[2][a] They were designed at the start of the First World War as relatively fast minesweepers that could also carry out various miscellaneous duties in support of the fleet such as acting as dispatch vessels or carrying out towing operations, but as the war continued and the threat from German submarines grew, became increasingly involved in anti-submarine duties.

[2] Peony was ordered on 4 May 1915 from the Scottish shipbuilder Archibald McMillan & Son, and was built at their Dumbarton shipyard as Yard number 462.

[15] Peony remained in the Aegean Sea into 1918, operating in the Smyrna area, and was undergoing boiler cleaning on 20 January 1918.

In 1920, she was reconstructed as a passenger ferry by the Caledon Shipbuilding & Engineering Company at their Dundee yard, and was renamed Ardena, making her maiden civil voyage on 6 December 1920.

On 18 April 1941, during a convoy escort, she collided with the Greek destroyer Leon followed by the explosion of two depth charges.

[21] On 28 September 1943 she was sailing from Cephalonia to Greece with 840 Italian prisoners of war when she hit a mine off Argostoli and sank.