The first INS Rajput: Her tryst with destiny was in 1971

A gouache rendering of the original crest of one of the Indian Navy's oldest and most famous destroyers

The first INS Rajput, an R-class destroyer, sailed under the Indian tricolour in 1949. But before that she was the Royal Navy's HMS Rotherham, and in 1944 she sailed into the Indian Ocean to fight the Japanese. From Burma to Malaya she operated in support of the British Indian Army troops advancing against the Japanese. Finally, her commanding officer accepted the surrender of 34,000 Imperial Japanese Navy personnel at the Singapore Naval Dockyard in Sembawang. After fighting so much of World War Two in the Bay Of Bengal, perhaps she was fated to become part of the Indian Navy as INS Rajput. And off Vishakapatnam harbour in December 1971, she fulfilled her ultimate mission by sinking the submarine 'Ghazi' who was lying in wait, with torpedoes primed, to sink INS Vikrant, India's invaluable aircraft carrier.