HMCS Springhill

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

HMCS Springhill (K323)

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”.

Commissioned on 21 March 1944 at Victoria, British Columbia, the River Class frigate HMCS Springhill arrived at Halifax, Nova Scotia on 12 May and left in mid-June for a three-week work-up in Bermuda. In August, HMCS Springhill joined Escort Group 16, Halifax, as Senior Officer’s ship. When the group was transferred to Londonderry, Northern Ireland in 1945, HMCS Springhill sailed there on 7 March, but returned to Pictou, Nova Scotia, in April for refit that lasted until October.

On 1 December 1945, she was paid off at Halifax and laid up in reserve in Bedford Basin. She was broken up in 1947 at Sydney, Nova Scotia.

• Builder: Yarrows Ltd., Esquimalt, British Columbia
• Date laid down: May 5, 1943
• Date launched: September 7, 1943
• Date commissioned: March 21, 1944
• Date paid off: December 1, 1945
• Displacement: 1468.2 tonnes
• Dimensions: 91.9 m x 11.1 m x 2.7 m
• Speed: 19 knots
• Crew: 141
• Armament: two 4-inch (102-mm) (1 x II) gun, one 12-pound (5.45 kg) gun, eight 20-mm guns (4 x II), one Hedgehog mortar and depth charges

Battle honours

• Gulf of St. Lawrence 1944