service as Torpedoboot Ausland. Flottenbegleiter These 10 fleet escort vessels of the F class were the German equivalent to the Allied destroyer escorts and frigates. Captured ships Some destroyers were captured and used by the Germans; for full list see Torpedoboot Ausland. ZH1 The Dutch destroyer Hr.Ms. Gerard Callenburgh was built by RDM Rotterdam and launched on 12 October 1939. The Dutch attempted to scuttle this ship during the German invasion, but the destroyer was salvaged and completed under German control with technical guidance from Blohm & Voss. She was commissioned as the ZH1 on 11 October 1942. The Germans retained most of the Dutch armament and equipment. The ZH1 spent most of her life on trials in the Baltic, but transferred to Western France via the English Channel in November 1943. When the western allies invaded Normandy in 1944, the German destroyers based in western France attempted to interdict the invasion armada. The German squadron was intercepted by an Allied force – the 10th Destroyer Flotilla (HMS Tartar, Ashanti, Eskimo, Javelin, HMCS Haida, Huron, and ORP Błyskawica, Piorun). In the night action, ZH1 was torpedoed and sunk by Ashanti on 9 June 1944; 33 men were lost. ZF2 The hull of the French Le Hardi-class destroyer L'Opiniatre was captured intact and 16% complete in Bordeaux. The Kriegsmarine intended to complete her for service. Since French armament was not available, and for standardisation with the rest of the German Navy, 127 mm guns and German pattern torpedo tubes were ordered. Work proceeded tardily until all progress was abandoned in July 1943. The hull was eventually broken up on the slip ZG3 (Hermes) The Greek destroyer Vasilefs Georgios was captured in damaged condition after the fall of Greece, then repaired in Greece with assistance from the Germaniawerft and commissioned by the Kriegsmarine as the ZG3 or the Hermes. She was the only major Kriegsmarine surface ship in the Mediterranean Sea during World War II, and she was involved in escorting convoys to North Africa and the Aegean Islands. Hermes detected and depth charged the Royal Navy submarine HMS Splendid off Capri, Italy, on 21 April 1943, forcing it to surrender; Splendid was scuttled by her crew. Hermes was damaged by air attacks off Tunisia. Hermes had to be scuttled in La Goulette, Tunis, on 7 May 1943. The Sleipner-class Destroyers Four out of six of Norway's s were captured following Germany's