HMS Express (H61)

Aerial view of Express, November 1942
History
United Kingdom
Name	Express
Ordered	1 November 1932
Builder	Swan Hunter, Tyne and Wear
Launched	29 May 1934
Commissioned	2 November 1934
Identification	Pennant number: H61
Motto	"Celeriter" ("Quickly")
Fate	Transferred to Canada, 15 June 1943
Canada
Name	Gatineau
Namesake	Gatineau River
Acquired	15 June 1943 (given to Canada)
Commissioned	3 June 1943
Decommissioned	10 January 1946
Stricken	1 April 1947
Honours and awards	Atlantic 1943–44 Normandy 1944
Fate	Scuttled as a breakwater, 1948
General characteristics (as built)
Class and type	E-class destroyer
Displacement	1,405 long tons (1,428 t) (standard)
Length	329 ft (100.3 m) o/a
Beam	33 ft 3 in (10.13 m)
Draught	12 ft 6 in (3.81 m) (deep)
Installed power	3 × Admiralty 3-drum boilers 36,000 shp (27,000 kW)
Propulsion	2 × shafts; 2 × geared steam turbines
Speed	35.5 knots (65.7 km/h; 40.9 mph)
Range	6,350 nmi (11,760 km; 7,310 mi) at 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph)
Complement	145
Sensors and processing systems	ASDIC
Armament	4 × single 4.7 in (120 mm) guns 2 × quadruple 0.5 in (12.7 mm) machine guns 2 × quadruple 21 in (533 mm) torpedo tubes 20 × depth charges, 1 rack and 2 throwers 60 mines

HMS Express was an E-class minelaying destroyer built for the Royal Navy in the early 1930s. Although assigned to the Home Fleet upon completion, the ship was attached to the Mediterranean Fleet in 1935–36 during the Abyssinia Crisis. During the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939, she spent considerable time in Spanish waters, enforcing the arms blockade imposed by Britain and France on both sides of the conflict.

Express spent most of the first year of World War II laying minefields in British, Dutch and German waters. She participated in the evacuation of Allied soldiers from Dunkirk in May–June 1940, but resumed minelaying afterwards. The ship was one of five British destroyers that inadvertently entered a German minefield off the Dutch coast a few months later, leading to the sinking of two destroyers and Express having her bow blown off, incapacitating her for over a year of repairs. Two months after returning to duty, Express escorted the battleship Prince of Wales and the battlecruiser Repulse (Force Z) to Singapore in late 1941, in an unsuccessful attempt to deter Japanese aggression against British possessions in the Far East. She escorted the capital ships in an attempt to intercept landings in British Malaya in December and rescued their survivors after they were sunk by Japanese bombers. Express was then assigned convoy escort duties in and around Singapore and the Dutch East Indies under the control of American-British-Dutch-Australian Command (ABDACOM) as the Japanese advanced. She escaped from the East Indies and rejoined the main body of the Eastern Fleet in the Indian Ocean. The ship played a minor role in Battle of Madagascar as she screened an aircraft carrier during the late stages of the campaign in 1942.

Express returned home in early 1943 to begin conversion into an escort destroyer. Upon its completion in June, the ship was transferred to the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) and renamed Gatineau. She was assigned to convoy escort duties with the Mid-Ocean Escort Force and participated in sinking a German submarine in March 1944. Gatineau was transferred to Northern Ireland in preparation in May for the Invasion of Normandy and was sent to Canada in July to begin a lengthy refit. The ship was only operational for a few months before the war ended in May 1945 and she returned to Canada shortly afterwards. Gatineau was paid off in early 1946 and was sold the following year. The ship became part of a breakwater on the coast of British Columbia in 1948.