page_title: HMS Kempenfelt (I18)
section_title: Wartime service and transfer
hierarchical_section_title: HMS Kempenfelt (I18) / Service / Wartime service and transfer
caption_attribution_description: English: A view of German submarine U-210 manoeuvering at full speed on the surface in a desperate and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to evade destruction by HMCS ASSINIBOINE - 6 August 1942
context_page_description: HMS Kempenfelt was a C-class destroyer built for the Royal Navy in the early 1930s. A flotilla leader, she saw service in the Home Fleet before World War II and the ship made several deployments to Spanish waters during the Spanish Civil War, enforcing the arms blockade imposed by Britain and France on both sides of the conflict.
  Kempenfelt was transferred to the Royal Canadian Navy in 1939 and renamed HMCS Assiniboine. During World War II, she served as a convoy escort in the battle of the Atlantic, sinking one German submarine by ramming, on anti-submarine patrols during the invasion of Normandy, and was employed as a troop transport after VE Day for returning Canadian servicemen, before being decommissioned in mid-1945.
  Assiniboine was sold for scrap in 1945, but she ran aground while being towed to the breakers and was not broken up until 1952.
context_section_description: The ship was transferred to the 18th Destroyer Flotilla, based at the Isle of Portland, where she escorted shipping and conducted anti-submarine patrols. Kempenfelt had been purchased before the war began by the Canadian government, but it agreed to allow the British to retain her until the Royal Navy could compensate for her loss by requisitioning enough auxiliary anti-submarine vessels. By the time that the British were ready to turn her over to the RCN, the ship was under repair after a collision and the hand over was delayed until 19 October. She was renamed Assiniboine and arrived at Halifax, Nova Scotia on 17 November. The ship had not yet been fitting with the steam heating necessary to operate in a Canadian winter and she was transferred to the Caribbean in exchange for the destroyer HMCS Saguenay. Assiniboine arrived at Kingston, Jamaica, on 8 December.
  Assigned to the North America and West Indies Station, the highlight of the ship's service in the Caribbean was the capture of the German blockade runner MV Hannover in the Mona Passage between the islands of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico on the night of 8/9 March 1940. Initially intercepted by the light cruiser Dunedin, the crew of Hannover disabled their steering gear and set the ship on fire. Assiniboine took the burning ship under tow to prevent her from entering the waters of the neutral Dominican Republic while the cruiser sprayed water on the fire. The two ships swapped roles in the morning and the destroyer put some of her crew aboard Hannover to help Dunedin's boarding party fight the fire while the cruiser towed the freighter to Kingston. Assiniboine arrived in Halifax on 31 March for a refit.
  After the completion of her refit, the ship escorted local convoys in and around Halifax until 15 January 1941 when she was transferred to Greenock and assigned to the 10th Escort Group of the Mid-Ocean Escort Force that was based there. Assiniboine rescued survivors from SS Anchises on 28 February and was damaged in a collision with MV Lairdswood on 5 April. Her repairs were not completed until 22 May and she was transferred to St. John's, Newfoundland in June to reinforce escort forces in the Western Atlantic. In early August, Assiniboine, her sister Restigouche and the ex-American destroyer HMS Ripley, escorted the battleship Prince of Wales to Placentia Bay where Prime Minister Winston Churchill met President Franklin Roosevelt for the first time.
  Whilst escorting Convoy SC 94 in early August 1942 as part of Escort Group C1, Assiniboine's Type 286 radar spotted U-210 in a heavy fog on 6 August. The destroyer closed on the contact and briefly spotted the submarine twice before losing her in the fog. The submarine reappeared crossing the destroyer's bow at a range of 50 yards (46 m), and both ships opened fire. The range was too close for Assiniboine's 4.7-inch guns to engage, but her .50-calibre machine guns shot up the submarine's deck and conning tower. This kept the Germans from manning their 88-millimetre (3.5 in) deck gun, but the 20-millimetre (0.79 in) flak gun was already manned and firing. The gun punched holes through the destroyer's plating that set some petrol tanks on the deck afire and disabled 'A' gun. It also claimed the only Canadian casualty during the engagement: Ordinary Seaman Kenneth "Wiley" Watson from Revelestoke, British Columbia. The destroyer was unable to ram U-210 until the rear 4.7-inch gun hit the conning tower, killing the entire bridge crew and the .50-caliber machine guns were able to silence the flak gun. This caused Lieutenant Sorber, the senior surviving officer, to order the submarine to dive, but this meant that she had to hold a straight course while doing so. Assiniboine was able to take advantage of this and rammed U-210 abaft the conning tower whilst she was diving. This caused the electric motors to fail, damaged her propellers and led to water entering the submarine, as a result of which Sorber ordered the ballast tanks to be blown and the submarine abandoned. The destroyer rammed her again when U-210 resurfaced, droppe
caption: U-210 photographed from Assiniboine's deck, 6 August 1942
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