9/25/2023 0 Comments River class frigate![]() ![]() In a joint action between the three frigates, U-1302 was depth charged and Hedgehogged until her hull was crushed and the unterseeboot took Herwartz and his entire 47-man crew to meet Davy Jones. Wolfgang Herwartz had already sent one Norwegian and two British steamers of Convoy SC-167 to the bottom. The German submarine, on her first war patrol under command of Kptlt. In the closing days of the conflict, the hardy frigate– along with Canadian-manned sisterships HMCS La Hulloise and HMCS Strathadam- came across the snorkeling Type VIIC/41 U-boat U-1302on the night of 7 March 1945 in St George’s Channel. You can see the lip of the lookout’s bucket at the bottom of the frame. Note the compass and pelorus atop the wheelhouse. Originally some 1,800-tons and 301-feet in length, they could make 20-knots and carry a twin QF 4-inch gun in a single forward mount as well as a modicum of 20mm AAA guns and a wide array of sub-busting weaponry to include as many as 150 depth charges.Ī second Kodachrome snapped from K459’s tower. One of the most important of the above Canadian ships were the River-class frigates. ![]() While today the Royal Canadian Navy is often seen as a supporting actor in the North Atlantic and an occasional cameo performer elsewhere, by the end of World War II the RCN had grown from having about a dozen small tin cans to being the third-largest fleet in the world- and was comprised almost totally of destroyers, frigates, corvettes, and sloops! The force traded 24 of its warships in combat for a butcher’s bill that was balanced by 69 Axis vessels but had proved decisive in the Battle of the Atlantic. Incidentally, scale modelers should note the various colors used on her two rigged 20-man Carley float lifeboats– which would soon see use on a different U-boat. Just ahead of the gun is a Hedgehog ASW mortar system, which would also be used that night. ![]() You can see a great view of her main gun, a twin 4″/45 (10.2 cm) QF Mk XVI in an Mk XIX open-rear mount, which she would use to good effect in hanging star shells during a nighttime scrap with a convoy-haunting U-boat. Here we see a beautiful original Kodachrome, likely snapped from the lookout box on her mast, of the Canadian River-class frigate HMCS Thetford Mines (K459) in 1944-45, with an officer looking down towards her bow. ![]()
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