HMS Effingham (D98)

Effingham in 1938, after modernization.

In 1937–1938 Effingham was given an extensive modernization which radically changed her appearance. Her boilers were reduced from 12 to 10, as a result of which she was given a single vertical funnel in place of the two raked ones, and vertical masts. Her main armament was changed to nine BL 6-inch Mark XII guns on single mountings CP Mark XIV, with three superfiring forward in 'A', 'B' and 'C' positions, one on either wing, three superfiring aft in 'W', 'X' and 'Y' positions, and the ninth gun on the quarterdeck in position 'Z'. This arrangement necessitated an extra superstructure deck built in front of the bridge, which was itself rebuilt. She also received four 4-inch AA guns in single mountings (in 1939 these were removed and replaced by two twin mountings), the torpedo tubes were removed, and she received a crane for handling aircraft, though the proposed aircraft catapult was not fitted and she never actually carried an aircraft. Similar modernisations had been planned for her sisters Frobisher and Hawkins, but were postponed and then cancelled due to the outbreak of the Second World War.

Effingham in a Norwegian fjord, 1940

After she recommissioned Effingham served on the North America and West Indies station. Following the outbreak of the Second World War Effingham patrolled the Northern Atlantic, in the Iceland region and was flagship of the Northern Patrol Force and transported £2 million in gold reserves to Halifax, Nova Scotia in Canada. She hunted German surface raiders on her return, and this led her to be in Norwegian waters during the Norwegian Campaign. During this period, she was attacked by a submarine but not hit, continuing to bombard German positions in the hills around Narvik until May, when she escorted a troop convoy to Bodø.

On 18 May 1940 Effingham was lost while engaged on transport escort duties. Traveling at 23 knots (43 km/h), outside the Norwegian Leads to minimise the risk of air attack, she was only one hour away from her destination when she struck a large rock in the area of Bodø (Bliksvær), in the Faxsen Shoal, near Bodø (20 minutes from the destination), between Bliksvær and Terra islands. The rock was well known and it has been suggested that it was marked on the ship's charts, but when the navigator had drawn the ship's passage onto the map, his pencil mark had obscured the obstacle directly in the ship's path. More recent research by former Royal Navy Lieutenant-Commander Richard Noel John Wright has shown that there was no single rock but an entire shoal, which was not marked on the Royal Navy charts in use, and that three of the vessels traveling together struck the undersea ridge almost simultaneously (Smith, Peter C (2015), Sailors on the rocks, London: Pen and Sword, p. 215). No one was killed in the wreck, which was destroyed with a torpedo from the accompanying destroyer HMS Matabele on 21 May after all her crucial papers and equipment had been removed. The ship rolled onto her side, leaving much of her flank above water and the masts and funnel level with the surface. The wreck was dismantled by Høvding Skipsopphugging after 1945, only a few plates and components now being left on the sea bed.

During her brief war service, she was awarded the battle honours Atlantic 1939–1940 and Norway 1940. She is the only ship of the Royal Navy to have borne the name Effingham, but it was bestowed upon a shore installation for the training of naval special forces in 1943.