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NavSource Online:
Gunboat Photo Archive

USS Surprise (PG 63)

Surprise call sign:
Nan - Baker - Fox - George

ex-HMS Heliotrope (K 03)

Surprise served the Navies of Great Britain, the United States, Taiwan and The Peoples Republic of China

British Flower Class Corvette/Temptress Class Patrol Gunboat:

Laid down 23 October 1939 by John Crown and Sons Ltd., Sunderland, England for the French Navy but taken over by Great Britain with the fall of France

Launched 5 June 1940

Commissioned HMS Heliotrope (K 03), 12 September 1940

Transferred to the U.S. Navy at Hull, England 24 March 1942 and commissioned USS Surprise (PG-63) the same day

Rescues survivors of the tanker William Boyce Thompson torpedoed by the German submarine U-185 on 7 July 1943 off the coast of Brazil at 04º00'S, 36º00'W and on 8 July 1943 takes off the remaining

crew members and Armed Guard off the freighter Thomas Sinnickson which the U-185 also torpedoed 7 July 1943, then scuttles her

Decommissioned 20 August 1945 at Chatham, England

Returned to the Royal Navy 26 August 1945

Struck from the Navy Register 17 September 1945

Served in the British merchant service as Heliolock in 1946

Sold to Taiwan in 1947 and renamed Ziang Teh

Fell into the hands of the Communist Chinese and renamed Lin I

Broken up in 1950.

Specifications:

Displacement 1,118 t.

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, two depth charge tracks and four depth charge projectors

Propulsion: Two 225psi Scotch boilers, one 2,750iph Northeastern Marine Engine Co. vertical triple expansion engine, one shaft.

Click on thumbnail for full size image	Size	Image Description	Source
Flower Class Corvette
	168k	"Escort Vessel (Corvette) - (Flower Class) - With Extended Forecastle, Increased Sheer, & Fuller Lines Fwd." U.S. Navy preliminary design plan, copied from Smith Dock Co., Ltd., Drawing No. 232. This plan, dated April 1941, is for a modification of the British "Flower" class corvette. Scale of the original drawing is not given, but appears to be 1/16" = 1'. The original plan is in the 1939-1944 "Spring Styles Book" held by the Naval Historical Center. U.S. Navy photo S-511-30	Naval Historical Center
USS Surprise (PG 63)
	99k	Wearing Measure 16 - Thayer System colors, whose patterns are identical on both sides of the hull. National Archives photo 19-N-66637 from "Naval Camouflage 1914-1945: A Complete Visual Reference", by David Williams	Robert Hurst
	520k	Surprise emerges after a refit at Charleston Navy Yard, 8 May 1944. Alterations have been circled: they included 20mm guns in the waist, the new SL surface-search radar on alight tripod mast, and the 3"/50 aft. Note the Hedgehog to starboard of the bridge. The box forward of the bridge is a British-style sonar hut Photo from U.S. Small Combatants: An Illustrated Design History by Norman Friedman
	383k
	455k	8 May 1944 Wearing Measure 16 camouflage, off Charleston Navy Yard, Charleston, South Carolina Photos from National Museum of the U.S. Navy	Michael Mohl
	345k		Michael Mohl
	84k	Original photo: 19 May 1944 Replacement photo: c. May 1944 Photo from "U.S. Warships of World War II" by Paul H. Silverstone	Original photo: Hyper War U.S. Navy in WWII Replacement photo: Robert Hurst
	63k	1 July 1944 Just before entering a fjord crossing the Arctic Circle in Greenland. George Schoelles, GM3/c is in the lower portion of the photo on the Hedgehog mount.	George Schoelles