HMCS Blairmore

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

HMCS Blairmore (J314 / 193)

The HMCS Blairmore was a Bangor class minesweeper. The Bangor class ships were built in order to replace the old Basset class minesweepers, as they were larger, faster, had much greater endurance, and burned oil as opposed to coal. Most of the Bangors were named after Canadian towns and cities, the rest after bays. As enemy mines were laid only once in 1943 in Canadian waters, the Bangors were used primarily as escorts to coastal shipping or as local escorts to ocean convoys. Sixteen of them, however, assisted in sweeping the approaches to Normandy before D-Day, and stayed to help clear German and Allied minefields in the Channel for some months afterward.

Commissioned at Port Arthur, now Thunder Bay, Ontario, on November 17, 1942, HMCS Blairmore arrived at Halifax, Nova Scotia on December 24, and after work-ups was assigned to Western Local Escort Force. Upon the division of the force into escort groups in June 1943, she became a member of Escort Group W-4 and remained with it until February of 1944.

Transferred to the United Kingdom for invasion duties, she left Halifax on February 20, 1944 in company of HMCS Fort William, HMCS Milltown and HMCS Minas for Plymouth, England, via the Azores, arriving on March 8. Assigned to the 31st Minesweeping Flotilla, she was present on D-Day and continued with Plymouth Command until September 21, 1945 when she sailed for Canada. During this period, she had returned to Canada for a refit at Halifax in April 1945, returning to Plymouth in July.

HMCS Blairmore was paid off at Sydney, Nova Scotia on October 16, 1945, sold to Marine Industries Ltd., and placed in strategic reserve at Sorel, Quebec in 1946. She was reacquired by the Royal Canadian Navy in July 1951, owing to the Korean crisis, and converted to a coastal escort. Again placed in reserve at Sydney, she was transferred to the Turkish Navy asBeycoz on March 29, 1958, remaining in service until 1971.

  • Displacement: 672 tons
  • Dimensions : 54.9 m x 8.7 m x 2.5 m
  • Speed: 16 knots
  • Crew: 83
  • Armament: (Original) one 3-inch (76-mm) gun, four 20-mm (2 x I, 1 x II) guns and depth charges; (post-war) two 20-mm guns (2 x I), Hedgehog and depth charges.

Battle honours

  • Atlantic 1943-45
  • Normandy 1944

Page details

Date modified: