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Gunboat Photo Archive

HMS Snapdragon (K 73)
ex-USS Saucy (PG 65)



Saucy call sign:
Nan - Baker - Dog - William

ex-HMS Arabis (K 73)

Saucy served the Navies of Great Britain and the United States.

British Flower Class Corvette/Temptress Class Patrol Gunboat:

  • Laid down by Harland and Wolff, Ltd., Belfast, Northern Ireland for the French Navy
  • Taken over by the Royal Navy with the fall of France and named HMS Arabis (K 73)
  • Launched 14 February 1940
  • Transferred to the U.S. Navy 30 April 1942 under the Reverse Lend-Lease Program at Belfast and commissioned USS Saucy (PG-65) the same day
  • Decommissioned 20 August 1945 at Chatham, England
  • Returned to the Royal Navy 25 August 1945 and recommissioned into Royal Navy as HMS Snapdragon (K 73)
  • Struck from the Navy Register 17 September 1945
  • Sold into merchantile service in 1947 and renamed SS Katina
  • Renamed SS Tewfik in 1950
  • Fate unknown.

    Specifications:

  • Displacement 1,375 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 gun mounts and two depth charge tracks
  • Propulsion: Two 225psi Scotch boilers, one 2,750ihp Harland and Wolff vertical triple expansion engine, one shaft.
    Click on thumbnail
    for full size image    		 Size Image Description Source
    Flower Class Corvette
    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 Saucy (PG 65)
    Saucy 84k Underway in the Atlantic, wearing much-weathered disruptive pattern camouflage Joe Radigan
    Saucy 200k c. May 1942
    Just after being taken over from the British
    Courtesy of Donald M. McPherson, 1974
    Naval History and Heritage Command photo NH 79081    		 Mike Green
    View the Saucy (PG-65)
    DANFS History entry located on the Haze Gray & Underway Website
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