Operations
Flower-class corvettes were used extensively by both the RN and RCN during the Battle of the Atlantic. They also saw limited service elsewhere with the RN, as well as the USN and several Allied navies such as the Royal Netherlands Navy, the Royal Norwegian Navy, the Royal Hellenic Navy, the Free French Naval Forces, the Royal Indian Navy, and the Royal New Zealand Navy.
Most Royal Navy Flower-class ships drew their officers and crew from the Royal Naval Reserve and the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve (RNVR). Many RN Flowers had captains drawn from the Merchant Navy.
Service on Flowers in the North Atlantic was typically cold, wet, monotonous and uncomfortable. Every dip of the forecastle into an oncoming wave was followed by a cascade of water into the well deck amidships. Men at action stations were drenched with spray and water entered living spaces through hatches opened to access ammunition magazines. Interior decks were constantly wet and condensation dripped from the overheads. The head (or sanitary toilet) was drained by a straight pipe to the ocean; and a reverse flow of the icy North Atlantic would cleanse the backside of those using it during rough weather. By 1941, corvettes carried twice as many crewmen as anticipated in the original design. Men slept on lockers or tabletops or in any dark place that offered a little warmth. The warships were nicknamed "the pekingese of the ocean". They had a reputation of having poor sea-handling characteristics, most often rolling in heavy seas, with complete 80-degree rolls (40 degrees each side of the normal upright position) being fairly common; it was said they "would roll on wet grass". Many crewmen suffered severe motion sickness for a few weeks until they acclimatised to shipboard life. Although poor in their sea-handling characteristics, the Flowers were extremely seaworthy; no Allied sailor was ever lost overboard from a Flower during World War II, outside combat.
A typical action by a Flower during convoy escort duties should she encounter a surfaced U-boat was to run directly at the submarine to force it to dive (thus limiting the speed and manoeuvrability of the U-boat). The corvette would then keep the submarine down and pre-occupied with avoiding depth charge attacks long enough to allow the convoy to safely pass. The 16-knot (30 km/h) top speed of the Flower-class ships made effective pursuit of a surfaced U-boat (approximately 17 knots) impossible, though it was adequate to manoeuvre around submerged U-boats or convoys, both of which ran at a typical maximum of 8 knots, and sometimes much less in poor weather. The low speed also made it difficult for Flowers to catch up to the convoy again after action.
This technique was hampered when the Kriegsmarine began deploying its U-boats in "wolf-pack" attacks, which were intended to overwhelm the escort warships of a convoy and allow at least one of the submarines to attack the merchant vessels. Upgrades in sensors and armament for the Flowers, such as radar, HF/DF, depth-charge projectors, and ASDIC, meant these small warships were well equipped to detect and defend against such attacks, but the tactical advantage often lay with the attackers, who could operate a cat-and-mouse series of attacks intended to draw the defending Flower off-station.
Success for the Flowers, therefore, should be measured in terms of tonnage protected, rather than U-boats sunk. Typical reports of convoy actions by these craft include numerous instances of U-boat detection near a convoy, followed by brief engagements using guns or depth-charges and a rapid return to station as another U-boat took advantage of the initial skirmish to attack the unguarded convoy. Continuous actions of this kind against a numerically superior U-boat pack demanded considerable seamanship skills from all concerned, and were very wearing on the crews.
Thirty-six ships in the class were lost during World War II, many due to enemy action, some to collision with Allied warships and merchant ships. One, sunk in shallow water, was raised and repaired. Of the vessels lost to enemy action, 22 were torpedoed by U-boats, five were mined, and four were sunk by enemy aircraft. The Flower-class corvettes are credited with participating in the sinking of 47 German and four Italian submarines.
Construction of the Flower class was superseded toward the end of the war as larger shipyards concentrated on River-class frigates, and smaller yards on the improved Castle-class corvette design.
The Flower class represented fully half of all Allied convoy escort vessels in the North Atlantic during World War II.
Read more about this topic: Flower Class Corvette
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