HMS Maidstone (1937)
HMS Maidstone in the harbour of Algiers. Alongside are HMS Safari and HMS Sahib
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| History | |
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| Class and type: | Submarine Depot Ship |
| Name: | HMS Maidstone |
| Builder: | John Brown & Company - Clydebank |
| Laid down: | 17 August 1936 |
| Launched: | 21 October 1937 |
| Commissioned: | 5 May 1938 |
| Reclassified: | Internment Holding area, 1970s |
| Fate: | Scrapped May 1978 |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 8,900 tons |
| Length: | 497 ft (151 m) |
| Beam: | 73 ft (22 m) |
| Speed: | 17 knots |
| Complement: | 1167 men |
| Armament: |
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HMS Maidstone was a submarine depot ship of the Royal Navy.
She was built to support the increasing numbers of submarines, especially on distant stations, such as the Mediterranean and the Pacific Far East. Her equipment included a foundry, coppersmiths, plumbers and carpenters shops, heavy and light machine shops, electrical and torpedo repair shops and plants for charging submarine batteries. She was designed to look after nine operational submarines, supplying over 100 torpedoes and a similar number of mines. Besides large workshops, there were repair facilities for all material in the attached submarines and extensive diving and salvage equipment was carried. There were steam laundries, a cinema, hospital, chapel, two canteens, a bakery, barber's shop, and a fully equipped operating theatre and dental surgery.
In September 1939 Maidstone was Depot Ship to the ten submarines of the 1st Submarine Flotilla. In March 1941 she went to Gibraltar. From November 1942, Maidstone was based at Algiers Harbour, the main Allied base in the Mediterranean. In November 1943 she was assigned to the Eastern Fleet. In September 1944 Maidstone and the 8th Submarine Flotilla were transferred from Ceylon to Fremantle in Western Australia to operate in the Pacific.
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