Airfix Models dives back in to the model ship scene with their announcement of two new upcoming releases. Hot on the heals of Mirage Models new destroyer releases, Aifix is releasing the 1/400 HMS Montgomery and 1/400 HMS St Albans. A release date has yet to be announced. These kits will retail for $11.86.

Ships History
Originally the USS Wickes, the HMS Montgomery commissioned on the October 23 under the White Ensign as HMS Montgomery (G.95)—Lt. Comdr. W. L. Puxley, RN, in command.
The destroyer underwent further fitting out and familiarisation before departing Canadian waters on 1 November, bound for the British Isles. En route, Montgomery and the other of her sister ships in company swept through the scene of the one-sided naval engagement between the armed merchant cruiser HMS Jervis Bay and the German "pocket battleship" Admiral Scheer. This action had occurred on 5 November when the German warship attacked a convoy escorted by the erstwhile merchant steamship. Jervis Bay had gallantly interspersed herself between the raider and the convoy, allowing the latter to escape while being herself smashed to junk and sunk. Montgomery found nothing, however, and after searching briefly for the German "pocket battleship"—with orders to shadow by day and attack by night—arrived at Belfast, Northern Ireland, on 11 November.
Shifting to Plymouth, England, a week later, Montgomery was allocated to the Western Approaches command and based at Liverpool. During the course of one of her early patrols, Montgomery rescued 39 survivors from the torpedoed motor tanker Scottish Standard which had been torpedoed and sunk by U-96 on 21 February, 1941. Disembarking the rescued mariners on the 24th, Montgomery resumed her Western Approaches patrols soon thereafter.

The flush-decker underwent repairs at Barrow-in-Furness from April to September and was later assigned to the 4th Escort Group. Montgomery was modified for trade convoy escort service by removal of three of the original 4"/50 caliber guns and one of the triple torpedo tube mounts to reduce topside weight for additional depth charge stowage and installation of hedgehog.[1] Based now at Greenock, the destroyer operated between the British Isles and Canadian ports through the end of 1941. On 13 January 1942, the Panamanian-registered steamer SS Friar Rock was torpedoed and sunk by U-130 100 miles southeast of Cape Race, Newfoundland. Four days later, Montgomery picked up seven survivors from that ship.

In February 1942, Montgomery came under the aegis of the Western Local Escort Force at Halifax. Later in 1942, the destroyer was loaned to the Royal Canadian Navy before she sailed south and underwent repairs at the Charleston Navy Yard which lasted into the following year 1943. Resuming her coastwise convoy escort operations in February 1943, Montgomery rescued survivors of the torpedoed Manchester Merchant— sunk by U-628 on 25 February, 1943, 390 miles off Cape Race.
The destroyer remained with the Western Local Escort Force into late 1943, operating out of Halifax. On 12 December, 1943, she assisted the Bowater-Lloyd Paper Co. barge Spruce Lake and, on the 27th, departed Halifax for the British Isles, carrying the surviving crew members from the torpedoed British destroyer HMS Hurricane which had been sunk by U-415 on Christmas Eve.
Arriving in England soon thereafter, Montgomery was placed in reserve in the Tyne River on 23 February, 1944. Removed from the "effective list"—the British equivalent of the United States Navy's "Navy list"-the veteran flush-decker was subsequently broken up for scrap in the spring of 1945 shortly before the end of the war in Europe.



Originally the USS Thomas, the HMS St Albans (I15) was commissioned the September 23 for service in the Royal Navy, the destroyer sailed for the British Isles on 29 September. After calling at St. John's, Newfoundland, en route, she arrived at Belfast, Northern Ireland, on 9 October.
St Albans and three sister ships — St Mary's (I12) (ex-Bagley, DD-185); Bath (I17) (ex-Hopewell, DD-181); and Charlestown (I21) (ex-Abbot, DD-184) — were attached to the 1st Minelaying Squadron as permanent escort force. Operating off the west coast of Scotland, the destroyers participated in some of the earliest minelaying operations in the Denmark Strait which separates Iceland from Greenland.
Between minecraft escort missions, St Albans escorted convoys. On 17 and 18 January 1941, the destroyer searched for survivors from SS Almeda Star, torpedoed by U-96 on the 17th. St Albans underwent repairs at Chatham in February to prepare for her transfer to the Royal Norwegian Navy-in-exile on 14 April. She had no sooner entered service with the Norwegians than she collided with the minesweeper HMS Alberic, sinking the minecraft and sustaining enough damage herself to necessitate repairs in the dockyard.

When again ready for action, St Albans joined the 7th Escort Group, operating out of Liverpool. On 12 June, she picked up the survivors from the sunken steamship SS Empire Dew — torpedoed that day by U-48 — and brought them safely to Liverpool.
On 3 August 1941, while bound from Sierra Leone to the United Kingdom in the screen of convoy SL-81, St Albans joined destroyer HMS Wanderer (D74) and the Flower-class corvette HMS Hydrangea (K39) in sinking U-401. During subsequent operations screening convoys in shipping lanes between west Africa and the British Isles, St Albans made a score of attacks on U-boats but could not repeat her "kill" performance of 3 August.

During the following autumn, a heavy gale severely damaged St Albans while she was escorting convoy ON-22 on 8 October. The following day brought little respite from the high seas and strong winds, but St Albans's Norwegian sailors brought her safely into Reykjavík, Iceland. The destroyer's seaworthiness and the seamanship exhibited by her Norwegian crew elicited a warm commendatory signal from the Commander in Chief, Western Approaches (C-in-C WA). In this message of 12 October 1941, he also praised the destroyer's exemplary steaming performance during the previous three months.

St Albans, meanwhile, continued her escort duties with the 7th Escort Group into 1942. In March, she escorted the damaged aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious from Liverpool to the Clyde and, in the following month, helped to screen convoy PQ-15 as it carried arms to Russia. During the operation, heavy German air and submarine attacks took a toll of three Allied ships.
In wartime, however, mistakes in identification or errors in navigation sometimes lead to disaster. On one occasion, these factors combined with tragic results when St Albans and the minesweeper HMS Seagull sank the Polish submarine Jastrzab (formerly HMS P.551, ex US submarine S-25) on 2 May. Five crewmen were killed. Commanders of ships involved were later court-martialled but they were not found guilty, court decided that the accident was a mistake.

Later that month, the flush-decked destroyer joined the Liverpool Special Escort Division. Among the vessels escorted early in June was the Cunard-White Star liner RMS Queen Elizabeth, as the Cunarder steamed from the British Isles toward the Cape of Good Hope with troops bound for the Middle East. Then, after refitting at Falmouth between July and October 1942, St Albans again operated with the Special Escort Division until the end of 1942. In January 1943, she served as a target vessel for training RAF Coastal Command aircraft.
Late in February, she got underway and steamed into the North Sea toward the Scandinavian coast to search for a Norwegian merchantman which was reportedly attempting to escape to sea from Nazi-controlled waters. During this mission, the destroyer was attacked by German aircraft but emerged unharmed.

Shifted to the Western Local Escort Force soon thereafter, St Albans was based at Halifax and operated in convoy escort missions in the western Atlantic for the remainder of 1943. Departing Halifax four days after Christmas 1943, St Albans arrived in the Tyne on 10 January 1944, where she was soon laid up in reserve.