Commissioned with a Portsmouth crew in 1930, Folkestone served in the Persian Gulf before refit at Bombay and Colombo and transfer to the China Station. She changed crews at Hong Kong and Singapore while remaining on the China coast. A planned conversion into an unarmed survey vessel for New Zealand was overtaken by the outbreak of war. Re-armed for anti-submarine work, she went on to serve with nearly fifty convoys against German and Italian submarines. Her survival in Royal Navy service until 1947 shows how a modest patrol vessel could repay its cost across very different stations and missions.
Notable Point · 37:06-39:04
HMS Folkestone from the Persian Gulf to Atlantic convoys
Folkestone's service record shows how a modest interwar sloop moved from imperial patrol duties to sustained anti-submarine escort work.