HMCS Kirkland Lake

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

HMCS Kirkland Lake (K337)

Far more habitable ships than the smaller corvettes, the frigates of the River Class were also faster and had twice the endurance of the corvette. The Royal Navy frigates were named for rivers and hence known as the River class; the Royal Canadian Navy ships were named for towns and cities. The Admiralty, at the suggestion of Vice-Admiral Percy Nelles, Canada’s Chief of Naval Staff, adopted the name “frigate”. The ships were first called “twin-crew corvette” and they were intended to remedy the corvettes’ shortcoming as an ocean escort.

Commissioned at Québec City, Quebec, on August 21, 1944, this River Class frigate arrived at Halifax, Nova Scotia, on September 10 and left on November 20 for work-ups in Bermuda. On her return to Halifax in December, Kirkland Lake was assigned to Escort Group 16, leaving on March 8, 1945, for Londonderry, Northern Ireland, when the group was transferred there. She was based at various times at both Londonderry and Portsmouth, England and in May 1945 escorted 2 convoys to Gibraltar and back.

She returned to Canada in June for refit at Québec City, and when this was completed on November 5, she returned to Halifax. Kirkland Lake was paid off December 14, 1945, to maintenance reserve in Bedford Basin, and broken up at Sydney, Nova Scotia, 1947 to 1948.

• Builder: Morton Engineering and Dry Dock Co., Québec City, Quebec
• Laid down: November 16, 1943
• Launched: April 27, 1944
• Commissionning date: August 21, 1944
• Paying off date: December 14, 1945
• Displacement: 1,445 tons
• Dimensions: 91.9 m x 11.1 m x 2.7 m
• Speed: 19 knots
• Crew: 141
• Armament: two 4-inch (102-mm) guns (1 double mount), one 12-pound (5.45 kg) gun, eight 20-mm guns (4 double mounts), one Hedgehog mortar, depth charges