HMS Myosotis (K65): From Convoy Corvette to Antarctic Whaler

Built in Aberdeen

HMS Myosotis was ordered on 31 August 1939 and built by J. Lewis and Sons Ltd in Aberdeen, laid down on 21 June 1940, launched on 28 January 1941 and commissioned on 30 May that year, a Flower-class corvette, one of a huge and thoroughly dependable class of small escort vessels that formed the backbone of Britain's Atlantic convoy protection effort throughout the Second World War. She served under two wartime commanding officers in succession, Lieutenant Gerald Peter Shiers Lowe from July 1941 until February 1943, and Temporary Lieutenant Reginald Lugg from then until roughly mid-1945.

A Convoy Career Spanning Two Oceans

HMS Myosotis escorted a genuinely wide range of convoys over the course of the war, beginning with Convoy HG 66 from Gibraltar to home waters in June and July 1941, and going on to escort Convoy KMS 3 from the Clyde to North Africa carrying troop transports that November. She continued her escort duties through 1943 and 1944, covering Convoy OS 48 and KMS 15G from the UK to Freetown and Gibraltar, the homebound Convoy SL 131 from Freetown, and finally the long-haul Convoys GUS 29 and GUS 36, running between Port Said, New York and North Africa in the first half of 1944, a genuinely global spread of convoy work for a single small corvette.

No Confirmed Kills, But No Losses Either

HMS Myosotis's surviving records do not show any direct anti-submarine engagements resulting in a confirmed U-boat kill, a reminder that the vast majority of convoy escort work throughout the war involved no dramatic action at all, simply the patient, watchful business of shepherding merchant ships safely through dangerous waters, a job at which HMS Myosotis evidently succeeded well enough to see out the entire war without serious loss.

A Faroese Trawler, Then an Antarctic Whaler

HMS Myosotis's postwar story is where things get genuinely unusual. She was sold on 2 September 1946 to the Faroe Islands, refitted as the trawler Grunningur, a fate shared by a number of surplus Flower-class corvettes whose sturdy, seaworthy hulls made them well suited to conversion for commercial fishing work. Her transformation did not stop there: she went on to serve as a whaler under the name Thorsørn in Antarctic waters between 1953 and 1967, an extraordinary final chapter for a ship that had begun life hunting U-boats in the North Atlantic and ended it hunting whales at the opposite end of the globe. She was finally sold to shipbreakers at Grimstad in 1969, closing out one of the more remarkable postwar careers of any former Flower-class corvette.