High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! HMS Aphis was a Royal Navy Insect class gunboat. She was built by Ailsa Shipbuilding Company, launched on 15 September 1915 and completed in November 1915. She served in Romania during World War I, then the China Station until 1940. All of her fighting service was in the Mediterranean, taking part in the invasion of Pantelleria and landings in the south of France, returning briefly to the Pacific in 1945. She was scrapped at Singapore in 1947. Her class was intended for shallow, fast flowing rivers and they also proved suitable for inshore operations when her relatively heavy weaponry could be used to support Army operations.