HMCS ''Melville'' was a built for the

Royal Canadian Navy The Royal Canadian Navy (RCN; french: Marine royale canadienne, ''MRC'') is the Navy, naval force of Canada. The RCN is one of three environmental commands within the Canadian Armed Forces. As of 2021, the RCN operates 12 frigates, four attack s ...

in 1940. The first diesel-engined ''Bangor''-class vessel, ''Melville'' served in the

Battle of the Atlantic The Battle of the Atlantic, the longest continuous military campaign in World War II, ran from 1939 to the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945, covering a major part of the naval history of World War II. At its core was the Allied naval blockade ...

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 ...

. After the war, she was transferred to the

Royal Canadian Mounted Police The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP; french: Gendarmerie royale du Canada; french: GRC, label=none), commonly known in English as the Mounties (and colloquially in French as ) is the federal police, federal and national police service of ...

(RCMP) and renamed ''Cygnus'' and served until being broken up in 1961.

Design and description

The ''Bangor'' class was initially to be a scaled down minesweeper design of the in

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 ...

service.Brown, p. 124Chesneau (1980), p. 61 However due to the difficulty procuring

diesel engine The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-call ...

s led to the small number of the diesel version being completed. The ships displaced standard and fully loaded. They were

long overall __NOTOC__ Length overall (LOA, o/a, o.a. or oa) is the maximum length of a vessel's hull measured parallel to the waterline. This length is important while docking the ship. It is the most commonly used way of expressing the size of a ship, and ...

with a

beam Beam may refer to: Streams of particles or energy *Light beam, or beam of light, a directional projection of light energy **Laser beam *Particle beam, a stream of charged or neutral particles **Charged particle beam, a spatially localized grou ...

of and a draught of .Macpherson and Barrie (2002), p. 185 However, the size of the ship led to criticisms of their being too cramped for magnetic or acoustic minesweeping gear. This may have been due to all the additions made during the war with the installation of ASDIC,

radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, w ...

and

depth charge A depth charge is an anti-submarine warfare (ASW) weapon. It is intended to destroy a submarine by being dropped into the water nearby and detonating, subjecting the target to a powerful and destructive Shock factor, hydraulic shock. Most depth ...

s. The ''Bangor'' class came in two versions. ''Melville'' was of the diesel-powered version, being equipped with a 9-cylinder diesel engine driving two shafts that produced . This gave the ship a maximum speed of . The vessels carried of oil. The vessels had a complement of 6 officers and 77 ratings. ''Melville'' was singular among the diesel-powered ''Bangor''s by being armed with a single quick-firing (QF) /40 calibre Mk IV gun mounted forward. ''Melville'' was also fitted with a QF 2-pounder Mark VIII gun aft and was eventually fitted with single-mounted QF 20 mm Oerlikon guns on the

bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...

wings.Macpherson (1997), p. 58 For those ''Bangor''s assigned to convoy duty, they were armed with two depth charge launchers and two chutes for the 40 depth charges they carried.

Service history

''Melville'' was ordered as part of the 1940–41 building programme. The minesweeper's

keel The keel is the bottom-most longitudinal structural element on a vessel. On some sailboats, it may have a hydrodynamic and counterbalancing purpose, as well. As the laying down of the keel is the initial step in the construction of a ship, in Br ...

was laid down on 17 December 1940 by

Davie Shipbuilding Davie Shipbuilding is a historic shipbuilding company located in Lauzon, Quebec, Canada. The facility is now operating as Chantier Davie Canada Inc. and is the oldest continually operating shipbuilder in North America. History The Davie shipyard ...

Lauzon, Quebec Lauzon is a former city in southern Quebec, Canada, located on the St. Lawrence River northeast of Lévis. Founded in 1867 as a village it became a town in 1910, Lauzon had a population of about 14,500 when it merged with Lévis in 1989. The the ...

. The ship was launched on 7 June 1941 and commissioned into the Royal Canadian Navy at

Quebec City Quebec City ( or ; french: Ville de Québec), officially Québec (), is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459, and the Communauté métrop ...

with the

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 ...

J263 on 4 December later that year.Macpherson and Barrie (2002), p. 187 After performing her work ups, ''Melville'' was assigned to the

Western Local Escort Force Western Local Escort Force (WLEF) referred to the organization of anti-submarine escorts for World War II trade convoys from North American port cities to the Western Ocean Meeting Point (WOMP or WESTOMP) near Newfoundland where ships of the Mi ...

(WLEF). In May 1942, the minesweeper was reassigned to Shelburne Force, a local convoy escort force deploying out of Shelburne, Nova Scotia. In September, the vessel was reallocated to WLEF and remained with them until February 1943. On 3 February ''Melville'' began a major refit at Lunenburg which was eventually completed at Halifax on 6 June. After the ship's return to service, ''Melville'' was assigned to Sydney Force, a local escort group that worked out of

Sydney, Nova Scotia Sydney is a former city and urban community on the east coast of Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia, Canada within the Cape Breton Regional Municipality. Sydney was founded in 1785 by the British, was incorporated as a city in 1904, and dissolv ...

. The minesweeper remained with this unit until June 1945. The minesweeper was

paid off Ship commissioning is the act or ceremony of placing a ship in active service and may be regarded as a particular application of the general concepts and practices of project commissioning. The term is most commonly applied to placing a warship in ...

on 18 August 1945 at Sydney. The ship was handed over to the RCMP in 1946 for conversion to a fisheries patrol vessel. The ship emerged in 1950 as the ''Cygnus''.Colledge, p. 404 The vessel remained in RCMP service until 1961 when she was sold for scrap and broken up.

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* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Melville Bangor-class minesweepers of the Royal Canadian Navy 1941 ships Ships built in Lévis