HMCS Kamsack

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

HMCS Kamsack (K171)

Commissioned at Montréal, Quebec, on October 4, 1941, the Flower Class corvette Kamsack arrived at Halifax, Nova Scotia, on October 23. She joined Sydney Force the following month but soon transferred to Newfoundland Command and on January 19, 1942, left St. John’s, Newfoundland, to pick up convoy SC.65 for Londonderry, Northern Ireland.

In June, after 3 round trips Kamsack was reassigned to Western Local Escort Force  and served in it for the rest of the war. From June 1943, she was a member of Escort Group W-4, and from April 1944, a member of Escort Group W-3 conducting convoy escort duties in the western North Atlantic. During this period she underwent 2 extensive refits: the first, begun at Liverpool, Nova Scotia on November 12, 1942, was completed at Halifax on January 18, 1943; the second, in the course of which her forecastle was extended, was carried out at Baltimore, Maryland, between late December 1943 and mid-March 1944.

Kamsack was paid off on July 22, 1945, at Sorel, Quebec, and sold to the Venezuelan Navy. Renamed Federación, she served until broken up in 1956.

• Builder: Port Arthur Shipbuilding Co. Ltd., Port Arthur, Ontario.
• Laid down: November 20, 1940
• Launched: May 5, 1941
• Date commissioned: October 4, 1941
• Date paid off: July 22, 1945
• Displacement: 950 tons
• 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, depth charges

Battle honours

Atlantic 1942-1945