HMS Zealous (R39)

HMS Zealous moored at Gourock, March 1945
History
United Kingdom
Name	HMS Zealous
Ordered	12 February 1942
Builder	Cammell Laird
Laid down	5 May 1943
Launched	28 February 1944
Commissioned	9 October 1944
Out of service	Sold to Israel, 15 July 1955
Israel
Name	INS Eilat
Acquired	15 July 1955
Commissioned	July 1956
Fate	Sunk by Egypt on 21 October 1967
General characteristics
Class and type	Z-class destroyer
Displacement	1,710 tons
Length	362.7 ft (110.6 m)
Beam	35.7 ft (10.9 m)
Propulsion	Geared turbines two shafts 40,000 hp (30,000 kW)
Speed	37 knots (69 km/h; 43 mph)
Complement	186
Armament	4 × QF 4.5-inch (113 mm) guns 5 × Bofors 40 mm guns 8 × 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo tubes

HMS Zealous was a Z-class destroyer of the Royal Navy built in 1944 by Cammell Laird. She served during the Second World War, participating in operations in the North Sea and off the Norwegian coast, before taking part in some of the Arctic convoys. She spent a further ten years in Royal Navy service after the end of the war before being sold to the Israeli Navy, which operated her as INS Eilat. She saw action during the Suez Crisis in 1956 attacking Egyptian ships, and was still active by the outbreak of the Six-Day War in 1967. She was sunk several months after the conflict by missiles launched from several small Egyptian missile boats; this made her the first vessel to be sunk by a missile boat in wartime. It was an important milestone in naval surface warfare, which aroused considerable interest around the world in the development of small manoeuvrable missile boats.