HMS ''Dianthus'' was a of the Royal Navy. She was launched on 9 July 1940 from the

Leith Docks Leith (; gd, Lìte) is a port area in the north of the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, founded at the mouth of the Water of Leith. In 2021, it was ranked by '' Time Out'' as one of the top five neighbourhoods to live in the world. The earliest ...

on the

Firth of Forth The Firth of Forth () is the estuary, or firth, of several Scottish rivers including the River Forth. It meets the North Sea with Fife on the north coast and Lothian on the south. Name ''Firth'' is a cognate of ''fjord'', a Norse word meani ...

and named after the genus of flowering plants including Carnation, Pink, and

Sweet William Sweetness is a basic taste most commonly perceived when eating foods rich in sugars. Sweet tastes are generally regarded as pleasurable. In addition to sugars like sucrose, many other chemical compounds are sweet, including aldehydes, keto ...

. The ship escorted trade convoys between

Newfoundland Newfoundland and Labrador (; french: Terre-Neuve-et-Labrador; frequently abbreviated as NL) is the easternmost province of Canada, in the country's Atlantic region. The province comprises the island of Newfoundland and the continental region ...

and the Western Approaches through 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 ...

wolf pack attacks of the winter of 1942–43.

Background

Flower-class corvettes like ''Dianthus'' serving with the Royal Navy during World War II were different to 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 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, dur ...

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, Japa ...

design.Chesneau, Roger and Gardiner, Robert, ''Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1922–1946'', US Naval Institute Press (June 1980), p. 62 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

HMS Dianthus damage from ramming U-boat IWM A 11949

''Dianthus'' spent 1941 escorting trade convoys through coastal waters and the Western Approaches to the United Kingdom until assigned to Mid-Ocean Escort Force (MOEF) group C1. ''Dianthus'' rammed and sank ''U-379'' while defending

convoy SC 94 Convoy SC 94 was the 94th of the numbered series of World War II Slow Convoys of merchant ships from Sydney, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, to Liverpool.Hague 2000 p.133 The ships departed Sydney on 31 July 1942 and were met by Mid-Ocean Es ...

. ''Dianthus'' was assigned to MOEF group A3 after yard overhaul to repair damage from the ramming collision. With group A3, she participated in the battles of convoys ON 145, ON 166,

SC 121 South Carolina Highway 121 (SC 121) is a major state highway that travels north and south in central parts of the U.S. state of South Carolina. The highway is actually part of a long multi-state highway that also exists in Florida and G ...

and HX 233. When group A3 disbanded, ''Dianthus'' was assigned to MOEF group C5 until another yard overhaul in August 1943. ''Dianthus'' completed refit in November and escorted four more trans-Atlantic convoys in two round trips before being returned to European coastal escort work for the remainder of the war. The ship was decommissioned and sold for civilian use following the end of hostilities. She became the Norwegian buoy tender ''Thorslep'', and was later used for whaling before being scrapped in 1969.

Trans-Atlantic convoys escorted: winter of 1942–43

Notes and references

Notes Bibliography

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dianthus (K95) 1940 ships Flower-class corvettes of the Royal Navy Ships built in Leith

Background

War duty

Trans-Atlantic convoys escorted: winter of 1942–43

See also

Notes and references

External links