HMCS Arleux
There has been only one vessel named Arleux in the Royal Canadian Navy.
HMCS Arleux (J14) / Battle-class Trawler
The Battle-class trawlers were built during the closing days of First World War. Based on the British Castle-class trawlers, these ships were of slightly larger tonnage than the British ships, and it was the first class with a distinct Canadian designation. All 12 vessels of the class received names for land battles of the First World War in which components of the Canadian Army took part. Many of these vessels also served in the Second World War but five of them exchanged their name for numbers in 1942.
HMCS Arleux was named for the Battle of Arleux (28-29 April 1917), when components of the First Canadian Division took that town during the Second Battle of Arras (9 April – 16 May 1917), as part of a larger effort to close the Arleux Loop. Despite intense hand-to-hand fighting, this Canadian effort would be the only successful component of this larger assault on the loop. The Second Battle of Arras also saw the Canadian capture of Vimy Ridge.
HMCS Arleux saw only brief service before being handed over to the Department of Marine and Fisheries, though in common with several sisters she remained nominally a naval vessel until 1922. As a fisheries patrol vessel she frequently acted as mother ship to the winter haddock fishing fleet off the east coast. Taken up again by the RCN, she was commissioned 13 September 1939, and in 1942 designated Gate Vessel 16 at Halifax. She was sold for commercial use on 15 February 1946, and foundered 19 August 1948 off White Head Bay, NS.
- Builder: Canadian Vickers, Montreal
- Date launched: 9 August 1917
- First commission: 5 June 1918 – 30 June 1922
- Second commission: 13 September 1939 – 1 May 1942
- Displacement: 362.7 tonnes
- Dimensions: 40 m x 7.6 m x 4 m
- Speed: 10 knots
- Armament: one 12-pdr.