HMCS Copper Cliff

There has been only 1 vessel named Copper Cliff in the Royal Canadian Navy.

HMCS Copper Cliff (K495)

Laid down as HMS Hever Castle, the Castle class corvette was baptized HMCS Copper Cliff when she was transferred to the Royal Canadian Navy and commissioned at Blyth, United Kingdom, on July 25, 1944.

After work-ups up at Tobermory, Scotland, in August, she was assigned to Escort Group C-6, but instead joined Escort Group C-7, then forming at Londonderry, Northern Ireland in October.

She left Londonderry to pick up her first convoy, ONS.266, on November 16, and was thereafter continuously employed as an ocean escort. HMCS Copper Cliff left Londonderry for her final westward crossing in early June 1945, and later that month sailed from Halifax, Nova Scotia for Esquimalt, British Columbia. There, on November 21, she was paid off into reserve.

In 1946, she became the Chinese-flag merchant ship Ta Lung, soon afterward renamed Wan Lee, and was taken over by the Chinese government in 1949.

  • Builder: Blyth Shipbuilding & Dry Dock Co. Ltd., Blyth, United Kingdom
  • Laid down: June 29, 1943
  • Launched: February 24, 1944
  • Commissionning date: July 25, 1944
  • Paying off date: November 21, 1945
  • Ex-HMS Hever Castle of the Royal Navy
  • Displacement: 1,060 tons
  • Dimensions: 76.7 m x 9.8 m x 3.1 m
  • Speed: 16 knots
  • Crew: 112
  • Armament: one 4-inch (102-mm) gun, six 20-mm (2 x II, 2 x I) guns, one Squid anti-submarine and depth charges.

Battle honours

  • Atlantic 1944-45
  • North Sea 1944

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