HMCS Napanee

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

HMCS Napanee (K118)

Commissioned at Montréal, Quebec, on May 12, 1941, the Flower Class corvette HMCS Napanee arrived at Halifax, Nova Scotia, on May 17. She was assigned initially to Sydney Force but transferred in September to Newfoundland Command, leaving Sydney, Nova Scotia, for Iceland with convoy SC.47 on September 29. She served on that route until January 1942 when she sailed with convoy SC.65, the first of many Newfoundland-Londonderry, Northern Ireland, convoys she would escort until August 1944. The worst of them was ONS.154, which lost 14 ships in December 1942. HMCS Napanee assisted in sinking one of its attackers, U-356, on December 27.

In March 1943, she made a side trip to Gibraltar with Escort Group C-1, which she had joined in September 1942. She arrived at Montréal, May 22, 1943, for a 5-month refit, including forecastle extension, afterward working up at Pictou, Nova Scotia, and joining Escort Group C-3. HMCS Napanee left Londonderry for the last time on August 3, 1944, refitted again at Pictou and then carried out 3 weeks’ workups in Bermuda. On her return she joined Escort Group W-2 on the “triangle run” (New York/Boston, Halifax, St John’s) until the end of the war. Paid off July 12, 1945, at Sorel, Quebec, HMCS Napanee was broken up at Hamilton, Ontario, in 1946.

• Builder: Kingston Shipbuilding Co. Ltd., Kingston, Ontario
• Date laid down: March 20, 1940
• Date launched: August 31, 1940
• Date commissioned: May 12, 1941
• Date paid off: July 12, 1945
• Displacement: 965.2 tonnes
• Dimensions: 62.5 m x 10.1 m x 3.5 m
• Speed: 16 knots
• Crew: 85
• Armament: one 4-inch (102-mm) gun, one 2-pound (0.9 kg) gun, two 20-mm guns (2 single mounts), one Hedgehog mortar, and depth charges.

Battle honours

Atlantic 1941-1945