HMS Scylla (98)

HMS Scylla was a British light cruiser of the Dido - class during the Second World War.

The Scylla was built at the shipyard of Scotts Shipbuilding and Engineering in Greenock. Like her sister ship HMS Charybdis Scylla was equipped with 11.4 - mm guns instead of the typical class 13.3- cm guns, as there was in these bottlenecks. Due to its historic name and the nominally weaker armament the two ships carried the nickname " Toothless Terror ", although they showed themselves superior to the remaining ships of the class in the field of air defense.

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After commissioning in June 1942, the Scylla was commissioned as part of the Home Fleet, with the protection of convoys in the Arctic Ocean.

She was assigned to Gibraltar Already on 15 October 1942, where she participated in the following month at the landing operations in North Africa ( Operation Torch ) as part of the Eastern Task Force to target Algiers. In December she left the Mediterranean to take part in the Bay of Biscay in the hunt for returning blockade runners of the Axis powers. On January 1, 1943, she began about 200 nautical miles northwest of Cape Finisterre from the German blockade runner Rhakotis. When the Scylla opened fire, sank the German crew their ship.

In February she took accompanying tasks in some North Sea convoys, but returned in June in the Bay of Biscay back to protect anti - submarine operations.

In September 1943, she was part of the disk group that supported the Allied landings at Salerno ( Operation Avalanche ), but returned immediately back to the UK to be rebuilt as a flagship. The renovation work lasted until April 1944. At the landing operations in Normandy ( Operation Neptune ) she took part as part of the Eastern Task Force.

On June 23, 1944, the Scylla ran on a mine and was so badly damaged that it was written off as a total loss. She was towed to Portsmouth and used in the period 1948-1950 in the ship target practice. As of May 4, 1950, she was scrapped at Thomas W. Ward Ltd in Barrow-in -Furness.