HMCS Longueuil

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

HMCS Longueuil (K672)

Far more habitable ships than the smaller corvettes, the frigates of the River Class were also faster and had twice the endurance of the corvette. The Royal Navy frigates were named for rivers and hence known as the River Class; the Royal Canadian Navy ships were named for towns and cities. The Admiralty, at the suggestion of Vice-Admiral Percy Nelles, Canada’s Chief of Naval Staff, adopted the name “frigate”. The ships were first called “twin-crew corvette” and they were intended to remedy the corvettes’ shortcoming as an ocean escort.

Commissioned on May 18, 1944, at Montréal, Quebec, the River Class frigate Longueuil arrived in Bermuda on June 30 for work-ups. In July, she became a member of Escort Group C-2, and on August 7 left St. John’s, Newfoundland, for Londonderry, Northern Ireland, with convoy HXF.302. She spent her entire wartime career on convoy duty and, at various times, was the Senior Officer’s ship of her group.

Returning to Canada in June of 1945 she proceeded to Vancouver, British Columbia, for refit, but this was cancelled and the ship paid off December 31 at Esquimalt, British Columbia.

Longueuil was sold in 1947 and reportedly expended as part of a breakwater at Kelsey Bay, British Columbia, in 1948.

• Builder: Canadian Vickers Ltd., Montreal, Quebec.
• Laid down: July 17, 1943
• Launched: October 30, 1943
• Date commissioned: May 18, 1944
• Date paid off: December 31, 1945
• Displacement: 1,445 tons
• Dimensions: 91.9 m x 11.1 m x 2.7 m
• Speed: 19 knots
• Crew: 141
• Armament: two 4-inch (102-mm) guns (1 double mount), one 12-pound (5.45 kg) gun, eight 20-mm guns (4 double mounts), one Hedgehog mortar, depth charges

Battle honours

Atlantic 1944-1945