HMCS Lethbridge

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

HMCS Lethbridge (K160)

Commissioned at Montréal, Quebec, on June 25, 1941, the Flower Class corvette Lethbridge arrived at Halifax, Nova Scotia, on July 4. She served briefly with Sydney Force before joining Newfoundland Escort Force and leaving Sydney, Nova Scotia, on October 11 with convoy SC.49 for Iceland. She was employed between St. John’s, Newfoundland, and Iceland until February 1942 and thereafter on the run between Newfoundland and Londonderry, Northern Ireland. 

On June 20, 1942, she left Londonderry for the last time, and on her return to Halifax joined Gulf Escort Force to escort Québec City-Sydney convoys. After refitting at Liverpool, Nova Scotia from September 10 to October 22 and working up at Pictou, Nova Scotia, she arrived at New York on November 18 to be placed under United States control as escort to New York-Guantanamo, Cuba convoys. In March 1943, she returned to Halifax to join Western Local Escort Force for the remainder of the war, from June 1943, as a member of W-5. She acquired her extended forecastle during a refit at Sydney from January to March 1944. She was paid off on July 23, 1945, at Sorel, Quebec, and sold to Marine Industries Ltd., who resold her in 1952 for conversion to a whale-catcher. The conversion was completed in 1955 and Lethbridge entered service under the Dutch flag as Nicolaas Vinke. She was broken up at Santander, Spain in 1966.

  • Builder: Canadian Vickers Ltd., Montréal, Québec.
  • Laid down: August 5, 1940
  • Launched: November 21, 1940
  • Date commissioned: June 25, 1941
  • Date paid off: July 23, 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 mount), one Hedgehog mortar and depth charges.

Battle honours

  • Atlantic 1941-1945
  • Gulf of St. Lawrence 1942, 1944

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