HMS Saladin was an Admiralty S-class destroyer that served with the Royal Navy in the Second World War. The S class was a development of the R class created during the First World War as a cheaper alternative to the V and W class. Launched in 1919 soon after the Armistice, the ship was commissioned into the Reserve Fleet and had an uneventful career until 1939. Upgraded shortly after the start of the Second World War with greater anti-aircraft and anti-submarine capabilities, Saladin served as an escort, usually for convoys of merchant ships, for the majority of the war. The ship was damaged by German aircraft while assisting in the Dunkirk evacuation in 1940 and involved in escorting the landing parties for the Normandy landings in 1944. After surviving the war, Saladin was retired and handed over to be broken up in 1947. At the start of the Second World War, Saladin was in reserve at Portsmouth.[20] It was intended that the warship would be sent to join the Eastern Fleet, but this was delayed by a boiler retubing. Instead, the destroyer was upgraded as an escort to join the Sixteenth Destroyer Flotilla.[21] The aft gun and torpedo tubes were removed and a high-angle QF 12-pounder anti-aircraft gun was fitted on a bandstand abaft the middle funnel. Two quadruple Vickers .50 machine guns were also mounted for close-in defence. ASDIC was installed along with eight depth charge throwers and new depth charge rails aft. A total of 112 depth charges were now carried.[7] On 28 and 29 May 1940, while assisting in the Dunkirk evacuation of 47,310 British troops as part of Operation Dynamo, Saladin was attacked ten times by the German Luftwaffe, receiving multiple hits but none that put the ship out of action.[22][23] Nonetheless, the ship's engine room was so severely damaged that the vessel had to sail back to Dover at 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph) and could take no part in the evacuation.[24] The destroyer was swiftly repaired ready to return to service. On 9 June, the ship was dispatched as part of the escort for a flotilla of ships sent to evacuate soldiers from Le Havre. Despite bombing from the Luftwaffe, 11,059 British troops were rescued by the flotilla on 11 June.[25] The following day, the destroyer arrived in St Valery, and evacuated an additional 15 sailors.[26] Buckton, Henry (2017). Retreat: Dunkirk and the Evacuation of Western Europe. Stroud: Amberley. ISBN 978-1-44566-483-5. Gardner, W. J. R. (2014). The Evacuation from Dunkirk: Operation Dynamo, 26 May–4 June 1940. London: Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-31797-358-4.