HMCS Strathroy

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

HMCS Strathroy (K455) / Flower-class corvette

The Flower Class corvette was designed by William Reed of Smith’s Dock Co. near Middlesbrough, Yorkshire and patterned after his firm’s whale-catcher, Southern Pride, of 1936. The Canadian Naval Staff was impressed with the design owing to their short length they could negotiate the St. Lawrence canal system, and many were to be built in Great Lakes shipyards. The corvette was originally designed as a coastal escort, but the shortage of ocean escorts forced it into that role throughout the worst years of the war.

Commissioned at Montreal, Quebec on 20 November 1944, the Flower Class corvette HMCS Strathroy arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in December and immediately escorted her first convoy, HF.147, to Saint John, New Brunswick. She arrived there on 18 December for completion of building activities that could not be done at the builder’s yard prior to the St. Lawrence River winter freeze-up.

HMCS Strathroy then carried out workups in Bermuda, and upon completing of these joined Halifax Force in April 1945 for local escort duties.

On 12 July, she was paid off and laid up at Sorel, Quebec, for disposal. Purchased in 1946 by the Chilean Navy and renamed Chipana, she was broken up in 1969.

• Builder: Midland Shipyards Ltd., Midland, Ontario
• Date laid down: 18 November 1943
• Date launched: 15 June 1944
• Date commissioned: 20 November 1944
• Date paid off: 12 July 1945
• Displacement: 985.6 tonnes
• Dimensions: 63.5 m x 10.1 m x 2.9 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 x I), one Hedgehog mortar and depth charges

Battle honours

• Atlantic 1945