HMCS Huntsville

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

HMCS Huntsville (K499)

Laid down as HMS Woolvesey Castle, the Castle class corvette HMCS Huntsville was transferred to the Royal Canadian Navy and commissioned on June 6, 1944, on the Clyde.

She worked up at Stornoway, Scotland, early in July and joined Escort Group C-5 at Londonderry, Northern Ireland, later that month, leaving on August 11 for ONS.248, her first convoy. In November 1944, HMCS Huntsville missed a trans-Atlantic convoy while under repair at Halifax, Nova Scotia, and acted as local escort to one convoy from St. John’s, Newfoundland, to New York—seemingly the only ship of her class to visit there.

Rejoining the Atlantic convoy cycle in December, she left Londonderry for the last time on April 16, 1945, to meet ON.297. In May, she commenced refit at Halifax, completed in August, and in September was placed in reserve.

She was paid off for disposal on February 15, 1946, and sold that year, entering service in 1947 as SS Wellington Kent. Renamed Belle Isle II in 1951, she was sunk in a collision off Trois-Rivieres, Quebec, on August 19, 1960.

• Builder: Aisla Shipbuilding Co. Ltd., Troon, Scotland
• Laid down: June 1, 1943
• Launched: February 24, 1944
• Commissionning date: June 6, 1944
• Paying off date: February 15, 1946
• Ex-HMS Woolvesey Castle of the Royal Navy
• Displacement: 1,060 tons
• Dimensions: 76.7 m x 9.8 m x 3.1 m
• Speed: 16 knots
• Crew: 112
• Armament: one 4-inch (102-mm) gun, six 20-mm guns (2 double mounts, 2 single mounts), one Squid anti-submarine mortar and depth charges.

Battle honours

Atlantic 1944-1945