HMIS Bengal (J243) was a of the Royal Indian Navy (RIN) which served during the Second World War.
HMIS Bengal was ordered from Cockatoo Docks and Engineering Company, Australia, for the Royal Indian Navy in 1940. She was commissioned into the RIN in 1942.
HMIS Bengal was a part of the Eastern Fleet during the Second World War and escorted numerous convoys between 1942 and 1945.[1]
On 11 November 1942, Bengal was escorting the Dutch tanker [2] to the southwest of Cocos Islands in the Indian Ocean. Two Japanese commerce raiders armed with 5.50NaN0 guns attacked Ondina. Bengal fired her single 4inches gun and Ondina fired her 102mm gun and both scored hits on, which shortly blew up and sank.[2] Both Ondina and Bengal ran out of ammunition. Ondina was badly damaged by shellfire and torpedoes, and her captain signaled "abandon ship" before he died. Bengal, seeing there was nothing more she could do, sailed away.
The other raider,, machine-gunned the lifeboats with Ondinas crew aboard, causing some casualties, picked up the survivors from Hōkoku Maru and sailed off, believing that Ondina was sinking.[2] Ondinas surviving crew re-boarded their ship, put out the fires and sailed to Freemantle. Bengal, too, reached port safely.[3] [4]