HMS Perth was a steamship that was built in Scotland in 1915, renamed Lafonia in 1946 and Valfiorita in 1950, and scrapped in Italy in 1962.

She was designed as a coastal passenger and cargo liner, but was completed in the First World War as an armed boarding steamer for the Royal Navy.

In the Second World War she was converted into an ocean boarding vessel, and served also as a convoy rescue ship.

She left Dundee on 17 November, and sailed via Devonport, Gibraltar, Malta, Port Said, the Suez Canal and Aden to the island of Perim, where she arrived on 20 December.

[4] On 15 June 1916, Perth took part in a joint sea, air and land attack on the Ottoman Army garrison at Jeddah.

This cut off a supply route to the Ottoman garrison defending Mecca, which then fell to Hejaz irregulars on 4 July.

[6] For repairs and refitting, Perth paid two visits to the Royal Indian Navy dockyard in Bombay in British India.

She sailed via the Suez Canal, and Port Said to Alexandria, where she joined a convoy that went via Bizerta and Gibraltar to home waters.

The U-boat dived and torpedoed two cargo ships in the convoy: the British Bylands and Italian Manin.

Perth rescued Bylands' crew, and inspected the abandoned Manin, and then buried her dead at sea.

[1] In the interwar period Perth fulfilled the rôle for which she had been designed: running a coastal cargo and passenger service between Dundee and ports on the east coast of England, usually Tilbury.

During the war she served also as a convoy rescue ship,[10] for which her equipment included high-frequency direction finding.