BYMS 2025
British Yard Mine Sweeper
BRITISH YARD MINE SWEEPERS
BYMS’s were built in the United States and transferred the Royal Navy under the Lend-lease Programme. “British Yard Mine Sweepers” are so called because they were built to the same design as the US Navy’s “Yard Mine Sweepers”.
Crews for the BYMS’s would sail to the United States, often on the Queen Mary, which could sail unescorted because of her greater speed, to collect their vessel. They would then have the formidable task of sailing their small vessel back across the Atlantic Ocean, often in winter.
MINE SWEEPING FLOTILLA: 154th MSF, West Africa: 2010, 2017, 2018, 2021, 2025, 2149, 2244, 2261. 1943.
Built by: Ballard Marine Railway Co., Inc., Seattle, Washington, USA. (West Coast)
Laid down: 12 August 1941.
Launched: 21 February 1942.
Handed over to Royal Navy: 14 July 1942.
Returned to USA: 10 December 1946.
SPECIFICATIONS:
Wooden hull. Length, 130 feet. Beam, 25 feet 6 inches. Depth, 12 feet I inch. Draft, 8 foot 10.5 inches. Displacement 207-215 tons.
Engine: Two 800 bhp General Motors diesel engines.
Speed: 14.6 knots. 10 knots while sweeping. (Eight knots with double Oropesa sweeps)
Range: 2,500 at ten knots.
Compliment: 3 officers and 27 men.
Armament: One 3-inch HA/LA gun and two Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns.
BYMS’s were fitted with a drum on the stern with LL (double L) cables for sweeping magnetic mines, an acustic hammer on the bow for sweeping acustic mines and Oropesa floats for sweeping tethered mines.
All YMS and BYMS were built to the same design, the only variation was in the number of exhaust stacks. Minesweepers 1 to 134 had two sacks, 135 to 480 had one stack, 466 to 479 had no stacks.
MOVEMENTS.
14 July 1942, completed.
22 Feb 1943, Seattle, USA.
25 to 28 Feb 1943, San Francisco, USA.
1 to 5 April 1943, Trinadad.
13 May 1943, Freetown, Sierra Leone, West Africa.
9 April 1944, Bathurst, South Africa.
1944, Listed as unserviceable.
18 June 1945, Las Palmas, Canary Islands.
22 to 24 June 1945, Gibraltar.
9 July 1945, Plymouth, England.
10 December 1946, returned to USA.
OFFICERS ON THE NAVY LIST, June 1943
Skipper, W. A .Fallowfield, 22Apr 42.
Tempy. Skipper. H. Burrell, 12Mar 42.
Tempy. Skipper. G. A. Jappy, 22 Apr 42.
OFFICERS ON THE NAVY LIST, June 1944.
Skipper, W. A .Fallowfield, 22Apr 42.
Tempy. Skipper. G. A. Jappy, 22 Apr 42.
OFFICERS ON THE NAVY LIST, July 1945.
Tempy. Lieut., J. Peacock, April 45.
Skipper, D. Patience, 10 June 44 .
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