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The crew of HMS Castle Harbour. This pre-war tugboat was taken up from trade (TUFT) at the start of WWII and used to take the Royal Navy's examination officer to meet arriving vessels for inspection. As the War progressed, she took on wider duties including anti-submarine patrol. her armament grew from an SMLE rifle to include artillery and machine guns, and anti-submarine depth charges. She was commissioned as HMS Castle Harbour in 1943, recognizing that she had become a warship. Crewed by locally recruited Royal Navy Reservists (also note a Sea Scout, fourth from the right,) she was deployed to the Mediterranean theatre at the end of 1943 as her usefulness at Bermuda had become excess to need. She never made it to the Med, however, being sent to the bottom by a German submarine. |