By Richard Jackson
Canada’s Maritime Command hosted a Pacific Fleet Review between 10-13 June, to celebrate their naval centenary. Over a dozen warships from Pacific navies—including TE KAHA and ENDEAVOUR— along with Canadian Coast Guard vessels, joined a flotilla of Canadian warships to celebrate the anniversary.
The ships' companies from TE KAHA and ENDEAVOUR parade during the Canadian Navy Centenary.
Canada’s naval history parallels that of New Zealand and Australia; when Canada became self-governing in 1867 Britain remained responsible for external security. The Royal Navy’s North America squadron used Admiralty-funded bases at Halifax, Nova Scotia and Esquimalt, British Colombia.
In 1903 the Royal Navy concentrated its main force in the North Sea, to meet the new German threat. As a result, the major British colonies became aware of their own potential vulnerability, but also of the imperial over-stretch facing the British armed forces. Canada undertook limited steps towards naval defence, but—like Australia and New Zealand—faced Admiralty resistance to separate fleets outside of London’s operational control.
A national Navy
In 1909, inspired by Australia’s steps to create a national navy, the Canadian Parliament debated a resolution that ‘Canada should … assume her proper share of the responsibility … for the protection of her coastline and great seaports.’ In March that year the British revealed they faced a serious threat to their naval supremacy; the ‘crisis’ led directly to Sir Joseph Ward, then Prime Minister of New Zealand offering to fund a first class battleship (which became HMS NEW ZEALAND). Ward’s initiative was praised in London, where the Admiralty hoped the other Dominions would follow New Zealand’s example.
The British proposed that Canada fund a ‘fleet unit’ of a battlecruiser, three cruisers with destroyers and submarines, to be based on the Pacific coast. At the time Australia was preparing to fund, and man, its own fleet unit, while HMS NEW ZEALAND was intended to be based in Hong Kong as flagship of another fleet unit. The Admiralty’s vision was that all three fleet units could come together to form an Imperial Pacific Fleet if needed.
‘Imperial’ schemes did not go down well with French Canadians. In addition most of Canada’s population and commerce was centred on the Atlantic coast; there was little apparent concern for Pacific affairs. Hence the Admiralty proposal for Canada failed. Instead, the Naval Service Act was passed by Canada’s Parliament on 4 May 1910, which created the Naval Service of Canada and allowed for a cruiser to be based on each coast. (The ex-RN cruiser HMCS RAINBOW, based at Esquimalt, was similar to HMS PHILOMEL.)
However the new Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) was quickly trapped in party politics as the Liberals and Conservatives squabbled over what was in the national interest versus the imperial interest. In 1912 a Conservative bill to fund Dreadnoughts for Britain was defeated in the Senate, yet in the meantime Parliament neglected Canada’s own naval service. By 1914 the new navy’s manpower had shrunk compared to its authorised size in 1910.
The Great War
When war broke out in August 1914, Canada’s two cruisers were placed under the operational control of the Admiralty. RAINBOW patrolled off California, looking for SMS LEIPZEG of Admiral Graf Spee’s East Asiatic Squadron (the lone cruiser had been in Mexican waters when war broke out). Fortuitously, the two ships did not meet (the modern LEIPZIG’s guns would have out-ranged the elderly RAINBOW) but the threat posed by the German cruiser highlighted Canada’s vulnerability at sea.
Despite this inauspicious start the RCN expanded to undertake blockade duties against German merchant ships in the Americas, to fill necessary coastal patrol tasks and to join in the anti-submarine campaign against Germany’s U-boats. Canadians joined the Royal Naval Air Service in Britain and, from 1916, Canadian sailors were recruited to serve in Coastal Motor Boats and Motor Launches in British waters. In May 1918 long-range U-boats began operations off New York City; from August that year the U-boats extended their patrols into Canadian waters. The naval war had come to Canada’s Atlantic coast.
Like Australia and New Zealand, Canada’s main effort in WWI was to recruit soldiers for the Western Front—the Canadian Corps played a large part in the eventual victory of the Allied armies. Newfoundland, then an independent colony, sent troops too, and they first fought at Gallipoli.
After the ‘Great War’ Admiral Jellicoe advised in Canada’s naval defence (as he had for Australia and New Zealand) but the British accepted that the Dominions had the right to decide on their own naval forces. Instead, the Admiralty sought technical and doctrinal interoperability. Thus the Canadians were given a modern cruiser, HMCS AURORA (similar to HMS CHATHAM) and two destroyers as the nucleus of their post-war navy. However the Navy’s budget was soon cut, AURORA paid off and for most of the inter-war years the RCN consisted of just two destroyers and the Volunteer Reserve.
World War Two
The reality of WWII and the German U-boat campaign meant that the RCN expanded rapidly and, in fact, played a major part in the war at sea. Canada’s own shipbuilding industry also expanded and Canadian ships and sailors earned a proud record in the Battle of the Atlantic and off Normandy. In addition, special recruiting schemes (that paralleled New Zealand’s arrangements) saw young Canadians enter the Fleet Air Arm, join Coastal Forces and man landing craft within the Royal Navy. Lieutenant R H Gray RCNVR, flying from HMS FORMIDABLE (and with several Kiwis as squadron mates) won a posthumous VC on 9 August 1945 by successfully attacking a Japanese destroyer.
One particular parallel to New Zealand was the commissioning in 1944 of HMCS UGANDA, a sister to HMNZS GAMBIA—both cruisers served in the British Pacific Fleet. Commissioning the cruiser was the start of Canada’s effort to build a balanced post-war fleet; subsequently UGANDA was renamed HMCS QUEBEC and served until 1956.
After WWII, Canada was committed to NATO and the defence of Western Europe. However, Canada’s Pacific interests were not neglected and RCN destroyers played a part in the Korean War, alongside ships from their Commonwealth partners, including our frigates. Incidentally, HMNZS PUKAKI (F 424) when first built in 1944 was Canadian-manned and commissioned as HMCS LOCH ACHANALT.
With the Battle of Atlantic fresh in their minds, and faced with a significant Soviet submarine threat, the Canadians focussed on anti-submarine warfare during the 1950s and 60s. They built a series of 20 ASW frigates (equivalent to the Type 12s and Leanders of the RN, RNZN and RAN) and the RCN became leaders in small-ship helicopter operations. As the Cold War intensified, the RCN’s operational focus remained on the Atlantic and Canada’s Pacific force served primarily as a naval training squadron.
The end of the RCN
In 1965 Canada lowered the White Ensign (with the cross of St George) on its ships and hoisted their new Maple Leaf flag (the RAN nationalised its White Ensign in 1967 and the RNZN in 1968.) Canada’s controversial unification of its armed forces in 1968 was of great interest here in New Zealand. The title Royal Canadian Navy came to an end; instead the Canadian Forces have a Maritime Command with air and sea components.
While the extremes of Canada’s unification, such as green uniforms for sailors, have been reversed, Canada’s unified force is now a very good example of joint command, operations, training and administration. By the late 1980s, when Australia and New Zealand began looking at the Anzac frigate project, Canada had begun its own Patrol Frigate project, the Halifax-class.
The Canadian Forces Today
Today, in a post-Cold War era and with peacekeeping and humanitarian operations high on the agenda, the Canadian Forces are a versatile and effective force that can operate world-wide. Their Maritime Command in particular can look back on a crowded century of naval operations. The ships and sailors of Canada have worked effectively and with great courage for their own nation’s defence and, to defend friends and allies across the oceans of the world.
Reference: The Naval Service of Canada 1910-2010; The Centennial Story, Richard H Gimblett (Ed); Dundurn Press Toronto, 2009