HMS Peony (K40)
Sachtouris underway in September 1943, shortly after her transfer to the Royal Hellenic Navy.
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| History | |
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 United Kingdom
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| Name: | HMS Peony |
| Builder: | Harland and Wolff, Belfast, Northern Ireland |
| Yard number: | 1066 |
| Laid down: | 24 February 1940 |
| Launched: | 4 June 1940 |
| Completed: | 2 August 1940 |
| Commissioned: | 2 August 1940 |
| Out of service: | Transferred to the Royal Hellenic Navy in 1943 |
| Renamed: | Sachtouris on transfer |
| Reinstated: | Returned to the Royal Navy in September 1951 |
| Identification: | Pennant number: K40 |
| Fate: | Scrapped 21 April 1952 |
 Kingdom of Greece
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| Name: | Sachtouris |
| Namesake: | Georgios Sachtouris |
| Acquired: | 1943 |
| Out of service: | September 1951 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Flower-class corvette |
| Displacement: | 940 tons |
| Length: | 205 ft (62 m) |
| Beam: | 33 ft (10 m) |
| Draught: | 11 ft 6 in (3.51 m) |
| Propulsion: |
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| Speed: | 16 knots (30 km/h) at 2,750 hp (2,050 kW) |
| Range: | 3,500 nautical miles at 12 knots (6,500 km at 22 km/h) |
| Complement: | 85 |
| Armament: |
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HMS Peony was a Flower-class corvette of the Royal Navy. In 1943 she was transferred to the Royal Hellenic Navy as ΒΠ Σαχτούρης ("BP Sachtouris"), serving throughout World War II and the Greek Civil War. She was returned to the Royal Navy in 1951 and scrapped in April 1952.
Throughout her Royal Navy career Peony escorted convoys: primarily in home waters, but sometimes in the Mediterranean Sea and to Freetown in Sierra Leone.
From late 1940 to early 1941 she was part of the 10th Corvette Group, Mediterranean Fleet based at Alexandria, with which she escorted numerous convoys to Malta. In February 1941 she was equipped for minesweeping as not enough minesweepers were available. In July 1941 she helped to transport troops to Cyprus. She undertook anti-submarine operations off Cyprus in the following months. Along with the Australian destroyer HMAS Vendetta, three corvettes and two anti-submarine aircraft she attacked a U-boat on 8 October 1941 with, but the U-boat escaped.
In December 1941 while escorting Mediterranean convoy AT-6 from Alexandria to Tobruk, the German submarine U-559 torpedoed the Polish steamer Warszawa and attacked Peony. Peony took Warszawa in tow until another torpedo from the U-boat sank the steamship with the loss of 23 men. Peony and HMS Avon Vale rescued the survivors.
In the small hours of 24 December 1941 U-568 torpedoed and sank a Flower-class sister ship, HMS Salvia, about 100 nautical miles (190 km) west of Alexandria.Salvia was carrying not only her own complement but also about 100 survivors from SS Shuntien, which U-559 had sunk a few hours earlier.Peony went to Salvia's rescue but found no survivors: only a patch of oil.
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Wikipedia