ISBN: | 978-5-5121-3507-5 |
High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! HMS Lawford (K514) was a Royal Navy converted Captain class frigate (pennant DE-516), built in the US in 1944. She was converted into an HQ ship for the Normandy landings. On 8 June 1944, whilst operating off Juno Beach, she was hit by enemy fire during an air attack and sunk. Thirty-seven of her crew died. The Royal Navy`s damage summary report states that the ship was hit by an "aerial torpedo", which has been taken to mean a torpedo dropped from an aircraft. However, a survey of the ship undertaken as part of the Channel 4 TV series "Wreck Detectives" found evidence that the vessel was broken up and sunk by an internal explosion, indicating a hit from one or more bombs or from an early guided missile such as an Hs-293 or (less likely) a Fritz X.