HMS Cybele

Vessel name on Arrival: HMS Cybele

Original Builder: William Denny & Brothers, Dumbarton, Scotland

Original Yard No: 1383

Official Number:

Vessel Type: minedestructer

GRT: 3980

Year Built: 1943

Arrival Date: 18/10/1946

Breakup Started: 25/10/1946

Date First Beached: 31/10/1946

Date Breakup Completed: 11/12/1946

Draught For’d: 11' 2"

Draught Aft: 12' 6"

Name Changes:

Other Information:

Ordered by the Admiralty in September 1943 and built under the utmost conditions of secrecy at Denny's Dumbarton site (the design was still classified in 1960!) in parallel with an identical vessel (HMS Sirus) being built by Swan Hunter at their Wallsend site.

The two vessels, of a trimaran structure, were specially designed and built for towing through minefields containing pressure mines, based on the theroy that doing so would create pressure waves that would detonate the mines.

They were fabricated using a steel lattice truss framework, and the open nature of the lattice framework would, according to the design thinking, allow the detonating blast to pass through the vessel without causing undue damage.

The vessels were 350 ft  x  60 ft., were without a power source but could be steered remotely under towage.

They carried no crew members being remote controlled.

 

16-11-1943  :  Launched

May 1944      :  Completed and Commissioned

 

After launching, the vessel was delivered to Scott Lithgow's Lower Clyde facilities for fitting out.

 

HMS Cybele was used, successfully, in Operation Overlord – D-Day invasion of Northern France.

 

No circumstantial details are available, nor photographs, but HMS Cybele appears to have arrived for breaking already broken – the Stern end arriving in Troon on 18th October 1946, whereas the Fore end arrived in Troon on 2nd November 1946.  It is assumed that the reason photographs of these special vessels do not appear to exist is becasueof the secrecy and classification factors.