HMCS Asbestos

There has been only one vessel named Asbestos in the Royal Canadian Navy.

HMCS Asbestos (K358)

Built and commissioned at Quebec City, Quebec, on June 16, 1944, the revised Flower class increased endurance corvette HMCS Asbestos arrived at Halifax, Nova Scotia, on July 9, and proceeded to Bermuda later that month for work-ups.

HMCS Asbestos left Bermuda on August 21, 1944, for St. John’s, Newfoundland, where she joined Escort Group C-2, and left on September 10, with HXF.307, her maiden convoy to Britain. For the rest of the war, she was steadily employed as a North Atlantic escort, and left Londonderry, Northern Ireland, for the last time at the beginning of June 1945.

Paid off on July 8, she was laid up at Sorel, Quebec, for disposal. In 1947, she was sold to Panamanian owners but was wrecked en route off the Cuban coast on February 13, 1949. She was later salvaged and taken to New Orleans for scrapping in 1949.

• Builder: Morton Engineering and Dry Dock Co., Québec City, Quebec
• Laid down: July 20, 1943
• Launched: November 22, 1943
• Date commissioned: June 16, 1944
• Date paid off: July 8, 1945
• Displacement: 970 tons
• Dimensions: 63.5 m x 10.1 m x 2.9 m
• Speed: 16 knots
• Crew: 85
• Armament: one 4-inch (102-mm) gun, one 2-pounder (0.9 kg) gun, two 20-mm guns, one Hedgehog, and depth charges.

Battle honours

• Atlantic 1944-45