HMCS Amherst

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

HMCS Amherst (K148) / Flower-class Corvette

Commissioned on 5 October 1941 at Saint John, NB, HMCS Amherst arrived at Halifax on 22 August. After working up, she joined Newfoundland Command in October. She was steadily employed as an ocean escort for the succeeding three years. In that time she was involved in two particularly hard-fought convoy battles: ON.127 (August 1942) and SC.107 (October 1942). She had joined EG C-4 in August 1942.

Her only real respite was between May and November 1943 when she underwent a major refit at Charlottetown, including the extension of her fo’c’s’le. After workups at Pictou, NS, she returned to the North Atlantic until September 1944 when she began another long refit, this time at Liverpool, NS. Following workups in Bermuda in January 1945 she joined Halifax Force, but in March was loaned to EG C-7 for one round trip to the UK.

She was paid off 16 July 1945 at Sydney, and placed in reserve at Sorel. Sold in 1945, she was wrecked in the Gulf of St. Lawrence en route to become the Venezuelan Navy’s Carabobo.

• Builder: Saint John Dry Dock and Shipbuilding Co. Ltd., Saint John, NB
• Date laid down: 23 May 1940
• Date launched: 4 December 1940
• Date commissioned: 5 August 1941
• Fo’c’s’le extension completed: Charlottetown PEI, 1 November 1943
• Date paid off: 16 July 1945
• Displacement: 965.2 tonnes
• Dimensions: 62.5 m x 10.1 m x 3.5 m
• Speed: 16 knots
• Crew: 85
• Armament: one 4-inch one 2-pdr., two 20-mm, Hedgehog

Battle honours:

• Atlantic 1941-45
• Gulf of St. Lawrence 1944