HMCS Burlington

A British design, the Bangor-class minesweepers were smaller than the preceding s in British service, but larger than the in Canadian service. They came in two versions powered by different engines; those with a diesel engines and those with vertical triple-expansion steam engines. The minesweeper had a displacement of . She had a complement of 6 officers and 77 enlisted. The ship was also fitted with a QF 2-pounder Mark VIII aft and was eventually fitted with single-mounted QF 20 mm Oerlikon guns on the bridge wings. Those ships assigned to convoy duty were armed with two depth charge launchers and four chutes to deploy their 40 depth charges. ==Operational history==

The minesweeper was ordered as part of the 1939–40 building programme. The ship's keel was laid down on 4 July 1940 by Dufferin Shipbuilding at their yard in Toronto, Ontario. Burlington was launched on 23 November 1940 and commissioned into the Royal Canadian Navy on 6 September 1941 at Toronto. The ship arrived at Halifax, Nova Scotia in September 1941 and remained part of the local force until March 1942 when Burlington transferred to the Western Local Escort Force (WLEF) as a convoy escort in the Battle of the Atlantic. In May 1942, the minesweeper was reassigned to the Gulf Escort Force, escorting convoys through the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Following the closure of the St. Lawrence River and the Gulf of St. Lawrence to shipping in September following a series of successful U-boat attacks, a special convoy comprising twelve merchants was escorted by Burlington and Red Deer sailed from Sydney to Quebec City. The convoy avoided the main shipping lanes and arrived safely. The successful sailing of this convoy and its sequel gave the Royal Canadian Navy the confidence to reopen the gulf to merchant shipping again in October. On 21 October the convoy SQ 43 was spotted by west of Cap-Chat, Quebec. The convoy was escorted by Burlington, and two Fairmile motor launches. The submarine was damaged in a counterattack by Gananoque and forced to break off its attack. On 6 November, the minesweeper was sent to search for a U-boat that had landed an Abwehr agent in Quebec. The agent was captured but the submarine was not intercepted. In December 1942, Burlington began a refit that was done piecemeal at Halifax, Lunenburg, Nova Scotia and Dartmouth, Nova Scotia that took until May 1943 to complete. After working up, the minesweeper was assigned to WLEF, joining the convoy escort group W9. Burlington remained with the group until February 1944 when she transferred to the Halifax Local Defence Force as a local patrol and escort vessel. ==References==