HMS ''Buttercup'' (

pennant number In the Royal Navy and other navies of Europe and the Commonwealth of Nations, ships are identified by pennant number (an internationalisation of ''pendant number'', which it was called before 1948). Historically, naval ships flew a flag that iden ...

: K193) was a built for the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

. She served during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

first as part of the Royal Navy ''Section Belge'' (RNSB), and then later as part of the

Royal Norwegian Navy The Royal Norwegian Navy ( no, Sjøforsvaret, , Sea defence) is the branch of the Norwegian Armed Forces responsible for naval operations of Norway. , the Royal Norwegian Navy consists of approximately 3,700 personnel (9,450 in mobilized state, 3 ...

. Between 1946 and 1957 she served as HNoMS ''Nordyn''. The Norwegian government then sold her and she became the

whaler 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, Japa ...

''Thoris'' until she was broken up in 1969.

Belgian service

''Buttercup'' was the first of two corvettes to serve with the Royal Navy ''Section Belge'' (RNSB) of the Free Belgian forces, along with . With the liberation of Belgium in late 1944, ''Buttercup'' returned to Royal Navy control.

Norwegian service

From 20 December 1944, the

borrowed ''Buttercup'' to replace the

Castle-class corvette The Castle-class corvette was an ocean going convoy escort developed by the United Kingdom during the Second World War. It was the follow-on to the , and designed to be built in shipyards that were producing the Flowers. The Castle-class was a ...

HNoMS ''Tunsberg Castle'', which had been lost to a mine on 12 December 1944 off the coast of Finnmark. HNoMS ''Buttercup'' served from 15 February 1945 until 8 May as part of the Liverpool Escort Force. As part of "Group B2" she participated in two westbound and two eastbound allied transatlantic convoys. None of these was attacked by enemy forces and all the convoys arrived at their destinations. When ''Buttercup'' got back to Liverpool on 6 May she was order to Rosyth to prepare to sail for Norway. She sailed on 13 May 1945 for Oslo carrying the Chief of Staff of the Navy High Command and other naval officers. She arrived at Oslo on 15 May. The Norwegian Government acquired ''Buttercup'' in 1946 and on 10 August renamed her HNoMS ''Nordkyn''. She served initially as a fisheries protection vessel. ''Nordkyn'', Kommandor Oscar Hauge, sailed from

Tromsø Tromsø (, , ; se, Romsa ; fkv, Tromssa; sv, Tromsö) is a List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the Tromsø (city), city of Tromsø. Tromsø lies ...

on 28 July 1948 for

Svalbard Svalbard ( , ), also known as Spitsbergen, or Spitzbergen, is a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. North of mainland Europe, it is about midway between the northern coast of Norway and the North Pole. The islands of the group range ...

. She was carrying Kaptein Rolf von Krogh on an expedition for the Norsk Polarinstitut. She carried out a hydrographic survey between Bear Island (Bjørnøya), and

Spitsbergen Spitsbergen (; formerly known as West Spitsbergen; Norwegian: ''Vest Spitsbergen'' or ''Vestspitsbergen'' , also sometimes spelled Spitzbergen) is the largest and the only permanently populated island of the Svalbard archipelago in northern Norw ...

. Between 2 and 9 September ''Nordkyn'' served as a base for a

Catalina Catalina may refer to: Arts and media * ''The Catalina'', a 2012 American reality television show * ''Catalina'' (novel), a 1948 novel by W. Somerset Maugham * Catalina (''My Name Is Earl''), character from the NBC sitcom ''My Name Is Earl'' ...

that the Polarinstitut employed for mapping glacier fronts. ''Nordkyn'' returned to Tromsø on 18 September.''The Polar Record'', Vol. 5, Issue 39, January 1950, p.453. In 1950 ''Nordkyn'' was reclassified as a frigate and received the pennant number F309. She was stricken from the Navy list on 9 April 1956 at Horten.

Whaler

In November 1957 the Norwegian Government sold ''Nordkyn'' to Thor Dahl A/S,

Sandefjord Sandefjord () is a city and the most populous municipality in Vestfold og Telemark county, Norway. The municipality of Sandefjord was established on 1 January 1838. The municipality of Sandar was merged into Sandefjord on 1 January 1969. On 1 ...

, a whaling company. Her new owners had

Framnæs Mekaniske Værksted Framnæs shipyard (Framnæs mekaniske Værksted) was a former Norwegian shipbuilding and engineering firm headquartered in Sandefjord, in Vestfold county, Norway. Originally strongly linked to the whaling industry, in later years it entered into mor ...

rebuild her, renamed her ''Thoris'', and employed her as a whaler in the Antarctic where she worked with Thor Dahl's whale factory ship.

Fate

''Thoris'' was sold in June 1969 for scrapping at Grimstad.

Citations and references

Citations References * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Buttercup, HMS 1941 ships Ships built in Belfast Flower-class corvettes of the Royal Navy World War II corvettes of the United Kingdom

Buttercup ''Ranunculus'' is a large genus of about almost 1700 to more than 1800 species of flowering plants in the family Ranunculaceae. Members of the genus are known as buttercups, spearworts and water crowfoots. The genus is distributed in Europe, ...

World War II corvettes of Norway Flower-class corvettes of the Royal Norwegian Navy Fishing vessels of Norway Whaling ships Ships built by Harland and Wolff