Royal Canadian Navy WW1
When the First World War began in 1914, Canada had an embryonic naval service consisting of less than 350 men and just two ships, HMCS Rainbow and HMCS Niobe.
HMCS Rainbow passes the sloop HMS Algerine, at the wharf. (Algerine, added to the Canadian fleet in 1917, was used as a depot ship for the duration of the First World War since her crew had been sent to Halifax to man HMCS Niobe.
HMCS Niobe was one of eight DIADEM class protected cruisers. She served in the Royal Navy from 1898 to 1910. In 1910, Niobe and Rainbow became the first two ships to serve the Royal Canadian Navy. She was scrapped in Philadelphia in 1922. (DND photo, courtesy of Bill Croshaw.)
It was decided that Canada’s contribution to the war effort would be most effective if she concentrated on her army, so the protection of Canada’s coasts and shipping in Canadian waters was handed over to the Royal Navy.
The Royal Canadian Navy’s share in defending Canada, though small, was nevertheless very important. The RCN assumed responsibility for services such as vetting and directing shipping within Canadian ports, radio-telegraph services—vital to the Admiralty’s intelligence system—and operation of an auxiliary fleet, which engaged in minesweeping and patrolling operations. In 1916, when the threat of submarine warfare spread to North American waters, the Canadian government undertook, at the request of the British Admiralty, to build up a patrol force of 36 ships. These wooden-hulled ships were built along the lines of similar Royal Navy ships. They were intended for minesweeping and patrol duty. Many became fishing vessels after the war. (DND photo)
As well as building new ships a significant number of vessels, including trawlers and yachts were acquired by the Navy. Among these was the Dominion government hydrographic survey ship Acadia. Commissioned as a patrol vessel in 1917 she served on the Atlantic coast. She returned to survey work between the wars and was recommissioned in 1940. In 1945 she returned again to survey work and interestingly is today a floating museum as a feature exhibit of the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax.
CSS Acadia dockside at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax. (MMA Photo)
In addition Canadians made up a substantial part of the ships’ companies of Canada’s cruisers and two submarines which had been acquired by the British Columbia government and turned over to the RCN.
On the same day war was declared – 4 August, 1914 – Sir Richard McBride, Premier of British Columbia, gambled his political future on a daring plan to spirit away two newly constructed submarines, originally intended for the Chilean Navy, in complete secrecy and under cover of darkness from Seattle, Washington. Not only was this a violation of US neutrality, but the Premier risked more than a million dollars of provincial funds to obtain the much-needed vessels for defence of the West Coast. Informally christened the McBride and the Paterson, the two vessels were taken over by the Government of Canada two days later and renamed, rather more anonymously, CC-1 and CC-2.
These subs, built in Seattle on order for the Chilean Navy, were handed over to the Province of British Columbia in a covert manner and they were subsequently handed over to the RCN.
At the end of the war the RCN numbered more than 100 war vessels and about 5,500 officers and men—the nucleus of a future, effective naval force. Canada also made a direct contribution to the war at sea by providing men and ships for the Royal Navy and for other Allied powers. Some 3,000 Canadians were recruited by the RCN for service with the Royal Navy and an unrecorded number enlisted directly into the Royal Navy.
Although the shipbuilding industry in Canada was not highly developed in 1914, a considerable number of warships were built or assembled in Canada during the war.
Canadians served in many parts of the world. On November 1, 1914, Canada lost her first men of World War I, when four young midshipmen went down with the Royal Navy’s cruiser HMS Good Hope at the Battle of Coronel off the west coast of Chile.
