Qualla: HMS Whirlwind (R87) https://qualla.com/hms-whirlwind-r87 en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:13 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/k/9/hms-whirlwind-r87-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: HMS Whirlwind (R87) https://qualla.com/hms-whirlwind-r87 HMS Whirlwind (R87): Introduction https://qualla.com/hms-whirlwind-r87/ Photo credit Royal Navy official photographer, Public domain. On the 29th of October 1974, a hulk that had once been a warship slipped beneath the grey water of Cardigan Bay. There was no ceremony. The vessel had been towed out from Pembroke Dock five years earlier, stripped, repainted in dull red, and moored as a target for missile trials. The sea did what the sea does to abandoned ships. HMS Whirlwind, R87, took her last bearing on the sea floor about 14 miles off the coast of west Wales. She had been launched at Hawthorn Leslie's Hebburn yard on the 30th of August 1943, sailed in three different navies' worth of theatres, and finished her active career as a frigate in the West Indies. Then she came home to be killed.

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Image: Royal Navy official photographer | Public domain

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/k/9/hms-whirlwind-r87-wp/gck9-hms-whirlwind-r87-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full HMS Whirlwind (R87): Built for War in a Hurry https://qualla.com/hms-whirlwind-r87/ Photo credit Royal Navy official photographer, Public domain. Whirlwind was one of the eight W-class destroyers of the 9th Emergency Flotilla, ordered on 3 December 1941 when Britain still expected the war to last for years. The War Emergency Programme destroyers were built to be simple, fast to construct, and good enough. They borrowed the...

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Image: Royal Navy official photographer | Public domain

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/k/9/hms-whirlwind-r87-wp/gck9-hms-whirlwind-r87-built-for-war-in-a-hurry.mp3 0:06 2 full HMS Whirlwind (R87): Pacific Fleet https://qualla.com/hms-whirlwind-r87/ Photo credit Royal Navy official photographer, Public domain. Whirlwind sailed for the Eastern Fleet in October 1944, was briefly pulled aside to escort the battleship King George V during the bombardment of German-occupied Milos in the Aegean on 13 November, then continued to Trincomalee in what was then Ceylon. When the British Pacific Fl...

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Image: Royal Navy official photographer | Public domain

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/k/9/hms-whirlwind-r87-wp/gck9-hms-whirlwind-r87-pacific-fleet.mp3 0:06 3 full HMS Whirlwind (R87): Conversion and Cold War Service https://qualla.com/hms-whirlwind-r87/ Photo credit Royal Navy official photographer, Public domain. After the war the W-class destroyers were modernised for a different kind of conflict. Between 1952 and 1953, Palmers' shipyard at Hebburn rebuilt Whirlwind as a Type 15 fast anti-submarine frigate, fitted with new sonar, hedgehog mortars, and a deep low-set forward superstructur...

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Image: Royal Navy official photographer | Public domain

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/k/9/hms-whirlwind-r87-wp/gck9-hms-whirlwind-r87-conversion-and-cold-war-service.mp3 0:06 4 full HMS Whirlwind (R87): Bahamas Patrol https://qualla.com/hms-whirlwind-r87/ Photo credit Royal Navy official photographer, Public domain. Her last operational years were spent with the 8th Frigate Squadron in home waters and the West Indies. In 1964, she ran patrols in the Bahamas to intercept smuggling traffic from Cuba in the years following the Cuban Missile Crisis, working those same warm Atlantic shoals where ...

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Image: Royal Navy official photographer | Public domain

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/k/9/hms-whirlwind-r87-wp/gck9-hms-whirlwind-r87-bahamas-patrol.mp3 0:06 5 full HMS Whirlwind (R87): Cardigan Bay https://qualla.com/hms-whirlwind-r87/ Photo credit Royal Navy official photographer, Public domain. On 12 August 1969 Whirlwind was towed from Portsmouth to Pembroke Dock, where she was stripped of useful fittings and prepared for use as a target ship on the MoD Aberporth range in Cardigan Bay. She rode at her mooring through five winters of Atlantic weather. Various missiles a...

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Image: Royal Navy official photographer | Public domain

]]> Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/k/9/hms-whirlwind-r87-wp/gck9-hms-whirlwind-r87-cardigan-bay.mp3 0:06 6 full