord Louis Mountbatten in 1934, and then sailed for the Far East where she stayed until war drew her home. She got back to the United Kingdom in January 1940 for the first time in five years. Three weeks later she was on the North Sea, escorting a convoy from Norway. Before dawn on 18 February, a single torpedo from U-23 blew her stern off. She capsized and sank in minutes. 157 of her ship's company went down with her.
Daring was ordered on 2 February 1931 under the 1930 Naval Estimates and laid down at John I. Thornycroft's yard at Woolston, Southampton, on 18 June 1931. She was launched on 7 April 1932 and completed on 25 November of the same year, at a total cost of £225,536 excluding weapons and wireless. She was a D-class destroyer - a class of nine ships built in the early 1930s to replace older vessels and refine the inter-war destroyer doctrine. Daring displaced 1,375 long tons standard, was 329 feet overall, and could make thirty-six knots with her Parsons geared steam turbines. She mounted four 4.7-inch Mark IX guns in single mounts, four 2-pounder anti-aircraft guns, eight 21-inch torpedo tubes in two quadruple mountings, and depth charges. Her company was 145 officers and ratings. She was a fast, hard-hitting, conventionally-designed ship for the navy of the 1930s.
Daring's first assignment was to the 1st Destroyer Flotilla in the Mediterranean, and in September and October 1933 she made a brief deployment to the Persian Gulf and Red Sea. On 29 April 1934, Lord Louis Mountbatten - then a thirty-three-year-old captain with a reputation for innovation and ambition - took command. Mountbatten was a great-grandson of Queen Victoria, a cousin of the king, and on his way to becoming one of the most important British military figures of the twentieth century. His tenure on Daring was short. The ship was given a refit at Sheerness in September and October to prepare her for the China Station, and in December 1934 she sailed for the Far East to join the 8th Destroyer Flotilla. On arrival at Singapore, Mountbatten was transferred to other command and Commander Geoffrey Barnard took over.
Daring stayed on the China Station - based at Hong Kong, working the South China coast, ranging as far as Shanghai - for nearly five years. This was the era of British gunboat diplomacy along the Yangtze and the period when Japan was steadily extending its war in China. When war in Europe broke out in September 1939, Daring and her sisters were transferred to the Mediterranean Fleet, then put to work in the Red Sea on escort and patrol duties. She was overhauled in Malta from late November to late December. In early 1940 she escorted the Union-Castle Line liner SS Dunnottar Castle to Belfast, then went into Portsmouth for repairs. On 25 January 1940 she was ready for the North Sea. She joined the 3rd Destroyer Flotilla at Scapa Flow on 10 February for escort duties on the Norway convoys - the supply lines that the German Navy had begun to attack in earnest.
Eight days later Daring was escorting Convoy HN12 from Norway when U-23, commanded by Oberleutnant zur See Otto Kretschmer, found her in the dark before dawn on 18 February 1940. Kretschmer was at the start of a career that would make him the most successful U-boat commander of the war. The torpedo hit Daring's stern. The damage was catastrophic. The ship capsized and sank very quickly, with her stern simply blown away. 157 of her company died. One officer, Lieutenant Lawrence Andrew Rogers RN, and three ratings were rescued from a Carley float by the destroyer HMS Inglefield and landed at Scapa Flow on 20 February. One more rating was pulled from the wreckage by Daring's sister HMS Diana, with assistance from a submarine, and brought to Rosyth on the 19th. Five survivors in all. A model of the ship by Norman A. Ough is held by the National Maritime Museum. The men were 157 names.
Coordinates 58.64N, 1.75W - approximate position where U-23 torpedoed Daring on 18 February 1940, in the North Sea east of Orkney on the Norway-Scotland convoy route. The flotilla base was Scapa Flow in Orkney. Nearest airport is Kirkwall (EGPA) about 50 nm west; Wick (EGPC) is 50 nm southwest. Cruise altitude 3,000-5,000 ft over the area gives a sense of the open North Sea passage. Weather is North Sea winter typical for the loss - rough seas, low cloud, cold dark dawn. Otto Kretschmer's U-23 was a Type IIB coastal boat operating from German bases - a small submarine that nonetheless wrote one of the war's costliest single attacks on a Royal Navy destroyer.