HMS Venomous – Another of the V-class destroyers. During the early days of the German Blitzkrieg she was engaged in operations off the Dutch coast and later northern France, where she successfully evacuated refugees from Calais and Boulogne.
On 23 May 1940, she joined several other destroyers off Boulogne to evacuate troops of 20th Guards Brigade who were trapped in the town. HMS Venomous and HMS Wild Swan entered the harbour at 20:35 hours and her gunners began to engage German tanks and troops in the town and the coastal batteries at Fort de la Crèche. She embarked the wounded and the first parties of Irish and Welsh Guards and departed at 21.30 hours with around 900 men in total. Her steering gear had been damaged and she was forced to manoeuvre using her engines during her journey back to Dover.
Venomous participated in Operation Dynamo and successfully evacuated 4,410 troops in her five trips to Dunkirk. The rest of the war was spent engaged in escort duties in the Western Approaches, Gibraltar, Western Mediterranean, North Atlantic and Arctic sectors. She survived the war and was eventually scrapped in 1948.
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