HMCS Grou

There has been only 1 vessel named Grou in the Royal Canadian Navy.

HMCS Grou (K518)

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.

Grou was named for a French martyr of 1690, in lieu of the name Pointe-aux-Trembles, Quebec, the latter being considered overly long. Commissioned at Montréal, Quebec, on December 4, 1943, the River class frigate Grou arrived at Halifax, Nova Scotia, later that month, worked up in St. Margaret’s Bay, and in March 1944 was assigned to Escort Group 6, Londonderry, Northern Ireland.

In April, she went to Russia’s Kola Inlet and returned as escort to convoy RA.59. Based at various times at Londonderry, Portsmouth, and Plymouth, in United Kingdom, she was present on D-Day, providing anti-submarine patrol. Grou left for Canada with convoy ON.285 on February 17, 1945, and on March 4, began a 6-month refit at Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.

Grou left for the west coast in October, and was paid off into reserve at Esquimalt, British Columbia, on February 25, 1946. She was broken up at Victoria, British Columbia, in 1948.

• Builder: Canadian Vickers Ltd., Montreal, Quebec
• Laid down: May 1, 1943
• Launched: August 7, 1943
• Date commissioned: December 4, 1943
• Date paid off: February 25, 1946
• 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, and depth charges.

Battle honours

• Normandy 1944
• Atlantic 1944
• Arctic 1944