Flower-class sloop

For other naval ship classes of the same name, see Flower class.

The Flower class comprised five sub-classes of sloops built under the Emergency War Programme for the Royal Navy during World War I, all of which were named after various flowers. They were popularly known as the "herbaceous borders".

Fleet minesweepers

The "Flowers" were designed to be built at merchant shipyards, to ease the pressure on yards specializing in warships. The initial three groups were the first purpose-built fleet minesweepers, built with triple hulls at the bow to give extra protection against loss from mine damage when working. When submarine attacks on British merchant ships became a serious menace after 1916, the existing Flower-class minesweepers were transferred to convoy escort duty, and fitted with depth charges, as well as 4.7-inch naval guns.

Submarine decoys ("warship-Qs")

The latter two groups, the Aubretias and Anchusas, were designed as submarine decoys, or Q-ships, with hidden guns and a distinctive "merchant marine" appearance. These "warship-Qs" were thus the first purpose-built anti-submarine fighting ships, and their successor types were the anti-submarine sloops of the second world war, which evolved into the modern anti-submarine warfare frigate during the 1939-45 Battle of the Atlantic.

Service

Some 112 "Flowers" in total were built for the Royal Navy, and a further eight for the French Marine Militaire. Of these, 17 British and one French "Flowers" were sunk.

Some members of the class served as patrol vessels throughout the world during the peacetime years between the wars, but almost all were disposed of by the Second World War. This allowed the majority of the class names to be revived for the new, smaller Flower-class corvettes.

Survivors

Two members of the final Anchusa group, Chrysanthemum and Saxifrage (renamed President in 1922), survived to be moored on the River Thames for use as drill ships by the RNVR until 1988, a total of seventy years in Royal Navy service. Chrysanthemum was sold to private owners and scrapped in 1995. HMS President was sold and preserved, and is now one of the last three surviving warships of the Royal Navy built during the First World War, (along with the 1914 light cruiser HMS Caroline in Belfast, and the 1915 monitor HMS M33 in Portsmouth dockyard).

External links

Media related to Flower class sloop at Wikimedia Commons

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