It was cold and, although the skies were grey, there was very little rain when, on 9 January 1967, a tug delivered the old whale catcher Southern Broom to scrap merchants Van Heyghen Frères, of Bruges, Belgium for dismantling. On 26 May 1941, 26 years previously, the old whaler, commissioned into the Royal Navy as the Flower class corvette HMS Starwort, was assigned the pennant number K20.
Corvettes, a French word to describe a small warship, were agile armed vessels smaller than destroyers, a type of craft the British Admiralty realised would be vital as anti-submarine escort vessels. But they had to be built quickly, and often by smaller yards not accustomed to naval work. They had to be manoeuvrable and, more importantly, be operated by a relatively small crew.
On 8 February 1939 officials met William Reed, naval designer and general manager of Smiths Dock Company, North Shields. He presented drawings based on the design of Smith’s whale catcher . To be equipped with a commerciallyavailable steam engine, the design was for a vessel 30ft longer than a whaler, with watertight compartments, a four-inch breech-loading gun from World War I and light secondary armament.
