HMS Stella Capella
The HMS Stella Capella was a British fishing trawler that was converted into an auxiliary warship and used as a submarine hunter during World War II . The cutter was completed in August 1937 at the Cook, Welton & Gemmill shipyard in Beverley (Yorkshire) under the original name of Admiral Hawke and was subsequently used by the fishing company CH Smith & Co. Ltd. in Kingston upon Hull . Renamed Stella Capella in July 1939 , the trawler was requisitioned by the British Admiralty after the outbreak of war in September 1939 and converted into a makeshift submarine hunter. The small warship received the identification FY-107 and was armed with a 102-mm gun, two 20-mm anti-aircraft guns and a device for unrolling depth charges at the stern.
War missions and loss
After the outbreak of war, the 507 GRT ship was initially used in the British home waters, from spring 1942, after the start of the German submarine offensive against the American east coast ( Operation Paukenschlag ), the submarine hunter then patrolled the sea area Iceland and was detached to the 41st Anti-Submarine Group based in Iceland.
During one of these watch missions, the trawler was sighted southeast of Iceland by the German submarine U 701 under the command of Kapitänleutnant Horst Degen , which was on its way to the American east coast, and attacked with two torpedoes . The attack took place around 2:10 a.m. and was completely unexpected for the crew of the trawler. The submarine had been watching the warship for almost an hour earlier. One of the torpedoes hit HMS Stella Capella in the aft ship at 2:11 a.m. The hit also detonated the depth charges carried by the submarine hunter, which is why the cutter was almost completely torn apart. The ship sank ( lay ) within two minutes and took the entire crew with it into the depths. A total of 33 British seamen were killed in the sinking, including the commander of HMS Stella Capella , Lieutenant Walter L. Sadgrove.
Map with all coordinates: