HMCS Leaside

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

HMCS Leaside (K492)

Laid down as HMS Walmer Castle, the Castle Class corvette Leaside was transferred to the Royal Canadian Navy and commissioned on August 21, 1944, at Middlesbrough, England.

Following workups at Tobermory, Scotland, in September, Leaside arrived at Londonderry, Northern Ireland, early in October to join Escort Group C-8. She sailed on October 22 to meet ON.261, her first convoy, and served the rest of the war as an ocean escort.

On May 11, 1945, she made her last departure from Londonderry to join convoy ONS.50. She left St. John’s, Newfoundland in June for Esquimalt, British Columbia, where she was paid off for disposal on November 16.

In 1946, she became the British Columbia coastal passenger vessel Coquitlam, passing into Liberian registry and renamed Glacier Queen in 1958. She was acquired by American interests in 1973 and, for a time, was a floating hotel at Valdez, Alaska. On November 8, 1978, she sank at anchor in Seldovia Bay, but was refloated before being scuttled in the Gulf of Alaska.

• Builder: Smith's Dock Co., South Bank-on-Tees, United Kingdom.
• Laid down: September 23, 1943
• Launched: March 10, 1944
• Commissionning date: August 21, 1944
• Paying off date: November 16, 1945
• Displacement: 1,060 tons
• Dimensions: 76.7 m x 9.8 m x 3.1 m
• Speed: 16 knots
• Crew: 112
• Armament: one 4-inch (102-mm) gun, six 20-mm (2 double mounts, 2 single mounts) guns, one Squid mortar, depth charges

Battle honours

Atlantic 1944-1945