HMCS ACADIA Z00

 

Auxiliary Patrol Ship

 


 

Post wartime badge

HMCS ACADIA - 1940

Courtesy of Mike O'Keefe

 

Launched: 1913

Commissioned: 16 Jan 1917

Paid off: Mar 1919

Re-Commissioned: 02 Oct 1939

Paid off: 03 Nov 1945

Fate: Museum ship at Bedford Institute in Dartmouth, N.S.

 

Acadia, a Dominion government hydrographic survey ship, was commissioned as a patrol vessel from 16 Jan 1919, to Mar 1919, and carried out A/S Patrol in the Bay of Fundy, off the south shore of Nova Scotia and in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. She then resumed survey duty until the outbreak of the Second World War when she was commissioned on 02 Oct 1939, first service as training ship for HMCS STADACONA, later patrolling the Halifax approaches from May 1940, to Mar 1941. She also occasionally acted as close escort from small convoys between Halifax and Halifax Ocean Meeting Point. After refit in 1941, she served as a training ship at Halifax for A/A and DEMS (Defensively Equipped Merchant Ship) gunners and, in Jun 1944, went to HMCS CORNWALLIS as gunnery training ship. Paid off on 03 Nov 1945, she was returned to the Dominion government. Acadia retired from service on 28 Nov 1969, to become a museum ship at the Bedford Institute in Dartmouth, N.S. On 09 Feb 1980, she was handed over to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic.

 


 

Acadia was launched in 1913 at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England at the yards of Swan, Hunter and Wigham Richardson Ltd. She was the first vessel specifically designed and built to survey Canada's northern waters, and her career took her from the dangerous, ice-infested waters of Hudson's Bay to Nova Scotia's South Shore. In her early years, she was responsible for pioneering hydrographic research in Canada's Arctic waters. At the end of her career, she was used to chart the coast of Newfoundland after it joined Confederation in 1949, creating entirely new charts and updating some that were nearly a century old.

Acadia also holds the distinction of being the only surviving ship to have served the Royal Canadian Navy during both world wars. She served as a patrol and escort vessel from 1916 to 1919. She received minor damage in the Halifax Explosion in 1917 while acting as a guard ship in Bedford Basin, making her the only vessel still afloat today to have survived the Halifax Explosion. Acadia was re-commissioned as a warship in 1939 serving first as a patrol vessel and later as a training ship until the war's end in 1945. (Source: Maritime Museum of NS website)

 


 

Photos and Documents          Ship's Company Photos

 


 

Commanding Officers

 

SLt William Alfred Robson, RNCVR - 16 May 1917 - unk

SLt William Alfred Robson, RCNVR - 01 Feb 1918 - 07 May 1918

Lt Henry F. McGuirk, RNCVR - 07 May 1918 - unk

Lt John O. Boothby, RCN - 20 Feb 1940 - 01 Apr 1940

LCdr Hubert G. Shadforth, RCNR - 13 Apr 1940 - 07 Dec 1940

Lt David Kennedy Laidlaw - 08 Dec 1940 - 28 Apr 1941

Lt Stuart Henderson, RCNR - 29 Apr 1941 - 11 Nov 1941

LCdr J.L. Diver, RCNR - 12 Nov 1941 - 19 Sep 1943

LCdr R.B. Campbell, RCNR - 20 Sep 1943 - 15 Dec 1943

LCdr J.C. Littler, RCNR - 16 Dec 1943 - 30 Mar 1944

LCdr Robert A. S. MacNeil, RCNR - 31 Mar 1944 - 06 Jun 1944

Skpr/Lt Frederick W. Durant, RCNR - 07 Jun 1944 - 04 Mar 1945

Skpr/Lt Clyde Courtenay Clattenburg, RCNR - 05 Mar 1945 - unk

 


 

     In memory of those who made the ultimate sacrifice    

     Lest We Forget     

 

PEDDLE, Francis J.

LS, RNCVR

died - 14 Oct 1918

Woodley, Herbert A.

L/Stwd, RCNR

died - 17 Feb 1941

 


 

     In memory of those who have crossed the bar    

They shall not be forgotten

 

 


 

Former Crew Members

 

Angus, Ian, Lt, RCNVR - 13 Mar 1944

 

Ankenmann, Richard Douglas, A/Lt, RCNVR - 15 Jun 1944

 

Beal, Ernest Stewart, Lt, RCNVR - 06 Jun 1944

 

Booth, Philip Sydney, SLt, RCNVR - 09 Jul 1940

 

Boutin, Jean Pierre, A/SLt, RCNVR - 23 Apr 1940

 

Burns, Arthur James, Lt, RCNVR - 02 Jun 1941

 

Cameron, Douglas MacDonald, Lt, RCNR - 17 Jun 1942

 

Cann, John Shaw, Cd (E), RCNR - 24 Jul 1941

 

Collier, Cecil Anglin, SLt, RCNVR - 27 Apr 1942

 

Dowling, Sterling Orr, Surg/Lt, RCNVR - 24 Apr 1944

 

Easton, Alan Herbert, A/Lt, RCNR - 16 Mar 1940

Flanagan, Arthur Leo, Lt (E), RCNR - 24 Jul 1941

 

Goad, Frederick Alvin Lt, RCNVR - Jan 1942

 

Harvey, William Grant, SLt, RCNVR - 05 May 1941

 

Lumsden, Peter Digby, SLt, RCNVR - Jan 1944

 

Hatrick, Raymond Gardiner, Lt, RCNVR - 13 Mar 1944

 

Hollingsworth, Herbert William, Lt, RCNVR - 22 Mar 1943

 

Ingram, Ralph Thomas, Lt, RCNR - 26 Jul 1940

 

Johnson, Kenneth Lorne, Lt, RCNVR - Jan 1944

 

Knutson, Norman John, SLt, RCNVR - Jan 1945

 

Lawrence, Harold (Hal) Ernest Thomas, Midshipman, RCNVR - 04 Mar 1940

 

McNeillie, George Gardiner, A/Lt, RCNVR - 16 Feb 1944

Millson, George Dewitt, SLt, RCNVR - 22 Mar 1943

 

Millson, Lloyd George, SLt, RCNVR -  21 Feb 1944

 

Mitchell, John Arthur, SLt, RCNR - 22 Jun 1940

 

O'Kelly, Edward Ross, Lt, RCNVR - 13 Mar 1944

 

Roberts, John (Johnny) William, Lt, RCN - 20 Mar 1944

 

Robinson, David Anton Frederick, LCdr (S/B), RCNVR - 18 Jun 1944

 

Shaw, Frank Edward, A/Wt (Tel), RCNVR - 10 Apr 1944

 

Stairs, Henry Gerald, A/Lt, RCNVR - 03 Feb 1940

 

Tyler, Peter Jeffrey, SLt, RCNVR - Jan 1944

 

Wheeler, Jerald Eldon, A.Wt (E) - 16 May 1944

 

Whiting, Douglas Paterson, SLt, RCNVR - 26 Jul 1943

 


 

Photos and Documents

 

CPO Leslie Cole on HMCS ACADIA

 

From the back of two identical photos: "DEMS Classes Firings Halifax, HMCS ACADIA. Les in charge of firings - DEMS classes" and "This is from one of my class of merchant officers whom I took in merchant ship defensive gunnery AA & antisubmarine." 

 

The photo was sent to Les by F.W. Johnson, 29 Faversham Ave, Anlaby Commons, Hull, York, England

 

From the collection of C1GA4 Leslie Cole, RCN

 

Courtesy of Deanna Cazes

 

CSS ACADIA loading coal at the Naval Dockyard in Halifax in preparation for her first Arctic expedition. HMCS NIOBE in the centre, background

Source/credit: Naval Museum of Halifax MP28.36.75

 


 

HMCS ACADIA Z00

 


 

CSS ACADIA preserved as a Museum Ship alongside the wharves of the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, Halifax, 2007.

Source: Wikipedia

Credit: Robert Alfers

 


 

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