HMS Peony (K40)

HMS Peony was a Flower-class corvette of the Royal Navy. She was transferred to the Royal Hellenic Navy as Sachtouris, serving throughout World War II and the Greek Civil War. She was returned to the Royal Navy in 1951 and scrapped in April 1952.

Royal Navy

Throughout her career with the Royal Navy, Peony escorted convoys. She primarily escorted convoys in home waters, but was sometimes called upon to escort convoys in the Mediterranean Sea and to Freetown.

In late 1940 through to early 1941, she was part of the 10th Corvette Group, Mediterranean Fleet based in Alexandria. While based there, she escorted numerous convoys to Malta. In February 1941, she was equipped for minesweeping duties as there were not enough minesweepers available. In July 1941, she assisted in the transportation of men to Cyprus. She carried out anti-submarine operations off Cyprus during the following months. She attacked a U-boat on 8 October 1941 with the Australian destroyer Vendetta, three corvettes and two anti-submarine aircraft, but the U-boat escaped.

In December 1941, while escorting Mediterranean convoy AT-6 (from Alexandria to Tobruk), she came under attack by U-559 which torpedoed the Polish steamer Warszawa. Peony took the stricken ship in tow until another torpedo hit from the U-boat doomed the steamer and she sank. Peony and Avon Vale rescued some survivors, but 23 people died in the sinking.

Royal Hellenic Navy

In 1943, Peony was transferred to the Royal Hellenic Navy, where she was re-named Sachtouris (Greek: ΒΠ Σαχτούρης) after Georgios Sachtouris, an admiral during the Greek War of Independence. She was the first ship to bear this name, the second being the Gearing-class destroyer USS Arnold J. Isbell.^{[Note 1]}

She served the remainder of the Second World War under the Greek flag. She also served in the Greek Civil War, which started after the end of the Second World War.

In 1947, the United States proclaimed that it would support the Greek government in its war against the Communist guerrillas in what became known as the Truman Doctrine. In the early 1950s, the Mutual Defense Assistance Act started the transfer of American ships to Greece. Four Cannon-class destroyer escorts entered Greek service and so the old British Flower-class corvettes were superseded.

Fate

Sachtouris was returned to the Royal Navy in September 1951 and was scrapped on 21 April 1952.

Notes

References

Sources

• Flower-class corvettes at uboat.net
• naval-history.net