HMCS St. Thomas (K488)

HMCS St. Thomas was a Castle-class corvette of the Royal Canadian Navy. She served during the Second World War, becoming famous for taking part in the sinking of the German U-boat U-877 in 1944.

Naval career
The British Admiralty had ordered HMCS St. Thomas as HMS Sandgate Castle, and allocated her the pennant number K373. She was built at Smiths Dock and launched on 28 December 1943, but was not commissioned into the Royal Navy. Instead, she was transferred to the Canadian Navy.

St. Thomas was named for the city of St. Thomas, Ontario in Canada and was commissioned on 4 May 1944 with the pennant number K488. Her first captain was Lieutenant Commander Leslie Perman Denny, RCNR. Of the ship's complement, at least five were from St. Thomas, and about a dozen from Elgin County. The original ship's bell from St. Thomas was donated to the city of St. Thomas in the late 1940s.

Her primary mission was to escort convoys from Halifax across the North Atlantic to Britain. The ship was equipped with sonar, radar and anti-submarine weapons such as depth charges used to sink U-boats. St. Thomas escorted 13 convoys across the North Atlantic in 1944-1945.

Role in the Battle of the Atlantic
St. Thomas is credited with the sinking of U-877, a German submarine on 27 December 1944. The battle took place north-west of the Azores in position 46º25'N, 36º38'W, 1000 kilometres off the coast of Newfoundland. St. Thomas twice detected and carried out attacks on the U-boat using her Squid forward-throwing anti-submarine mortar. St. Thomas had begun to withdraw, when the damaged U-boat was discovered to have surfaced four kilometres away. Rather than attacking a third time, the Canadian First Lieutenant (second-in-command), Stanislas Déry, ordered the crew, "Ne tirez pas" (Don't shoot). Instead, St. Thomas and HMCS Sea Cliff rescued all 56 members of the German crew. Shortly afterwards U-877 sank. The German second-in-command was credited with calling Déry every year to thank him for saving his life. The sinking of U-877 encouraged Canadians that their ships could successfully engage the modern U-boats.

Her second, and last captain was Lieutenant Commander Berkeley Hynes, RCNVR, who commanded St. Thomas from 27 January 1945 until shortly before her decommissioning late that same year.

Fate
St Thomas served in the Canadian navy until she was decommissioned on 22 November 1945. The navy then sold St. Thomas into mercantile service. She was renamed Camosun III in 1946, renamed as Chilcotin and again to Yukon Star in 1958.