U S NAVY 4th FLEET AT RECIFE - SHIP INDEX PC PCE PG PY PYC
34)PG 63 PATROL GUNBOAT
Photo. www.navsource.org By Robert Hurst
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
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 dct and four dcp.
Propulsion two 225psi Scotch boilers, one 2,750iph Northeastern Marine Engine Co. verticle triple expansion engine, one shaft.
One of a group of corvettes transferred to the U.S. Navy under reverse Lend-Lease, Surprise sailed from
PG-63 rescued 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.
