HMS Gnat

Four ships of the British Royal Navy have been named HMS Gnat after the insect.

• The first Gnat was a Cheerful class gunboat built at Laird's shipyard and launched on 10 May 1856. She was broken up in August 1864.
• The second Gnat was a composite screw gunvessel launched at Pembroke Dockyard on 26 November 1867. She was wrecked on Balabac Island in the South China Sea on 15 November 1868.
• The third Gnat was a small coastal destroyer launched by Thornycroft at Chiswick on 1 December 1906 and sold for scrapping on 9 May 1921.
• The most recent Gnat was an Insect class gunboat launched by Lobnitz and Co. Shipyard at Renfrew in Scotland on 3 December 1915. She was torpedoed by a submarine on 21 October 1941 and beached at Alexandria, where she was converted to a fixed anti-aircraft platform. She was broken up in 1945.

References

• Colledge, J. J.; Warlow, Ben (2006) [1969]. Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy (Rev. ed.). London: Chatham. ISBN 978-1-86176-281-8. OCLC 67375475. 
• U-Boat.net