HMCS KAMLOOPS

HMCS KAMLOOPS was a corvette built by the Victoria Machinery Depot in Esquimalt, B.C., her keel having been laid down in the yards of that firm on 29 April 1940. She was launched on 7 August of the same year and commissioned on 17 March 1941. Her name was given her to honour Kamloops, a city 250 miles northeast of Vancouver, B.C.

She wasted no time in sailing to the war zone. She left Esquimalt four days after her commissioning, passed through the Panama Canal and arrived at Halifax on 19 June. KAMLOOPS operated as a local escort, running with convoys out of Halifax. In the summer of 1942, she sailed out of Gaspe and Sydney with the Gulf Escort Force, both as convoy escort and as a member of an anti-submarine striking force.

Transferred to the Mid-Ocean Escort Force in June 1943, KAMLOOPS joined Escort Group C-2 and remained with it until May 1945, accompanying convoys from St. John’s, Newfoundland, to Londonderry, Northern Ireland.

Among her more memorable convoys was ON-202, which originated in the United Kingdom. Five days out, ON-202 met another convoy, ONS-18, and the two joined forces against a large wolf pack of U-boats. There were heavy losses among both the merchant ships and their escorts. The Canadian destroyer HMCS ST CROIX sank with two torpedoes in her. Two hours later HM Corvette Polyanthus followed her to the bottom. HMS Itchen picked up the survivors from these ships, but they and the frigate’s crew were almost all lost the next day when Itchen received her death blow. The heavy casualties were caused by the acoustic homing torpedo which the enemy was using for the first time.

KAMLOOPS’ next convoy, SC-143, left Halifax for the United Kingdom on 28 September 1943. A freighter in this convoy and the Polish destroyer Orkan were torpedoed. To bring about their destruction, the enemy paid three U-boats sunk by aircraft. KAMLOOPS picked up fifty-one survivors from the torpedoed merchantman.

It was not until May 1945 that the corvette left Escort Group C-2. On the 9th of that month she transferred to the Halifax Local Defence Force. She had had a strenuous career, but the services for which she had been constructed were no longer required by her country. She was paid off on 27 June 1945 and placed in reserve in Sydney until sold in October 1945 to J. E. McQueen of Amherstburg, Ontario, for scrap.

Directorate of History
Canadian Forces Headquarters
17 September 1971