HNoMS ''Thorodd'' was a

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 ...

patrol ship A patrol boat (also referred to as a patrol craft, patrol ship, or patrol vessel) is a relatively small naval vessel generally designed for coastal defence, border security, or law enforcement. There are many designs for patrol boats, and the ...

and

minesweeper A minesweeper is a small warship designed to remove or detonate naval mines. Using various mechanisms intended to counter the threat posed by naval mines, minesweepers keep waterways clear for safe shipping. History The earliest known usage of ...

that served through the Second World War, first during the Norwegian Campaign that followed the

invasion of Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and t ...

in 1940, and then from exile in the United Kingdom. ''Thorodd'' was originally built as a steam escort trawler for the French Navy under the name ''Fleurus'', before being sold to a Norwegian whaling firm who leased her to the

Falkland Islands Government The politics of the Falkland Islands takes place in a framework of a constitutional monarchy and parliamentary representative democratic dependency as set out by the constitution, whereby the Governor exercises the duties of head of state in th ...

. SS ''Fleurus'' served as a commercial mail ship in the

Falkland Islands Dependencies The Falkland Islands Dependencies was the constitutional arrangement from 1843 until 1985 for administering the various British territories in Sub-Antarctica and Antarctica which were governed from the Falkland Islands and its capital Port Sta ...

during the 1920s, and was the first vessel to carry paying tourists to

Antarctica Antarctica () is Earth's southernmost and least-populated continent. Situated almost entirely south of the Antarctic Circle and surrounded by the Southern Ocean, it contains the geographic South Pole. Antarctica is the fifth-largest contine ...

. Following the war, ''Thorodd'' was converted to a fishing trawler and sank in 1955.

Construction and early service

''Fleurus'' was constructed by the Foundation Company of

Savannah, Georgia Savannah ( ) is the oldest city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia and is the county seat of Chatham County, Georgia, Chatham County. Established in 1733 on the Savannah River, the city of Savannah became the Kingdom of Great Br ...

as a steam escort trawler for the

French Navy The French Navy (french: Marine nationale, lit=National Navy), informally , is the maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the five military service branches of France. It is among the largest and most powerful naval forces in t ...

. She was delivered in 1919, after the end of the First World War, and remained in French service for only three years before being sold to ''Huret Sauvetage'' ("Huret Rescue") in

Boulogne Boulogne-sur-Mer (; pcd, Boulonne-su-Mér; nl, Bonen; la, Gesoriacum or ''Bononia''), often called just Boulogne (, ), is a coastal city in Northern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department of Pas-de-Calais. Boulogne lies on the ...

. In September 1924, she was again sold, this time to the Antarctic whaling firm A/S Tønsberg Hvalfangeri, based in

Tønsberg Tønsberg , historically Tunsberg, is a city and municipality in Vestfold og Telemark county, eastern Norway, located around south-southwest of Oslo on the western coast of the Oslofjord near its mouth onto the Skagerrak. The administrative ce ...

, southern Norway. As built, ''Fleurus'' measured 406 gross register tons, with a steel hull and a

triple-expansion steam engine A compound steam engine unit is a type of steam engine where steam is expanded in two or more stages. A typical arrangement for a compound engine is that the steam is first expanded in a high-pressure ''(HP)'' cylinder, then having given up he ...

. She was 140.1 feet LPP by 25.1 feet, with a draft of 13 feet.

Falkland Islands Dependencies

''Fleurus'' was converted to carry mail and passengers, and then leased to the Falkland Islands Government, which used her as a mail ship in the

, a scattered collection of Antarctic and sub-Antarctic islands. The ''Fleurus'' service included five voyages per year between

Stanley Stanley may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''Stanley'' (1972 film), an American horror film * ''Stanley'' (1984 film), an Australian comedy * ''Stanley'' (1999 film), an animated short * ''Stanley'' (1956 TV series) ...

and the whaling stations at

Grytviken Grytviken ( ) is a settlement on South Georgia in the South Atlantic and formerly a whaling station and the largest settlement on the island. It is located at the head of King Edward Cove within the larger Cumberland East Bay, considered the b ...

South Georgia South Georgia ( es, Isla San Pedro) is an island in the South Atlantic Ocean that is part of the British Overseas Territory of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands. It lies around east of the Falkland Islands. Stretching in the east� ...

, and less frequent journeys to the

South Orkney Islands The South Orkney Islands are a group of islands in the Southern Ocean, about north-east of the tip of the Antarctic Peninsula South Shetland Islands The South Shetland Islands are a group of Antarctic islands with a total area of . They lie about north of the Antarctic Peninsula, and between southwest of the nearest point of the South Orkney Islands. By the Antarctic Treaty of 195 ...

, the bases for small groups of whalers and sealers. In addition, she carried mail and passengers from Stanley to

Montevideo, Uruguay Montevideo () is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Uruguay, largest city of Uruguay. According to the 2011 census, the city proper has a population of 1,319,108 (about one-third of the country's total population) in an area of . M ...

. In 1927, ''Fleurus'' carried

Arnold Hodson Sir Arnold Wienholt Hodson (12 February 1881 – 26 May 1944)"Sir Arnold Hodson"
Geni.com. ...

, Governor of the Falkland Islands, to South Georgia, where the governor inspected the whaling stations and the

Discovery Investigations The Discovery Investigations were a series of scientific cruises and shore-based investigations into the biology of whales in the Southern Ocean. They were funded by the British Colonial Office and organised by the Discovery Committee in London, wh ...

. This was the first time a Governor had visited the Dependencies. The following year, ''Fleurus'' took Hodson on a month-long tour further south, visiting the

Palmer Archipelago Palmer Archipelago, also known as Antarctic Archipelago, Archipiélago Palmer, Antarktiske Arkipel or Palmer Inseln, is a group of islands off the northwestern coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. It extends from Tower Island in the north to Anvers ...

Graham Land Graham Land is the portion of the Antarctic Peninsula that lies north of a line joining Cape Jeremy and Cape Agassiz. This description of Graham Land is consistent with the 1964 agreement between the British Antarctic Place-names Committee and ...

in Antarctica proper, as well as the South Shetlands and South Orkneys. Such trips were not limited to dignitaries; ''Fleurus'' operated a commercial passenger service on the mail route, and advertised round-trip "tourist tickets" for the journeys to South Georgia and the South Shetlands, the first tourist cruises in Antarctica. In addition to her regular government duties, it was briefly suggested in 1928 that she be used to patrol territorial waters and prevent unlicensed whaling, but the political problems arising from a Norwegian whaling company's ship carrying out British license enforcement rendered this impractical. ''Fleurus'' was also contracted to support the Wilkins-Hearst Antarctic expedition in 1928-9.

Royal Norwegian Navy

In 1933, ''Fleurus'' was sold to Einar Veim in

Bergen Bergen (), historically Bjørgvin, is a city and municipality in Vestland county on the west coast of Norway. , its population is roughly 285,900. Bergen is the second-largest city in Norway. The municipality covers and is on the peninsula of ...

, and in 1935 sold to A/S Thorodd in

Ålesund Ålesund () sometimes spelled Aalesund in English, is a municipality in Møre og Romsdal County, Norway. It is part of the traditional district of Sunnmøre and the centre of the Ålesund Region. The town of Ålesund is the administrative ...

, when she was renamed ''Thorodd''. She was hired by the

following the outbreak of 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 ...

, and taken into service as a patrol ship based at

Hammerfest Hammerfest (; sme, Hámmerfeasta ) is a municipality in Troms og Finnmark county, Norway. Hammerfest is the northernmost town in the world with more than 10,000 inhabitants. The administrative centre of the municipality is the town of Hammerfe ...

in the far north of Norway. Following the Norwegian Campaign of April–June 1940, the surviving ships of the Royal Norwegian Navy were evacuated to the United Kingdom. ''Thorodd'' arrived on 17 June, and at the end of the month was sent to

Rosyth Dockyard Rosyth Dockyard is a large naval dockyard on the Firth of Forth at Rosyth, Fife, Scotland, owned by Babcock Marine, which formerly undertook refitting of Royal Navy surface vessels and submarines. Before its privatisation in the 1990s it was fo ...

to be converted for use as a minesweeper. She was taken into 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 ...

on 14 March 1941, manned by a Norwegian crew, as HMS ''Thorodd'' (FY-1905), operating with a group of North Sea minesweepers based in

Dundee Dundee (; sco, Dundee; gd, Dùn Dè or ) is Scotland's fourth-largest city and the 51st-most-populous built-up area in the United Kingdom. The mid-year population estimate for 2016 was , giving Dundee a population density of 2,478/km2 or ...

. She served for the next three and a half years, finally being taken out of service in September 1944 and laid up. While serving as a minesweeper, ''Thorodd'' gained a measure of fame for her captain's dog, a St. Bernard named

Bamse ''Bamse – Världens starkaste björn'' () is a Swedish cartoon created by Rune Andréasson. The highly popular children's cartoon first emerged as a series of television short films as well as a weekly Comic strip formats#Half page, half-page ...

. Bamse was widely known among the local communities around the shore bases in Montrose and Dundee, and had the run of the town; he eventually became famous as a mascot of the Royal Norwegian Navy and of the Norwegian Forces in Exile.

Postwar

In August 1945, at the end of the war, ''Thorodd'' was formally returned to A/S Thorodd. She was later converted to a 600 b.h.p. engine before being laid up in Ålesund in 1951. The following year, she was sold to the fisheries company A/S Grindhaugs Fiskeriselskap, which converted her to a seine trawler; after conversion, she was lengthened to 151.2 feet, with a tonnage of 452 gross register tons, and a 408 b.h.p. engine, making her the largest seine trawler operating in Norway. Outside the fishing season, ''Thorodd'' transported cargo between ports. She was carrying a cargo of ore from Visnes to Tofte on 6 October 1955 when a storm caused the cargo to shift and she developed a severe list. The crew abandoned ship and ''Thorodd'' sank.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Thorodd 1919 ships Ships built in Savannah, Georgia Merchant ships of France Steamships of France Steamships of Norway Merchant ships of Norway Fishing vessels of Norway Patrol vessels of the Royal Norwegian Navy Escort ships of France World War II patrol vessels of Norway World War II minesweepers of Norway Trawlers Maritime incidents in 1931 Maritime incidents in 1955 Shipwrecks in the North Sea