HMS Compass Rose (Flower-class Corvette)
With World War II approaching in early 1939, the Royal Navy began looking for ways to build convoy escorts quickly and cheaply. German U-boats nearly strangled the UK during World War I, and the British did not want to repeat the experience. Smiths Dock Company suggested a design based on that of ocean-going whalers; originally, the new corvette design (so named because it was smaller than a frigate but larger than a sloop) was meant to be a coastal patrol vessel, but the design was expanded to have long range: the corvettes would be escorting convoys in the dangerous North Atlantic.
With this in mind, the Flower-class design needed to be able to survive the heavy weather of the North Atlantic; speed was secondary, and indeed a surfaced U-boat could outrun a Flower. A corvette's truly only task was hunting submarines, and as such it was considered little more than a floating depth charge rack. The Flowers carried 40 depth charges, capable of being rolled off the stern or fired from midships projectors. To deal with surfaced U-boats, the corvette's main armament was a 4-inch gun forward of the bridge. Almost as an afterthought, a Vickers 40mm "Pom-Pom" cannon was installed amidships to fend off any aircraft. Sonar was provided and would be at first the corvette's only way of detecting submarines. The first of the Flowers--so named because each were named for a flower--entered service in September 1939 as the war began.
The Flowers were indeed cheap and quick to build--they were produced at merchant shipyards to free up military shipyards for larger ships. They were also miserable at sea: crew numbers swelled to twice the size originally intended, which meant sailors were crammed into the little ships. Seawater tended to enter through latrines and loading hatches to soak everything. Fresh food ran out quickly, and the rest of the often-month long voyages were spent eating tinned food. The worst, however, was the corvette's propensity for rolling: 40 degree rolls were not uncommon. However, the Flowers could take anything the North Atlantic could dish out--none were lost to weather--and could be lethal to U-boats. Though corvettes were not as effective as frigates or destroyers at killing submarines, they could at the least keep a U-boat down with depth charge attacks until the convoy was past the danger. This would mean the U-boat would have to reacquire the convoy and begin its attack all over again. It also freed up destroyers to form hunter-killer teams that were deadly to the Germans. Certainly the odds were with the corvettes: though the submarines claimed 22 Flowers, the Flowers sunk 51 Axis submarines in return.
As the war progressed, the Flower-class were improved to make them less miserable for the crews, and armament was added--usually in the form of 20mm cannons for additional antiaircraft power, and Hedgehog mortar projectors; Hedgehogs detonated only when they hit something solid, and would destroy U-boats near the surface, as they were almost impossible to dodge. Several were reverse Lend-Leased to the US Navy as the Action-class patrol gunboat class, while more were provided (or built by) the Royal Canadian Navy, who preferred to name their Flowers for Canadian cities instead.
Production ceased on the Flower-class around 1944 as the much improved River-class frigates entered service. 267 Flowers were built, and the survivors were retired at war's end. Almost half were converted to trawlers or other commercial vessels, but today only one survives: HMCS Sackville, on display at Halifax, Nova Scotia. It has been fully restored to the way it looked during World War II.
Dad always wanted to build a Flower-class corvette after reading Nicholas Monserrat's superb book, "The Cruel Sea." Matchbox (today Revell Germany) offered a 1/72 scale kit of a Flower, and Dad was able to get one while we lived in Germany. He finished the kit three years later while we lived in Denver, but one move to Montana did considerable damage to the model. Dad then rebuilt and improved on it, adding small details (like fire hose stations) to make a better kit. He also rebuilt the 40mm pom-pom to make it more accurate (using half a Matchbox Bofors kit; the other half went onto his Millennium Falcon kit). He finally put the whole ship on a board made of purple heart wood--wearing out three sawblades in the process--and put it in a case.
The end result was the HMS Compass Rose, the fictional corvette of Monserrat's book. It is somewhat inaccurate, as it mixes earlier corvette armament with later modifications; the Compass Rose retains a Lewis machine gun on the after deck, with 20mm Oerlikon cannon on the bridge wings and a Hedgehog mount on the starboard bow; in reality, the Lewis guns were removed fairly quickly, and in the book, the Compass Rose was sunk before the Hedgehog came out. It is painted in summer standard Western Approaches camouflage of three shades of gray.
Dad considered this his finest work--though not his absolute favorite; that's his F-105 kit--and won Best in Show at the Montana State Fair with it in 1985. He intended that it be gifted to a museum on his passing; I haven't had a chance to do that yet. For now, the Compass Rose sits proudly on my living room shelf--back in view after three years covered up in the garage. The Compass Rose is a beauty, and it'll be sad when I do finally give her away...but, to quote Indiana Jones, she truly does belong in a museum.
HMS Compass Rose (Flower-class Corvette)
With World War II approaching in early 1939, the Royal Navy began looking for ways to build convoy escorts quickly and cheaply. German U-boats nearly strangled the UK during World War I, and the British did not want to repeat the experience. Smiths Dock Company suggested a design based on that of ocean-going whalers; originally, the new corvette design (so named because it was smaller than a frigate but larger than a sloop) was meant to be a coastal patrol vessel, but the design was expanded to have long range: the corvettes would be escorting convoys in the dangerous North Atlantic.
With this in mind, the Flower-class design needed to be able to survive the heavy weather of the North Atlantic; speed was secondary, and indeed a surfaced U-boat could outrun a Flower. A corvette's truly only task was hunting submarines, and as such it was considered little more than a floating depth charge rack. The Flowers carried 40 depth charges, capable of being rolled off the stern or fired from midships projectors. To deal with surfaced U-boats, the corvette's main armament was a 4-inch gun forward of the bridge. Almost as an afterthought, a Vickers 40mm "Pom-Pom" cannon was installed amidships to fend off any aircraft. Sonar was provided and would be at first the corvette's only way of detecting submarines. The first of the Flowers--so named because each were named for a flower--entered service in September 1939 as the war began.
The Flowers were indeed cheap and quick to build--they were produced at merchant shipyards to free up military shipyards for larger ships. They were also miserable at sea: crew numbers swelled to twice the size originally intended, which meant sailors were crammed into the little ships. Seawater tended to enter through latrines and loading hatches to soak everything. Fresh food ran out quickly, and the rest of the often-month long voyages were spent eating tinned food. The worst, however, was the corvette's propensity for rolling: 40 degree rolls were not uncommon. However, the Flowers could take anything the North Atlantic could dish out--none were lost to weather--and could be lethal to U-boats. Though corvettes were not as effective as frigates or destroyers at killing submarines, they could at the least keep a U-boat down with depth charge attacks until the convoy was past the danger. This would mean the U-boat would have to reacquire the convoy and begin its attack all over again. It also freed up destroyers to form hunter-killer teams that were deadly to the Germans. Certainly the odds were with the corvettes: though the submarines claimed 22 Flowers, the Flowers sunk 51 Axis submarines in return.
As the war progressed, the Flower-class were improved to make them less miserable for the crews, and armament was added--usually in the form of 20mm cannons for additional antiaircraft power, and Hedgehog mortar projectors; Hedgehogs detonated only when they hit something solid, and would destroy U-boats near the surface, as they were almost impossible to dodge. Several were reverse Lend-Leased to the US Navy as the Action-class patrol gunboat class, while more were provided (or built by) the Royal Canadian Navy, who preferred to name their Flowers for Canadian cities instead.
Production ceased on the Flower-class around 1944 as the much improved River-class frigates entered service. 267 Flowers were built, and the survivors were retired at war's end. Almost half were converted to trawlers or other commercial vessels, but today only one survives: HMCS Sackville, on display at Halifax, Nova Scotia. It has been fully restored to the way it looked during World War II.
Dad always wanted to build a Flower-class corvette after reading Nicholas Monserrat's superb book, "The Cruel Sea." Matchbox (today Revell Germany) offered a 1/72 scale kit of a Flower, and Dad was able to get one while we lived in Germany. He finished the kit three years later while we lived in Denver, but one move to Montana did considerable damage to the model. Dad then rebuilt and improved on it, adding small details (like fire hose stations) to make a better kit. He also rebuilt the 40mm pom-pom to make it more accurate (using half a Matchbox Bofors kit; the other half went onto his Millennium Falcon kit). He finally put the whole ship on a board made of purple heart wood--wearing out three sawblades in the process--and put it in a case.
The end result was the HMS Compass Rose, the fictional corvette of Monserrat's book. It is somewhat inaccurate, as it mixes earlier corvette armament with later modifications; the Compass Rose retains a Lewis machine gun on the after deck, with 20mm Oerlikon cannon on the bridge wings and a Hedgehog mount on the starboard bow; in reality, the Lewis guns were removed fairly quickly, and in the book, the Compass Rose was sunk before the Hedgehog came out. It is painted in summer standard Western Approaches camouflage of three shades of gray.
Dad considered this his finest work--though not his absolute favorite; that's his F-105 kit--and won Best in Show at the Montana State Fair with it in 1985. He intended that it be gifted to a museum on his passing; I haven't had a chance to do that yet. For now, the Compass Rose sits proudly on my living room shelf--back in view after three years covered up in the garage. The Compass Rose is a beauty, and it'll be sad when I do finally give her away...but, to quote Indiana Jones, she truly does belong in a museum.