HMCS Rimouski was a Royal Canadian Navy Flower-class corvette which took part in convoy escort duties during the Second World War.
[3][4][5] The "corvette" designation was created by the French for classes of small warships; the Royal Navy borrowed the term for a period but discontinued its use in 1877.
[11] Rimouski had her fo'c'sle extended during a refit at Liverpool, Nova Scotia that began in March 1943 and lasted until August.
[11] After arriving at Halifax, Nova Scotia for deployment, Rimouski was initially assigned to Newfoundland Command as a convoy escort.
Canadian military intelligence and police intercepted and decoded the encrypted Kriegsmarine instructions to its prisoners at Camp 30 and the RCN planned a response centred on an anti-submarine task force that would be hidden near the extraction point.
Incidentally, Wolfgang Heyda did escape, however not by the tunnel as he used a zip wire on electrical cables to carry him outside the camp fence.
U-536 lurked offshore for the coded light signal from the escapees and the RCN personnel attempted to replicate what the escapees would have done, however the submarine detected the presence of the RCN task force led by Rimouski and remained submerged and evaded attack or capture, without successfully carrying the prisoners, but was sunk the following month by the Canadian frigate Nene and corvette Snowberry on 19 November 1943 while she was attacking Convoy SL 139/MKS 30.
[11] A common tradition of painting a mascot on a naval ship's gun shields, Rimouski featured a boisterous cowboy with a 10-gallon hat lassoing a U-boat from the back of his steed.