USS Intensitry at sea -- a Flower class corvette, like HMCS Sackville, in American service

HMCS Sackville (K181) was a Flower-class corvette of the Royal Canadian Navy. She was laid down at Saint John, New Brunswick on 28 May 1940, launched on 15 May 1941 and commissioned on 30 December 1941. Like several other Canadian Flower-class corvettes, Sackville was named after a Canadian town, in this case Sackville, New Brunswick.

In World War II she protected Atlantic convoys as part of the Second Battle of the Atlantic, escorting them from Saint John's, Newfoundland to Londonderry, Northern Ireland. In September 1943 she took part in the battle of convoys ON-202 and ONS-18 and was damaged, possibly by a torpedo detonated by one of her depth chargees. Because of her damage, she was retired from active service and used as a training ship.

She was decomissioned on 8 April 1946. Most Flower-class corvettes were scrapped after the war. But Sackville had a long career. She spent a long time serving the Canadian Department of Fisheries. Later she was restored to her World War II appearance, and serves as a floating museum in Halifax, Nova Scotia, one of the ports where escorts met their convoys.

external links

• A link to the HMCS Sackville's official site (http://www.hmcssackville-cnmt.ns.ca/).
• Another site with a gallery of photos of HMCS Sackville (http://www.steelnavy.com/Sackville.htm).
• The 1993 film "Lifeline to Victory" was filmed aboard HMCS Sackville (http://imdb.com/title/tt0107414/).
• Of the 236 corvettes that were laid down in Canada and Britain, 111 sailed from Canadian slips (http://hnsa.org/ships/sackville.htm)