From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Four ships of the British Royal Navy have been named HMS Icarus, after the Icarus of Greek mythology.
- The first Icarus was a 10-gun brig-sloop launched in 1814, on coast guard duty in 1839, and sold 1861.
- The second Icarus was a screw sloop in service from 1858 to 1875.
- The third Icarus was a sloop in service from 1885 to 1904.
- The fourth Icarus (D03) was an I-class destroyer laid down by John Brown and Company, Limited, at Clydebank in Scotland on 9 March 1936, launched on 26 November 1936 and commissioned on 1 May 1937. Icarus attacked and sank the enemy German submarine U-35 while in company with the destroyers HMS Kingston and HMS Kashmir off the Shetlands Isles on 29 November 1939, participated in the Second Battle of Narvik in April 1940 and the pursuit and destruction of the enemy German battleship Bismarck in May 1941, attacked and sank the enemy German submarines U-774 while in company with HMCS Gatineau 450 miles west of Valanta on 5 March 1944, U-744 while in company with the corvette HMS Kenilworth Castle, the Canadian frigate HMCS St. Catherines, corvettes HMCS Fennel and HMCS Chilliwack and destroyers HMCS Chaudiere and HMCS Gatineau in the North Atlantic on 6 March 1944, U-1199 while in company with the corvette HMS Mignonette in the English Channel near the Scilly Isles on 21 January 1945 and U-1199 off Falmouth on 22 January 1945. HMS Icarus paid off on 29 August 1946, was handed over to the British Iron and Steel Corporation on 29 October 1946 and broken up at Troon in Scotland.
