1937

Cook Welton & Gemmell Hull

164428

173.0

518

625

28.6

283

27 04 1937

14.6

135 HP

14 07 1937

Amos & Smith

12 .8 K

Fate : 1964 Seriously damaged by a fire which broke out in the engine room while in St Andrews Dock Hull she was later scrapped

1939

FY124

Anti-Submarine

1946

April 29, 1942 The HMS Lady Elsa was escorting the Ashkhabad and her crew of 47, three of which were women, on her journey from New York to Cuba. At 09:50, HMS Lady Elsa spotted a U-Boat that was 500 yards off the starboard side of the Ashkhabad. HMS Lady Elsa fired one shot that caused the U-402 to dive but not before firing a single torpedo. The torpedo hit Ashkhabad on the starboard side just below the waterline. And although she had no watertight doors only the rear of the ship flooded. The U-402 partially surfaced about 500 yards off of the starboard side of the ship. The crew of the Ashkhabad, fired three shots from the forward .30-caliber gun, but all three missed. An hour after the attack, Captain Alexy Pavlovitch put all of his code books in a weighted box and sank them. Then he gave the order to abandon ship. The HMS Lady Elsa picked up all of the crew and took them to Morehead City.

On May 3, 1942, the USS Semmes, a destroyer, came upon the Ashkhabad and determined that she was abandoned and a navigational hazard and fired three rounds from her 3-inch guns. The hits caused the midship superstructure to catch fire. Seeing the fire, the HMS St. Zeno went to the Ashkhabad. The HMS St. Zeno fired a shot at the Ashkhabad, under the authorization of the commanding officer of the HMS Hertfordshire, who was in command of all British armed trawlers at Morehead City. His explanation was that he thought the HMS St. Zeno might sink the Ashkhabad and extinguish the fire.