HMS Freesia
1940 Flower-class corvette
HMS Freesia (K43) was a Flower-class corvette of the Royal Navy built during the Second World War. She was constructed by Harland and Wolff in Belfast, laid down on 18 June 1940, launched on 3 October 1940, and commissioned on 19 November 1940. Like her sister ships, was named after a flower, in this case, the freesia, a fragrant, brightly coloured bloom native to southern Africa.
Design and construction
Like other Flower-class corvettes, Freesia was designed for convoy escort duties and anti-submarine warfare. She displaced approximately 925 tons, was 205 feet long with a beam of 33 feet, and drew 11.5 feet of water. She was powered by a triple-expansion steam engine driving a single shaft. Her armament included one 4-inch (102 mm) main gun, depth charge throwers, and light anti-aircraft weapons.
Service history
During the 1941 Warship Week national savings campaign, the borough of Hungerford, Berkshire raised £90,000 to fund the construction of a Flower-class corvette, subsequently adopting Freesia as their own. A commemorative plaque recording this association was installed in the Corn Exchange in Hungerford, with crew members maintaining contact with the town throughout the war years.
Following her commissioning, Freesia was deployed primarily in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans as a convoy escort.
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This entry incorporates text from “HMS Freesia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.