Allied Warships

HMS Howe (32)

Battleship of the King George V class

HMS Howe as completed.

Navy	The Royal Navy
Type	Battleship
Class	King George V
Pennant	32
Built by	Fairfield Shipbuilding & Engineering Co. (Govan, Scotland)
Ordered	28 Apr 1937
Laid down	1 Jun 1937
Launched	9 Apr 1940
Commissioned	28 Sep 1942
End service	21 Apr 1949
History	Decommissioned to Reserve on 21 April 1949. Sold to T. W. Ward in 1957, arrived at Inverkeithing for scrapping 4 June 1958.

Commands listed for HMS Howe (32)

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	Commander	From	To
1	Capt. Charles Henry Lawrence Woodhouse, RN	3 Apr 1942	Dec 1943
2	Cdr. John Dreyer Shaw-Hamilton, RN	Dec 1943	2 Mar 1944
3	Capt. Henry William Urquhart McCall, DSO, RN	2 Mar 1944	13 Feb 1946

4	Capt. Robert John Shaw, RN	25 Aug 1947	6 Jul 1948

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Notable events involving Howe include:

11 Dec 1942
HMS H 32 (Lt. C. Gordon, RN) conducted A/S exercises at / off Scapa Flow with HMS Goathland (Lt.Cdr. E.N. Pumphrey, RN, DSO and Bar, DSC, RN). After these exercises HMS H 32 conducted a practice attack on HMS Howe (Capt. C.H.L. Woodhouse, CB, RN). (1)

19 Aug 1944

Operation Banquet,
Carrier raid against Padang, Sumatra, Netherlands East Indies by ships of the Eastern Fleet.

On 19 July 1944 ships from the Eastern Fleet put to sea from Trincomalee, Ceylon. The Task Force was called Force 64 and was made up of the following ships; British aircraft carriers HMS Victorious (Capt. M.M. Denny, CB, CBE, RN), HMS Indomitable (Capt. J.A.S. Eccles, RN), the British battleship HMS Howe (Capt. H.W.U. McCall, DSO, RN), the British light cruisers HMS Ceylon (Capt. G.B. Amery-Parkes, RN), HMS Kenya (Capt. C.L. Robertson, RN) and the British destroyers HMS Rotherham (Capt. H.W. Biggs, DSO, RN), HMS Raider (Lt.Cdr. K.W. Michell, DSC, RN), HMS Redoubt (Lt.Cdr. N.E.G. Ropner, DSO, RN), HMS Rapid (Lt.Cdr. M.W. Tomkinson, DSC and Bar, RN) and HMS Rocket (Lt.Cdr. H.B. Acworth, OBE, RN).

On the 17th the Royal Fleet Auxiliary tanker Easedale (8032 GRT, built 1942 escorted by the Dutch light cruiser HrMs Tromp (A/Capt. F. Stam, RNN) had already gone to sea to be in a position to refuel ships from Force 64 on the 22th.

On the 24th the carriers launched aircraft to attack Padang. They claimed to have sunk a transport and to have damaged two more transports. (2)