Photo. www.navsource.org By Joe Radigan. Photo August 1943.
Laid down in 1941 by Harland and Wolff, Ltd., Belfast, Northern Ireland for the French Navy but taken over with the fall of France and named HMS Hibiscus (K 24)
Launched 6 April 1940
Transferred to the U.S. Navy at Leith, Scotland 2 May 1942 and commissioned USSSpry PG-64 the same day
Decommissioned 20 August 1945 at Chatham, England
Returned to the Royal Navy 26 August 1945
Struck from the Navy Register 17 September 1945
Sold into mercantile service in 1947 by the British and renamed Madonna
Sold for scrap in 1955 at Hong Kong.
Specifications:
Displacement. 1,375 tons
Length 205' 2".
Beam 33'.
Draft 14' 7".
Speed 16.5 kts.
Complement 87.
Armament: One 4"/50 gun mount, one 3"/50 dual purpose gun mount, two 20mm guns, four dcp.
Propulsion two-225 psi Scotch boilers, one verticle triple expansion Harland and Wolff engine, one shaft.
One of a group of corvettes acquired by the United States Navy under reverse Lend-Lease, Spry sailed from Londonderry, Northern Ireland, on 20 May 1942 as escort for a convoy bound for Argentia. After overhaul at Boston, she arrived at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on 1 August and escorted convoys between that port and Trinidad until shifted to the convoy route between Trinidad and Recife, Brazil, in January 1943.
PG-64 seen from K-84 from ZP-41 off Fortaleza Brazil late 1943.
Photo. http://www.navsource.org/archives/12/120906413.jpg National Archives photo 80-G-55206 / Naval History and Heritage Command