Castle-class corvette

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Denbigh Castle
Class overview
Name	Castle class
Operators	Royal Navy  Royal Canadian Navy  Royal Norwegian Navy  Republic of China Navy  People's Liberation Army Navy
Preceded by	Flower-class corvette
Succeeded by	None
Planned	95
Completed	44
Cancelled	51
Lost	3
Retired	41
General characteristics
Type	Corvette
Displacement	1,060 long tons (1,077 t)
Length	252 ft (77 m)
Beam	37 ft (11 m)
Draught	10 ft (3.0 m)
Installed power	2,750 hp (2.05 MW)
Propulsion	2 × water-tube boilers 1 × 4-cylinder triple-expansion steam engine Single screw
Speed	16.5 knots (30.6 km/h; 19.0 mph)
Range	9,500 nmi (17,600 km) at 10 kn (19 km/h; 12 mph)
Complement	112
Sensors and processing systems	Type 272 radar Type 144Q sonar Type 147B sonar
Armament	1 × 4-inch (102-mm) Quick Firing Mk.XIX High Angle/Low Angle combined air/surface gun 1 × Squid anti-submarine mortar 1 × depth charge rail, 15 Depth charges 2 × 20 mm twin anti-aircraft cannon Up to 6 × 20 mm Oerlikon cannon[1]

The Castle-class corvettes were an updated version of the much more numerous Flower-class corvettes of the Royal Navy, and started appearing during late 1943. They were equipped with radar as well as ASDIC.

Design[]

The Admiralty had decided to cease Flower-class construction in favour of the larger River-class frigates as the Flower class had originally been intended for coastal escort work and were not entirely satisfactory for Atlantic convoy service. In particular, they were slow, poorly armed and rolled badly in rough seas, which quickly exhausted their crews. However, many shipyards were not large enough to build frigates. The Castle class was designed to be built on small slipways for about half the overall effort of a Loch-class frigate. The Loch-class frigate was similar to a River but built using the system of prefabrication.^[2]

The appearance of Castle-class corvettes was much like the later "long forecastle" variant of the Flowers and they were a little larger (around 1,200 tons – about 200 tons more than the Flowers, and 40 feet (12 m) longer).

The most obvious visual difference was the lattice mainmast instead of the pole version fitted to the Flowers. There was also a more square cut look to the stern, although it was still essentially a type, this difference was only visible from abaft the beam.

The armament differed from the Flower class with the depth charge fitment replaced by one Squid anti-submarine mortar. Hadleigh Castle received the first production Squid mounting; the World War I-era medium-velocity surface-only BL 4-inch Mk IX main gun firing a 31-pound (14 kg) shell was replaced by the new low-velocity QF 4-inch Mk XIX gun on high-angle/low-angle mounting firing a heavier 35-pound (16 kg) shell, which added anti-aircraft capability to the existing capability against surface targets such as submarines.

The propulsion machinery was identical to the Flowers and experienced officers felt that they were seriously under powered, having a tendency to turn into the wind despite everything the helmsman could do. The fact that Squid attacks required a fairly low speed (compared to depth charge attacks) only made matters worse.

Most of the Castle-class corvettes had been discarded by the end of the 1950s but a few survived a little longer as weather ships. The last Castle was the Uruguayan training ship Montevideo, originally HMS Rising Castle, which was scrapped in 1975.

Most were operated by the Royal Navy but twelve were transferred to the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) before completion and one to the Royal Norwegian Navy. Three Castles were sunk through enemy action and Castles participated in the sinking of seven U-boats.

Ships[]

Royal Canadian Navy[]

The following vessels were all originally built for the Royal Navy, but were transferred to the RCN on completion (for details of builders and construction dates see under Royal Navy below). All their pennant numbers (except Hedingham Castle, which was never completed), as well as their names, were changed when transferred.

• HMCS Arnprior (K494) (ex-HMS Rising Castle)
• HMCS Bowmanville (K493) (ex-HMS Nunney Castle), sold to Republic of China as cargo ship, but taken over by PLAN after end of Chinese Civil War and rearmed with Soviet guns, entering PLAN service as Guangzhou.
• HMCS Copper Cliff (K495) (ex-HMS Hever Castle)
• HMCS Hespeler (K489) (ex-HMS Guildford Castle) (later SS Chilcotin)
• HMCS Humberstone (K497) (ex-HMS Norham Castle)
• HMCS Huntsville (K499) (ex-HMS Wolvesey Castle)
• HMCS Kincardine (K490) (ex-HMS Tamworth Castle)
• HMCS Leaside (K492) (ex-HMS Walmer Castle, later SS Coquitlam II)
• HMCS Orangeville (K491) (ex-HMS Hedingham Castle), sold to Republic of China as cargo ship, but taken over by ROCN on 29 June 1950 and rearmed with US guns, entering ROCN service as De An (德安)
• HMCS Petrolia (K498) (ex-HMS Sherborne Castle)
• HMCS St. Thomas (K488) (ex-HMS Sandgate Castle, later SS Camosun III)
• HMCS Tillsonburg (K496) (ex-HMS Pembroke Castle), sold to Republic of China as cargo ship, but taken over by ROCN on 29 June 1950 and rearmed with US guns, entering ROCN service as Kao An (高安)

Royal Navy[]

The initial Castle-class ship was Allington Castle, re-ordered on 9 December 1942 (from the previous order placed for a Modified Flower-class corvette named Amaryllis); another 13 vessels were ordered on 19 December, also under the 1942 War Programme. The remaining eighty-one ships were all ordered for the RN under the 1943 War Programme, of which thirty were completed. Fifty-one of these ships (15 from UK shipyards and 36 from Canadian shipyards) which were cancelled late in 1943 are shown separately below.

Two ordered 3 March 1943, three ordered 4 May 1943 and two ordered 10 July 1943 were all cancelled, as were all thirty-six ordered from Canadian shipyards on 15 March 1943.

Royal Norwegian Navy[]

• HNoMS Tunsberg Castle – (ex-Shrewsbury Castle, lost on 12 December 1944).

Cancelled[]

15 ships ordered for the Royal Navy from UK shipyards as part of the 1943 Programme were all cancelled on 31 October 1943:

• Caldecot Castle – ordered 19 January 1943 from John Brown & Company, Clydebank.
• Dover Castle – ordered 19 January 1943 from A. & J. Inglis, Glasgow.
• Dudley Castle – ordered 19 January 1943 from A. & J. Inglis, Glasgow.
• Bere Castle – ordered 23 January 1943 from John Brown & Company, Clydebank.
• Calshot Castle – ordered 23 January 1943 from John Brown & Company, Clydebank.
• Monmouth Castle (originally to have been Peel Castle) – ordered 23 January 1943 from John Lewis & Sons, Aberdeen.
• Rhuddlan Castle – ordered 23 January 1943 from John Crown & Sons, Sunderland.
• Thornbury Castle – ordered 23 January 1943 from Ferguson Brothers, Port Glasgow.
• Appleby Castle – ordered 3 March 1943 from Austin, at Sunderland.
• Tonbridge Castle – ordered 3 March 1943 from Austin, at Sunderland.
• Norwich Castle – ordered 4 May 1943 from John Brown & Company, Clydebank.
• Oswestry Castle – ordered 4 May 1943 from John Crown & Sons, Sunderland.
• Pendennis Castle – ordered 4 May 1943 from John Crown & Sons, Sunderland.
• Alton Castle – ordered 10 July 1943 from Fleming & Ferguson, Paisley.
• Warkworth Castle – ordered 10 July 1943 from Fleming & Ferguson, Paisley.

The following ships were ordered on 15 March 1943 for the Royal Navy from Canadian shipyards for completion between May 1944 and June 1945, but were all cancelled in December 1943:

Castles sunk or destroyed in action[]

• Hurst Castle was sunk by U-482 northwest of Ireland on 1 September 1944.
• HNoMS Tunsberg Castle was sunk by a mine near Båtsfjord, Norway on 12 December 1944.
• Denbigh Castle was hit by a torpedo from U-992 in the Barents Sea on 13 February 1945. She was towed by Bluebell to the Kola Inlet but later capsized.

U-boats sunk by Castles[]

• U-744 was sunk by Icarus, St. Catharines, Fennel, Chilliwack, Chaudiere, Gatineau and Kenilworth Castle on 6 March 1944
• U-484 was sunk in the north-west of Ireland by Portchester Castle and on 9 September 1944
• U-1200 was sunk south of Ireland by Pevensey Castle, Lancaster Castle, Portchester Castle and Kenilworth Castle on 11 November 1944
• U-387 was sunk in the Barents Sea by Bamborough Castle on 9 December 1944
• U-877 was sunk north-west of the Azores by St. Thomas on 27 December 1944
• U-425 was sunk in the Barents Sea by Lark and Alnwick Castle on 17 February 1945
• U-878 was sunk in the Bay of Biscay by Vanquisher and Tintagel Castle on 10 April 1945

Film appearance[]

The final third of the film The Cruel Sea is set on the Castle-class corvette Saltash Castle (portrayed by Portchester Castle).

Post-war conversions[]

Three were converted to passenger/cargo ships for the Union Steamship Company of British Columbia and were known as the White Boats (see Twigg). They were operated from 1946 to 1958 but were heavy on fuel and had limited cargo capacity, for example they could not carry cars in the hold.

• SS Camosun III — ex-HMCS St. Thomas, HMS Sandgate Castle
• SS Chilcotin — ex-HMCS Hespeler, HMS Guildford Castle
• SS Coquitlam II — ex-HMCS Leaside, HMS Walmer Castle

Notes[]

References[]

• Brown, D. K.: Nelson to Vanguard: Warship Development, 1923–1945, (2000), Annapolis, Md., Naval Institute Press ISBN 1-55750-492-X
• Friedman, Norman: British Destroyers and Frigates: the Second World War and After (2006) Chatham Publishing. ISBN 1-86176-137-6.
• Twigg, Arthur M.: Union Steamships Remembered: 1920–1958 (1997) ISBN 1-55056-516-8.

Further reading[]

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Castle class corvettes.

• Castle-class corvette (Frigate) Association
• Castle-class corvettes on U-Boat.net