HMCS Eyebright

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

HMCS Eyebright  (K150) / Flower-class Corvette

Commissioned into the Royal Navy at Montreal, QC, on 26 November 1940, HMS Eyebright arrived incomplete at Halifax on 11 December, and after working up, left on 21 January 1941 with convoy HX.104 for Sunderland. There she was completed on 16 April, and proceeded to Tobermory, UK, to work up.

In May Eyebright was commissioned into the RCN and allocated to EG 4 (RN) based at Iceland, whence she sailed on 12 June to join convoy OB.332 for Halifax, NS. She joined Newfoundland Command in June and for the next five months was employed as escort to convoys between St. John’s, NL and Iceland.

In November she began a refit at Charleston, SC, which included fo’c’s’le extension. Resuming escort duty late in January 1942, she arrived at Londonderry, UK, with her first transatlantic convoy, SC.66, on 6 February. In January 1943 she joined EG C-3, and that July commenced two months’ refit at Baltimore, MD. Following repairs at Pictou, NS, and workups at Bermuda in the summer of 1944, she joined EG W-3, Western Local Escort Force, and saw continuous service in the western Atlantic until the end of the war, with one further round trip to Londonderry, UK, as a temporary member of EG C-5. Eyebright was returned to the RN at Belfast, UK on 17 June 1945 and sold in 1947 for conversion to a whale-catcher. She entered service in 1950 as the Dutch Albert W. Vinke, and was broken up at Cape Town in 1964-65.

• Builder: Canadian Vickers Ltd., Montreal, QC
• Date laid down: 20 February 1940
• Date launched: 22 July 1940
• Date commissioned rcn: 15 May 1941
• Date paid off: 17 June 1945
• Fo’c’s’le extension completed: Charleston, SC, January 1942
• 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