The last of the Tribal-class destroyers
HMCS Haida the place to learn about life at sea during 20th-century wars
HAMILTON, ONT.— It’s the most decorated warship in the history of the Canadian Navy, but its most dangerous assignment was to sail across Lake Ontario from Toronto to Port Weller.
After 36 years as a showpiece at Ontario Place on the Toronto waterfront, HMCS Haida was towed across the lake to get a new bottom installed at Port Weller Dry Docks. Parks Canada feared that its paper-thin bottom plates would collapse during the tow and Canada’s “most flightingest” ship would plunge to the bottom of the lake. But it made it. Today, it receives thousands of visitors annually to learn about life at sea that the ship and its crewmates lived through during the Second World War, the Korean War and while shadowing foreign vessels during the Cold War.
After a $5-million refurbishing in Port Weller, Ont., the HMCS Haida was towed to Pier 9 in Hamilton Harbour to launch the city’s campaign to turn its waterfront into a people place. On Sunday at noon, HMCS Haida will fire its large guns to mark the 76th anniversary of its commissioning into the Royal Canadian Navy.
Just off the ship’s bow work is now underway at Pier 8 to establish a large mixed urban community on the waterfront which used to be covered with warehouses.
Pier 8 will be home to more than 3,000 people living in 1,500 residential units, plus 13,000 square metres of commercial space and public institutional facilities. More than 40 per cent of the 13.5 acres will be public parkland. The bow of the HMCS Haida faced much different scenarios during its military service. Shortly after being launched in 1942 from Newcastle-on-Tyne, U.K., the ship was sent into the High Arctic to escort support ships to Russia through waters infested with Nazi submarines from occupied Norway.
During the Arctic’s short daylight hours, HMCS Haida’s crew had to use axes to chop ice off her superstructure to prevent the vessel from getting top heavy and capsizing. The HMCS Haida sank more tonnage during the Second World War than any other Canadian warship. One of its victims was the German battleship Scharnhorst. The HMCS Haida was part of a British Navy flotilla that attacked Scharnhorst at the Battle of North Cape, where it was posted to sink supply ships heading for the Soviet Union.
In earlier sea battles off Norway, Scharnhorst sank the British battleship Renown and the British Aircraft Carrier Glorious, as well as two of its escort destroyers. Only 36 of Scharnhorst’s crew of 1,968 sailors were rescued when the ship sank. Later, HMCS Haida sank a German destroyer off the coast of France near Ouessant Island and its sister ship, HMCS Athabaskan, was also involved in that sea battle. The next day, Athabaskan was struck by a German torpedo and sank. HMCS Haida rescued 44 of its crew from the water. Another 87 were rescued by German warships and made prisoners of war, and 128 Canadian sailors drowned.
During the rescue, the HMCS Haida came under attack from the nearby French coast and was forced from the area. It dropped its life boats as well as three volunteers and flotation devices overboard and headed for Plymouth, England.
A couple of days later, 11 Athabaskan crew members and the HMCS Haida volunteers came ashore in England in a Haida lifeboat after being chased by a German torpedo boat, which turned back when it got too close to England.
Hamilton high school students have built a shelter to house that lifeboat, which has been restored and is on display near Haida’s berth.
Those are some of the stories you’ll hear from docents aboard Haida today.
HMCS Haida is the last survivor of 27 Tribal-class destroyers built during the Second World War, all of which were named after Indigenous Canadian communities. HMCS Haida is operated in the Hamilton Harbour by Parks Canada as a National Historic Site.
Pat Brennan was a guest of Parks Canada, which did not review or approve this story.