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PHOTO: NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF CANADA-PA167307 Trawlers and wooden drifters formed part of the East Coast patrol during WW I. On the day 100,000 men of the Canadian Corps captured Vimy Ridge in April 1917, the Royal Canadian Navy had 10 ships in commission and a...
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PHOTO: NOTMAN STUDIO, national Archives of canada—PA028497 Niobe sits in dry dock prior to her service in World War I. Part 5 As war clouds gathered over Europe in July 1914, the Royal Canadian Navy’s only East Coast ship—HMCS Niobe—lay mouldering alongside the dockyard in...
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PHOTO: NOTMAN STUDIO, national Archives of canada–PA028499 Members of the Royal Naval College of Canada’s class of 1912 practise rowing near Halifax. By the time Canada was at war in August 1914, only tiny Rainbow, her crew augmented by volunteers, was able to respond. Indeed,...
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From top: (Inset) Commander Walter Hose on the deck of HMCS Rainbow; HMCS Rainbow set off in August 1914 to find German cruisers along the American west coast; Canada’s first submarines, CC.1 and CC.2 were purchased by the Province of British Columbia in 1914. Ninety...
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His Majesty’s Canadian Ship Niobe visits Cornwallis, N.S., in 1912. She had become part of Canada’s navy in 1910. Inset: Sir Charles Kingsmill in 1908. The Naval Service of Canada came into being on May 4, 1910, when royal assent was granted to Sir Wilfrid...
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From top: Before she was commissioned as a naval patrol vessel in 1915, Canada saw service as a fisheries patrol vessel. Here she is seen off Bermuda prior to 1910; Crew members of HMCS Niobe pause while on deck in this photo taken before World...
Navy
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The sinking of SS Athenia
Britain declared war on Germany at 11 a.m. on Sunday, Sept. 3, 1939. At just after 7 o’clock that evening, Captain James Cook of the passenger liner SS Athenia joined his first-class guests for dinner. While the ship had actually gotten underway two days earlier—en route from Glasgow to Montreal via Belfast and Liverpool—Cook had felt...
