HMS Express (H61) was a British, and later Canadian, destroyer from the interwar period and World War II. The launch took place in May 1934, and entry into service with the Royal Navy - in November of the same year. The total length of the ship at the time of launching was 100.3 meters and a width of about 10.1 meters. Full displacement reached approx. 1950 tons, and maximum speed reached approx. 35-36 knots. The armament at the time of launching consisted of, among other things: four single 120 mm guns, two quadruple 533 mm torpedo tubes and depth charges.
HMS Express (H61) was one of the destroyers belonging to the E-type. In general, the destroyers of this type were modeled on the D-class, with marginally improved sea performance, slightly changed armament, and a different hull structure. Interestingly, two of the units of this type (incl HMS Express) were capable of setting minefields. HMS Express (H61) was built at the Swan Hunter shipyard in Scotland, and immediately after entering service, it entered the Home Fleet. However, very soon (1935) it was directed to the Mediterranean Sea. In the years 1936-1939, and therefore during the civil war in Spain, he performed patrol and surveillance tasks in this area. After the outbreak of World War II, HMS Express was already serving in the waters surrounding Great Britain, and in the summer of 1940 it took part in the evacuation of Allied soldiers from Dunkirk (Operation Dynamo). In 1941, the destroyer escorted the battleship HMS Prince of Wales on its way to Singapore. At the turn of 1941/1942, he operated in Southeast Asia, performing the tasks of escorting convoys. The unit also served on the ABDACOM team, but managed to escape from the East Indies to the Indian Ocean, where it became part of the Eastern Fleet. In early 1943, the unit returned to Great Britain and was converted into an escort destroyer. After this modernization, it was handed over to the Canadian Navy, where HMS Express (H61) served under the name Gatineau. The destroyer performed under the flag with the maple leaf the tasks of escorting convoys in the Atlantic. The unit also indirectly participated in the Normandy landings in June 1944. The destroyer was decommissioned shortly after the end of World War II.