HMCS Courtenay

There has been only 1 vessel named Courtenay in the Royal Canadian Navy.

HMCS Courtenay (J262)

The HMCS Courtenay was a Bangor class minesweeper. The Bangor class ships were built in order to replace the old Basset class minesweepers, as they were larger, faster, had much greater endurance, and burned oil as opposed to coal. Most of the Bangors were named after Canadian towns and cities, the rest after bays. As enemy mines were laid only once in 1943 in Canadian waters, the Bangors were used primarily as escorts to coastal shipping or as local escorts to ocean convoys. Sixteen of them, however, assisted in sweeping the approaches to Normandy before D-Day, and stayed to help clear German and Allied minefields in the Channel for some months afterward.

Commissioned at Prince Rupert, British Columbia, on March 21, 1942, HMCS Courtenay spent her whole career on the west coast, serving alternately with the Esquimalt and Prince Rupert Forces.

She was paid off on November 5, 1945 at Esquimalt, British Columbia, and sold in 1946 to the Union Steamship Company of Vancouver, British Columbia for use as a merchant ship. However, she was never converted to this use, and it has proved impossible to trace her whereabouts beyond 1951, when a San Francisco firm made a purchase offer.

• Builder: Prince Rupert Dry Dock and Shipyards Co., Prince Rupert, British Columbia
• Laid down: January 28, 1941
• Launched: August 2, 1941
• Commissionning date: March 21, 1942
• Paying off date: November 5, 1945
• Displacement: 672 tons
• Dimensions: 54.9 m x 8.7 m x 2.5 m
• Speed: 16 knots
• Crew: 83
• Armament: one 3-inch (76-mm) gun, two 20-mm guns (2 x I) and depth charges.