River Class frigates were a larger, twin-screw corvette of which 67 served in the RCN during WWII.     At 86.3 metres long, they were too big for the locks on the Lachine Canal and were all built on either the east or west coast.  Serving as convoy escorts in the Battle of the Atlantic, three Canadian frigates, CHEBOGUE, MAGOG & VALLEYFIELD were torpedoed and lost during the war.

Powered by reciprocating triple expansion steam engines, they could make 20 knots, four knots faster than a corvette.  They were armed with a twin 4” gun, numerous 20 mm Oerlikons, a Hedgehog anti-submarine projector and rails and throwers for depth charges

After the war, many were sold.  One, HMCS STORMONT, was bought by the Greek billionaire, Aristotle Onassis and converted into the luxury yacht, Christina O, which is still sailingeighty-two years later.  Twenty-one were converted into Prestonian Class frigates which served in the RCN until 1967. 

PRINCE RUPERT was commissioned in Esquimalt in 1943 and served in the Mid-Ocean Escort Group C-3, escorting convoys from St. John’s, Newfoundland to Londonderry, Northern Ireland.  On 13 March 1944, she, along with aircraft and other ships, sank U-575 in the North Atlantic.  She was sold in 1947 and her hull used as a breakwater near Comox, BC.