HMS Annan (K404): British-Built, Canadian-Crewed, U-Boat Killer

A British Ship for a Canadian Crew

HMS Annan was a River-class frigate built by Hall, Russell and Company at Aberdeen, laid down on 10 June 1943 and launched that December, named, in keeping with the class's tradition, after a river in Scotland. Rather than joining the Royal Navy directly, she was transferred to Canada and commissioned for the Royal Canadian Navy at Aberdeen on 13 January 1944, retaining her British name throughout, a fairly common arrangement during the war as Commonwealth navies expanded rapidly using British-built hulls and needed crews to match.

She was a solidly armed convoy escort, carrying twin 4-inch guns forward, a 12-pounder aft, eight 20mm cannon, a Hedgehog anti-submarine mortar, and up to 150 depth charges, more than enough firepower for the U-boat hunting work that would define her short but eventful career.

Into the Normandy Campaign

After working up, Annan joined Escort Group 6 based at Londonderry, and was soon heavily involved in Operation Neptune, the naval component of the D-Day landings, escorting convoys and running anti-submarine patrols in support of Operation CA from 5 June 1944 onward, part of the enormous logistical effort required to keep the invasion of Normandy supplied and protected from German submarine interference.

Sinking U-1006

Annan's defining moment came on 16 October 1944, when her escort group encountered the German submarine U-1006 south of the Faroe Islands. Working alongside the Canadian frigate HMCS Loch Achanalt, Annan sank the submarine with depth charges, and then went on to rescue 46 survivors from the water, a genuinely significant proportion of the U-boat's crew pulled from the sea by the very ship that had just sunk them. For this and her wider Atlantic service, she earned battle honours for Atlantic 1944 and North Sea 1944.

A Long Second Career in Denmark

Annan was handed back to the Royal Navy at Sheerness on 20 June 1945, her Canadian wartime service complete, and was sold to the Royal Danish Navy that November, renamed Niels Ebbesen and put to use as a training ship. She served Denmark for the better part of two decades, finally being decommissioned on 8 May 1963 and broken up that year at Odense, closing out a career that had taken her from a Scottish shipyard to Canadian service, a decisive U-boat kill off the Faroes, and finally two decades training a new generation of Danish sailors.