HMS ''Polyanthus'' was a of the
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...
. She was
launched on 30 November 1940 from
Leith Docks on the
Firth of Forth
The Firth of Forth () is a firth in Scotland, an inlet of the North Sea that separates Fife to its north and Lothian to its south. Further inland, it becomes the estuary of the River Forth and several other rivers.
Name
''Firth'' is a cognate ...
, at an estimated cost of £55,000.
''Polyanthus'' was sunk by the using new German weapons technology on 20 September 1943 about 1,000 miles southwest of
Reykjavík
Reykjavík is the Capital city, capital and largest city in Iceland. It is located in southwestern Iceland on the southern shore of Faxaflói, the Faxaflói Bay. With a latitude of 64°08′ N, the city is List of northernmost items, the worl ...
during convoy escort duty in the
Battle of the North Atlantic.
Background
Flower-class corvettes like ''Polyanthus'' serving with the Royal Navy during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
were different from earlier and more traditional sail-driven corvettes.
[''Jane's Fighting Ships of World War II'', New Jersey: Random House, 1996, , page 68.] The "corvette" designation was created by the French in the 19th century as a class of small warships; the Royal Navy borrowed the term for a period but discontinued its use in 1877. During the hurried preparations for war in the late 1930s,
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 1874 – 24 January 1965) was a British statesman, military officer, and writer who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 (Winston Churchill in the Second World War, ...
reactivated the corvette class, needing a name for smaller ships used in an escort capacity, in this case based on a
whaling ship
A whaler or whaling ship is a specialized vessel, designed or adapted for whaling: the catching or processing of whales.
Terminology
The term ''whaler'' is mostly historic. A handful of nations continue with industrial whaling, and one, Jap ...
design. The generic name "flower" was used to designate the class of these ships, which – in the Royal Navy – were named after flowering plants.
[
]
War duty and sinking
Although designed for quick and cheap construction, ''Polyanthus'' and ships like her in the Flower class were operative in convoy escort during the Battle of the North Atlantic.
The primary mission of protection against U-boat
U-boats are Submarine#Military, naval submarines operated by Germany, including during the World War I, First and Second World Wars. The term is an Anglicization#Loanwords, anglicized form of the German word , a shortening of (), though the G ...
s saw ''Polyanthus'' active in several transatlantic convoys in the early part of the war. By late 1943, the ''Kriegsmarine
The (, ) was the navy of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It superseded the Imperial German Navy of the German Empire (1871–1918) and the inter-war (1919–1935) of the Weimar Republic. The was one of three official military branch, branche ...
'' were using an acoustic homing torpedo - known to the Allies
An alliance is a relationship among people, groups, or states that have joined together for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not an explicit agreement has been worked out among them. Members of an alliance are calle ...
as a GNAT
GNAT is a free-software compiler for the Ada programming language which forms part of the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC). It supports all versions of the language, i.e. Ada 2012, Ada 2005, Ada 95 and Ada 83. Originally its ...
- which they hoped would reverse the changing tide of war, favouring the Allies in the Atlantic.[Pocock, Michael W.,
http://www.maritimequest.com/daily_event_archive/2007/pages/sept/23_convoy_on_202.htm "Daily Event for September 23", www.MaritimeQuest.com, 2007, Retrieved 13 April 2011.]
On the night of 19–20 September 1943, two westbound Convoys ONS18 and ON 202 were facing frequent U-boat engagements, calling ''Polyanthus'' to their aid in the wake of several setbacks, including the near destruction of and .[ After successfully driving away , ''Polyanthus'' was ordered to rescue the crew from the escort , recently sunk by . Whilst under the command of Lieutenant John Gordon Aitken RNR, ''Polyanthus'' was sunk by ''U-952'' using a GNAT before any rescue could be effected.][
]
See also
* Wolf pack
Notes and references
Notes
Bibliography
*
External links
*
"The Last Hurrah of the Wolf Packs"
an article reprinted from Canadian Forces Internal News Sources (September 1993)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Polyanthus, HMS
1940 ships
Flower-class corvettes of the Royal Navy
Ships built in Leith
Maritime incidents in September 1943
Ships sunk by German submarines in World War II
World War II shipwrecks in the Atlantic Ocean
Warships lost with all hands