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The story of the J34 occupies a period of approximately six years during and after WW2. At the time of her construction in 1941, the UK was fighting virtually alone against the Axis powers. The battle of the Atlantic had not yet been won, and the factories were working flat out to produce weapons, tanks, aircraft and ships.

The first two new fleet Minesweepers built since the war began were launched at Belfast on 14th February 1940. Two months later they were joined by another; she was HMS Bangor, and gave her name to the class. The Bangor was also part on the 9th Minesweeping Flotilla.

More than a hundred ‘Bangor’ class minesweepers followed, most of them built during the years 1940-42. They were in fact the smallest ships in the Navy to be classed as major war vessels.

The Tenby was built by Hamilton White and Co at Glasgow and was completed on 8th December 1941.

The ‘Bangors’ had been designed pre-war for coastal minesweeping of moored mines. But when war came the plans had to hurriedly altered, and the ‘Bangors’ left the slipway modified with additional equipment and armament.

The ‘Bangors’ were named after British coastal towns, and they were encouraged to adopt the Ship bearing their name, send them comforts and books and raise money for them in Warship Weeks.

As a whole the ‘Bangors’ were bad sea ships, with an average of 9ft draught fore and aft, they had little stability and even in a moderate head sea they used to bury their bows into the water and throw it green over the bridge.

In bad weather they were a nightmare. I can well remember the many times when I had to eat meals in the small mess area aft, adjacent to the Officer’s quarters as the for’rard mess decks were completely uninhabitable. Fortunately, minesweeping required calm seas and so in this respect we were fair weather-sailors. However, all that was to change later in the war when we were assigned to convoy duties.

The Tenby was first allocated to the 14th Minesweeping Flotilla, Rosyth Command, and was operating out of the Clyde at the beginning of December 1941. From the middle of January 1942 she was in the 9th Minesweeping Flotilla based at Portsmouth.

For the first couple of years most sweeping operations took place in the English Channel. Generally, this was a tedious, very tiring, gruelling, dangerous and largely unexciting procedure. Few mines were located and even fewer swept. When one did pop to the surface this was an occasion of some jubilation. All would-be marksmen rushed to take a shot at it. They usually missed! So it was left to the Dan-layers (trawlers) which accompanied the Flotilla, to finish it off. To see a mine blowing up was a most awesome sight.

The first important operation (codenamed Jubilee) was the combined Allied raid on Dieppe on 19th August 1942. 237 Naval vessels were employed including the 9th Flotilla, which swept ahead of the invading forces (a foretaste of DDay). With hindsight the raid was not an unmitigated success.

The Calpe (the commanding vessel) was hit by enemy fire and damaged, and the destroyer Berkley was damaged by air attack and had to be sunk. 33 Landing craft were lost and there were 3363 Canadian and 247 Commando casualties. The Germans lost only 600 in all and 48 aircraft against British losses of 106.

On 5th January 1943 the Tenby took part in operation QV1; this was mine laying off Haddock Bank, off coast of Norfolk, with Plover, Blythe and Puffin.

At the beginning of February 1943, J34 was temporality transferred to the Nore Command with the 9th Minesweeping Flotilla, she then returned to Portsmouth Command in early May 1943.

During early September 1943, a deception sweep was carried out with another flotilla between Dover and Calais. Starting from the English coast near Dover one flotilla swept for mines over a set time. The second flotilla would then cross in front of the first to carry on sweeping towards the French coast.

So the operation continued. ERA George Barlow wrote the following account;
On the first day’s sweeping we came under a barrage of German gunfire, and during this time swept up a cylinder-shaped vessel. This was sent ashore to be inspected. A report came back that it was used by the Germans as a sound detector to pick up the propeller noises of passing ships. General shooting accuracy diminished somewhat after the detector was removed, which was just as well as HMS Blackpool had received a direct hit by a shell, which fortunately did not explode, entering the paint locker through the fore-deck and going out of the ship’s side by the port anchor.

We swept for three days, the bridge reporting on the final sweep that curtains could be seen in the windows of French buildings through normal binoculars, we were so close.

Sweeping continued pace for the remainder of 1943. Christmas leave was cancelled, we swept all over Christmas — much to everyone’s chagrin, and so into 1944 and the run-up to the big one, DDay.

Footnote: In the first three years of war British sweepers swept 5,500 mines. The price paid was high; 173 minesweepers were lost, 77 sunk by mines, 58 destroyed by aircraft and 38 lost due to other causes.

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