The name commemorates the Battle of the River Aisne, which was fought in September 1914, during the First World War. In which the British Expeditionary Force, under the command of General Sir John French successfully held the German advance.

1945-1970. Destroyer. Battle Class. 2,380 tons. Built by Vickers Armstrong Ltd. Newcastle onTyne. Launched May 12th, 1945 by Mrs Morse. On the 12th March 1946 Lt P.R.S. Brayn took command for the period of completion and initial trials. 1947- Completed. Commissioned on February 12th, Commander G. L. Farnfield i/c as part of the 4th DF March 6th, dedicated by the Right Reverend Lord Bishop of Newcastle. She worked up and exercised with the Vanguard and Superb off Gibraltar. Returning to Chatham on the 17th April. In June after calling at Portsmouth, she paid a visit to Copenhagen with the Superb. July 22nd on the Clyde for the Fleet Review at Greenock. August 13th at Chatham for Summer leave and a temporary period laid up.

1948- Chatham Dockyard. August back in full commission she sailed with the 4th DF to Gibraltar.
On the 28th due to ill health, Cmdr Farnfield was relieved by Commander Juniper. September from Portland exercises in the English Channel with the 4th DF and Home Fleet units and paid visits to Portland and Jersey. 23rd September left for the Home Fleet Autumn Cruise to the West Indies, with the Duke of York, 2nd CS and 4th DF. October 8th reached the West Indies. Visits were made to Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, Belize, Jamaica, Bermuda and the Bahamas, Nassau and the Azores. December 13th back in Chatham for Christmas leave.

1949- Home Fleet 4th DF. Commander Juniper i/c. January 24th sailed from Chatham to Portland and then on to the Mediterranean. Spring cruise visits to Malta, Famagusta, Dhekelia, Beirut, Larnaca, and Limassol on April 10th. Followed by a visit to Rhodes, Lindos and Kyrenia. 23rd Port Said. May 2nd back in Chatham. June 30th, at Penzance, to start Exercise Verity in the Bay of Biscay, a NATO exercise that lasted just over a week. Western Union Combined Manoeuvres followed the NATO exercise with Implacable then July 22nd back in Chatham via Weymouth and Torbay. August 4th Captain J. C. A. Ingram took over command. Autumn spent in Home Waters, November 22nd Sheerness and Chatham for Christmas leave. 1950- Home Fleet. 4th DF. Captain Ingram i/c. January at Chatham for minor repairs.
On completion to Portland. 28th January sailed with the 4th DF and other Home Fleet units for the Spring Cruise. Arrived Gibraltar February 2nd. March, visit to Palma Bay, took part in Exercise Long Reach. Back to Chatham on completion arriving on the 31st. And paid off into the Reserve Fleet.

1951- Chatham Dockyard, refitting. May 5th Commander M. G. Haworth took command. Rejoined the 4th DF. 12th left Chatham. July 18th after a visit to Portland anchored off Southend. 26th Chatham for Summer leave. September 5th sailed for exercises off Invergordon. October 5th back in Chatham in preparation for the Abadan Oil Crisis, which thankfully passed by without the need for the 4th DF. On the 19th October left Plymouth for Gibraltar with the 4th DF, for the Fleet Regatta. Detached to join the Med Fleet, and on the 4th November with the others left Gibraltar for Malta, arriving on the 10th. December 12th off Port Said, relieved Agincourt and Corunna on station.

1952- Mediterranean. 4th DF. Cmdr Haworth i/c. January 25th sailed from Malta at short notice, Civil disorder in Egypt, with 4th DF, the Glasgow and Manxman. February returned to Malta and on the 26th commenced Exercise Grand Slam, returning to Chatham on completion March 7th to May 15th for refitting at Chatham Dockyard.
16th May sailed for Portland. June took part in Exercise Castinets that ended with a visit to Falmouth. July paid a visit to Lorient before returning to Chatham. Late August left for Invergordon to prepare for the large NATO Exercise Mainbrace, and Arctic trials, which lasted from September 13th to the 25th, this was followed by a visit to Korsor on completion. October 1st Rosyth, followed by visits to Invergordon and Londonderry. December 1st, Chatham and Christmas leave.

1953- Home Fleet 4th DF. Commander Haworth i/c. January 19th sailed to operate in Home waters.. March 27th, Commander J. R. G. Trechman took command at Chatham. May 5th sailed from Chatham. July paid a visit to Rosyth before going to Spithead to take part in the Queens Coronation Review of the Fleet on June 15th. 27th July, Chatham Dockyard for Summer Leave. October 12th left Chatham for Portland on the 17th. November 11th off Torbay for target shoot with the Agincourt. 18th left Portland with the 4th DF for Guard Ship Duty in mid Atlantic for the Queens flight to Canada. Met mountainous seas during the whole period. On completion the Flotilla returned to Londonderry to refuel, on the 28th, after the Aisne had secured alongside, the Barrosa nipped in from the starboard quarter and dug her bows into her boiler room leaving a slot about 2 foot wide across the edge of Aisne’s iron deck, Barrosa quickly backed off-- too quickly in fact as a merchant ship was passing her stern--a full ahead was made to avoid a collision but she came back into the Aisne smashing her starboard whaler. Welders came on board and worked almost till midnight. The damage was sufficient that the destroyer had to sail back to Chatham for the necessary full repairs to be undertaken. December, Chatham Dockyard under repair and Christmas leave. Miles covered for the operation 2,468.

1954- Home Fleet. 4th DF. Commander Trechman i/c. January 25th left Chatham for Home Fleet Spring Cruise, calling at Portland, leaving on the 4th February for Gibraltar.
10th at Gibraltar. On the 17th, Barrosa again collided with the Aisne whilst at Gibraltar. 26th with others paid a visit to Casablanca before returning to Gibraltar. April 4th at Chatham. May 7th Portsmouth. On the 8th at Torbay to escort the Royal Yacht Britannia up the English Channel to Portsmouth on the 14th. 15th sailed for Portland then on to Scottish waters. June 11th at Scapa Flow. 19th to Aberdeen for a 4 day visit. 26th June to Helsinki, where a firework display went badly wrong. The whole harbour was packed for the display, when the first rack of rockets were fired the back flash ignited around 150 rockets which exploded firing in all directions. The gun deck caught fire and in seconds was a blazing inferno. 3 people were seriously injured including 2 civilians. July 3rd sailed from Helsinki and arrived Rosyth on the 7th. Navy Days at Rosyth. Arrived at Chatham on the 20th calling at Portland on route. 1st September at Portsmouth. 28th off the Lofoten Islands for Exercise Morning Mist. 1st October completed the exercise in Norwegian waters and visited Bergen. 4th October visit to Liverpool. 11th arrived Chatham to pay off.
December 1st re-commissioned. Commander A. Gray took command. 11th arrived in Portland and joined the Agincourt and Corunna, en route to Gibraltar. 22nd December arrived in Malta.

1955- Mediterranean. 4th DF. Commander Gray i/c. January 14th started large-scale tactical Exercise Catchcan, a convoy exercise in the eastern Med, returning to Malta on completion. Spring Cruise to Cyprus and Lebanon, taking part in Exercise Lebanex en route, February 1st, Beirut (it was here on the 4th that four ratings were drowned in a boating accident) and then to Famagusta. Also during February, she took part in the Large-scale Exercise Gradient Easy, and then back to Malta to change gun barrels and work on faulty boilers. March 10th to 15th took part in all ship exercise Lancex, and later in the month escorted the Royal Yacht Britannia into Malta with the Duke of Edinburgh onboard. On the 22nd all the ships from the exercises sailed to Naples and Exercise Easter Egg in the Messina Straits, then on to Civitavecchia before returning to Malta. April 13th sailed from Malta to operate around Cyprus and a visit to Tripoli. May 1st at Port Said for boiler clean. Then back to Malta for a refitting until September 25th then left Malta to return to the UK via Gibraltar. October 3rd arrived at Chatham Dockyard. 28th October, to Rosyth for exercises off Cape Wrath. November 11th visited Liverpool, then on to Londonderry for Submarine Commanders Course Training in the Irish Sea and Rothesay. December 12th Chatham for Christmas leave.

1956- January Chatham. 4th DS. Commander Gray i/c. 16th sailed for Portland and on to Gibraltar, taking part in Exercise Spring Six Able en route, plus a visit to Ceuta. Then to Gibraltar for self-refit. Late in the month, she took part in Exercise Spring Six Baker with the Tyne, en route to Valencia. Mid-March took part in combined fleet exercises around Naples and Cyprus patrols. Malta: on the 24th. May, after a call at Tripoli the Aisne made her way back to the UK. Visits were made to Greenwich, Portland and Cherbourg before she returned to Chatham. She was paid off in June, de-stored and laid up in the Reserve Trots at Sally Point
She was later towed to Chatham Dockyard. Some interesting facts:- During the commission December 1954 to June 1956. Aisne steamed 33,380 miles, used 10,837 tons of furnace oil, 1,019,500 slices of bread, 44,400 lbs of meat, 1,200,000 spuds, 27,240 lbs flour, 60,000 eggs, 3 miles of sausage, issued 38,026 tots, 14,256 bars of nutty, used 16,500 tablets of soap and 3,213 tins of bluebell.
More interesting facts from the 1954-56 commission:- 8,227 pots of paint, 2,226 pints of meths, 8,197 bars of Pussers soap, 6 tons of waste and rags were used. The electrical department drew 9,285 lamps. The gunnery department disposed of 2,215 4.5in shells, 27 squid bombs, 1,926 rounds of Bofors shells, 23 torpedo tubes were fired and recovered. 645 offenders were led to the table and left it with 1,350 days extra work. And on the love side, the ships postman had to carry 67,500 letters to the Fleet Mail Office. The gamblers bought 4,600 Tombola tickets. All this while the ship spent 185 days at sea out of the 548.
The Aisne was to languish in the Reserve from 1956 to 1961 until it was decided to refit her as a Radar Picket Ship.

1961- October 30th work was started on her at Chatham to modernise the destroyer into a Radar Picket Ship, at the cost of £2.25 million.

1962- January, Commander W. Noble took command. 10th returned to sea for trials, which lasted until the summer. She then joined the 7th DS in the Mediterranean. August 9th, took part in Exercise Riptide 2, off Gibraltar that included the United States carriers Forrestal and Enterprise.
At the end of the exercise, the British ships visited Lisbon. September paid visits to Lemnos, Larnaca & Haifa.
October 12th visit to Mersin for five days before visiting Beirut. 27th, Malta. 31st sailed for Izmir to take part in Exercise Medaswex and returning to Malta on the 11th November. November 20th sailed from Malta to visit Cartagena in Spain and Exercise Spanex until the end of the month. December was spent in and around Malta.

1963- Mediterranean. 7th DS. Commander Noble i/c. January 5th went to the aid of the cruise liner Canberra, with the Scorpion, after a fire in her main generator room, but the Canberra managed to put out the fire herself. 19th visited Taranto with the Dunkirk and Scorpion. 30th, the Aisne struck the Trafalgar while entering Malta and suffered minor damage. February 4th the squadron sailed for Naples, then on to Cyprus patrols. 23rd sailed for Beirut and onward journey to Suda Bay. March took part in exercises off Tobruk, then on the 30th sailed through the Suez Canal to relieve the Corunna in the Persian Gulf. In the spring visited Aden, Mombassa and Zanzibar. May 24th sailed through the Suez Canal back into the Mediterranean, arriving at Malta on the 26th for a two week maintenance period, that was completed June 11th. During June visits were made to Palma, Ajaccio and Bordighera. July 30th Portsmouth for refit. The refit was completed on the 4th November and, following trials, Aisne joined the 30th ES. The rest of the year was spent operating between Portsmouth and Portland.

1964- 30th ES. January 2nd, Commander M. J. Garnett took command. March 12th sailed from Portsmouth to Birkenhead and on to Greenock. April 4th at Aberporth, 11th at Portsmouth. May 15th arrived at Gibraltar. During the summer visits were paid to Malta, Argostoli, Bari and July 6/11th Venice.
July 13th Malta.
August 18th visit to Villefranche. 11th September, sent to the Far East after extra weapons were fitted for the Indonesian conflict. Arrived at Singapore on the 26th, and went on a war footing for confrontation patrols.
The ship did two weeks on patrol between Malaya and Indonesia trying to catch insurgents crossing into Malaya. After two weeks the ship went on standby either in Singapore or on visits to Hong Kong or Penang and then it was back to two weeks of patrols. While preparing to refuel off Singapore, the ship suffered a tragedy.
A bolt fired across from the tanker, bringing the first line over; became snagged or ricocheted causing the bolt to become lodged in the head of one of the ships fuelling party who was taking cover behind the gun turret. The forecastle party built some protection from the sun and tried to hold him still as he thrashed about with the bolt sticking from his skull. The ship went rapidly to full power towards Singapore where en route it was met by a helicopter bringing a doctor from the naval base Terror. But the kid died shortly after the doctor removed the bolt from his head. Aisne returned to Malta on the 11th December.

1965- Early in the year she returned to Chatham. March 5th, with the Cassandra, five-day visit to Bergen. 17th, Portsmouth. April 6th, Chatham.
11th after carrying out exercises with the Falmouth visited Barrow in Furness. May 18th Chatham. 25th May to Visited Portsmouth for minor repairs. June 12th left with the Falmouth. 17th at Gibraltar for four days. 29th made the southbound transit of the Suez Canal. July 16th, following visits to Aden and Gan, arrived at Singapore. August 4th for the next nine days operated with the Ark Royal in Exercise Fotex 65 and later Exercise Guardrail,
Completing on the 4th September. 21st at Hong Kong, leaving on the 30th for Singapore. October visited Penang, and then returned to Singapore for a maintenance period that lasted until the 8th November. November 12th, goodwill visit to Bangkok. 22nd with the Falmouth in company started the journey home to the UK.
December 5th, the northbound transit of the Suez Canal. 11th, Gibraltar. 15th Portsmouth. 17th Chatham where Commander A. Gray took command. 30th entered long refit at Chatham.

1966- Chatham Dockyard under refit. May 6th refit completed, 8th started sea trials. 27th at Portsmouth.
June 10th declared operational to the fleet and left Portsmouth on the 13th for Portland to work up. August 12th at Portsmouth. September 4th Commander Gueterboak took command. October more working up at Portland, continuing off Gibraltar on the 18th. November 1st made the southbound passage through the Suez Canal. 13th arrived at Gan. 19th Singapore for a maintenance period. 28th started in Exercise Twin Top, that finished on December 9th. December, Hong Kong for the Christmas period.

1967- Far East. January 2nd at Singapore. During the month operated with the carrier Victorious, and had a nine-day stopover in Hong Kong. February 11th in dockyard hands Hong Kong. 27th sailed from Hong Kong to Iloilo, the Philippines to take part in Exercise Siyasat, which lasted until the 18th March, she then returned to Singapore on the 21st. April 3rd at Gan, and started her return journey back to the UK. Arrived Portsmouth 28th for refit. During her eight-month tour of duty in the Far East, she steamed 32,000 miles.
July 3rd completed her refit, her first duty on completion was as plane guard to the Eagle in the Bristol Channel on the 13th. 20th paid a five-day official visit to Oslo. August 16th, rejoined the Eagle as plane guard. 26th Portsmouth, for summer leave. October 2nd sailed to Gibraltar. 11th visited Palma en route to Malta. Visited Lorient before returning to Chatham.

1968- January 4th left Portsmouth for the Caribbean
Cruise. 8th Ponto Delgada in the Azores, also in January paid visits to Terceira, Barbuda, St Thomas, Tobago and Montserrat. February, visit. 9th Port Canaveral for four days before visiting Freeport. 23rd West Palm Beach. March 2nd Key West before taking up Bahama’s Patrol Duties, with a break at Freeport on the 8th. Towards the end of the month visit to Bermuda before crossing the Atlantic and arriving in Portsmouth on the 28th March. 22nd May, Portland before sailing to Scottish waters for an exercise which was cancelled due to poor visibility. Remained at Rosyth until the 24th June when she sailed for Londonderry. July 16th visit to Helsingborg, which was followed by Exercise Forthex. Also in that month took part in the Western Fleet Assembly off Rosyth. August 2nd, Decommissioned at Portsmouth. Officially paid off September 18th. Laid up Portsmouth.

1970- June 3rd sold to T. W. Ward for breaking up. 23rd towed from Portsmouth and arrived Inverkeithing for breaking up as scrap...