The Flower class corvette was one of the most famous and numerous of all escort vessels, and the corvette 'Agassiz' is the most representative of the Canadian Flowers, which were thrown into the thick of the bitter Atlantic convoy battles of 1941 2. Derived from a whalecatcher hull design, and intended as a cheap coastal escort that could be built by non-specialist yards, the Flowers were the only class available in large numbers when the submarine war flared up in earnest in 1941. As a result they were used on rigorous ocean convoy duties for which they were barely adequate, and their crews suffered greatly in one of the harshest arenas of the second world war. This is a superb description of the ship and her career.