Many small convoy escorts were manned by reservists whose merchant-service experience encouraged practical changes to the standard fit. Officers and petty officers with private means could buy machinery parts during American port calls, where rationing did not restrict the market in the same way. Their engines and weapons could therefore diverge, while original and modified Flowers already differed in displacement and radar fit. A U-boat commander could not assume that a supposedly standard Flower-class corvette would behave exactly like another vessel of the class. The comparison with the Great White Fleet makes the operational cost clear: fleet manoeuvres become harder when ships of one nominal type have markedly different performance.
Notable Point · 9:02-11:48
Reserve crews turned corvettes into crew projects
Merchant-sea experience, private initiative, and locally acquired parts made nominally similar escort ships diverge in practice.