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Allied Warships

HMS Hibiscus (K 24)

Corvette of the Flower class

NavyThe Royal Navy
TypeCorvette
ClassFlower 
PennantK 24 
Built byHarland & Wolff Ltd. (Belfast, Northern Ireland) 
Ordered19 Sep, 1939 
Laid down14 Nov, 1939 
Launched6 Apr, 1940 
Commissioned21 May, 1940 
End service2 May, 1942 
Loss position
 
History

Ordered for French Navy but taken over with the fall of France.
Transferred to the USN at Leith, Scotland, on 2 May 1942 and was commissioned in the USN the same day.
Decommissioned by the USN in England on 20 August 1945 and returned to the Royal Navy on 26 August 1945.
Sold in 1947 into mercantile service as Madonna and scrapped at Hong Kong in 1955.

Commanding Officers:
Lt.Cdr. R. Phillips, RNR
20 April 1940 – 10 October 1940

Lt.Cdr. Charles George Cuthbertson, RNR
10 October 1940 – February 1941
DSC awarded on 1 January 1941

Lt. Henry Roach, RNR
February 1941 > 

Career notesTo the United States Navy as USS Spry

Noteable events involving Hibiscus include:

30 Aug, 1940
The Norwegian merchant Norne is torpedoed and sunk 58 nautical miles west-north-west of Cape Wrath in position 58º48'N, 06º49'W by the German submarine U-32. HMS Hibiscus (Lt.Cdr. R. Phillips, RNR) later picks up 11 survivors.

18 Oct, 1940
The British merchant Sandsend is torpedoed and sunk 254 nautical miles west-north-west of Rockall in position 58º12'N, 21º29'W by the German submarine U-48. HMS Hibiscus (Lt.Cdr. R. Phillips, RNR) later picks up 34 survivors.

28 Sep, 1941
HMS Hibiscus (Lt.Cdr. H. Roach, RNR) picks up 34 survivors from the British merchant Margareta that was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-201 south-west of Cape Clear in position 50º15'N, 17º27'W.


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