Description

HMS Acasta was one of eight A-class destroyers built for the Royal Navy (RN) in the 1920s. The ship spent most of the 1930s assigned to the Mediterranean Fleet. During the early months of the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939, Acasta spent considerable time in Spanish waters enforcing the arms blockade imposed by Britain and France on both sides of the conflict. At the beginning of the Second World War in September 1939, the ship was assigned convoy escort duties in the English Channel and the Western Approaches that lasted until April 1940 when the Germans invaded Norway. That month Acasta was transferred to the Home Fleet and supported Allied operations in Norway. Whilst escorting the aircraft carrier Glorious on 8 June 1940, she was sunk by the battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, but not before badly damaging the former ship.