Byard (DE-55)
Sir Thomas Byard commanded the ship-of-the-line HMS Bedford in the Battle of Camperdown on 11 October 1797.
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Donaldson (DE-55) was laid down on 15 October 1942 at Hingham, Mass., by the Bethlehem-Hingham Shipyard; but was allocated to the United Kingdom under lend-lease before being launched on 6 March 1943. Her American name was canceled and reassigned first to DE-508, then finally to DE-44. The ship was turned over to the Royal Navy on 18 June 1943 and commissioned as HMS Byard (K.315). Byard earned her “battle honors” during World War II for service in the North Atlantic during 1943 and 1944, but enjoys the distinction of being the first “Captain”-class frigate (as the British called the lend lease destroyer escorts) to destroy a German U-boat, accomplishing this feat on 17 October 1943 when she sank U-841. Returned to the United States on 12 December 1945, the warship was carried on the United States Navy list as DE-55 until struck on 7 February 1946. Sold initially to the Atlas Steel and Supply Co., Cleveland, Ohio, on 5 November 1946, she was twice resold: first to the Kulka Steel and Equipment Co., of Alliance, Ohio, on 8 December 1946, and then to the Bristol Engineering Co., Somerset, Mass., on an unspecified date. She was ultimately scrapped.
Robert J. Cressman
21 November 2005
