HMCS Acadia
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HMCS Acadia is the commissioned unit name in Royal Canadian Navy service for the CSS Acadia, a hydrographic surveying ship of the Hydrographic Survey of Canada and its successor the Canadian Hydrographic Service.
CSS Acadia served Canada for more than five decades from 1913-1969, including being commissioned twice into military service for the Royal Canadian Navy during both world wars. She is the only ship still afloat that served the Royal Canadian Navy in both World Wars. She is currently a historic museum ship stationed in Halifax Harbour at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. Retaining her original engines, boilers and little-changed accommodations, she is one of the best preserved Edwardian ocean steamships in the world.
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[edit] Service history
[edit] Service prior to World War I
CSS Acadia was launched and commissioned as a hydrographic survey vessel for the Hydrographic Survey of Canada in 1913. She saw extensive use until 1917 surveying the waters along Canada's Atlantic coast, including tidal charting and depth soundings for various ports. Her first two season were spent in Hudsons Bay. Among her more enduring work was a survey of the Bay of Fundy which became her longest assignment prior to entering military service.
[edit] World War I
CSS Acadia was commissioned into the Royal Canadian Navy in January, 1917 as a patrol vessel, replacing the CSS prefix with HMCS. From 1917 until March 1919, she conducted anti-submarine patrols from the Bay of Fundy along Nova Scotia's Atlantic coast and through the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. On December 6, 1917, less than 12 months into her war-time service, HMCS Acadia survived the disastrous Halifax Explosion. Acadia was serving as guard ship at the entrance to Bedford Basin but suffered only minor damage. Near the end of the war she served as a platform for experiments with anti-submarine balloons.
[edit] Inter-war period
Following the armistice, HMCS Acadia was returned to the Hydrographic Survey of Canada (renamed the Canadian Hydrographic Service in 1928) where she regained her original name CSS Acadia and resumed hydrographic survey work throughout the inter-war period of the 1920s-1930s. A major achievement were surveys to establish the port of Churchill, Manitoba.
[edit] World War II
CSS Acadia was recommissioned into the Royal Canadian Navy in October 1939 as a training ship for HMCS Stadacona, a shore-based facility in Halifax. From May 1940 to March 1941 she saw active use as a patrol ship off the entrance of Halifax Harbour, providing close escort support for small convoys entering and leaving the port from the harbour limits at the submarine nets off McNabs Island to the "Halifax Ocean Meeting Point". HMCS Acadia was then refitted for use as an anti-aircraft training ship, serving as a gunnery training vessel for crews onboard the "Defensively Equipped Merchant Ship" (DEMS) fleet. In June 1944, HMCS Acadia was assigned to the training base HMCS Cornwallis and stationed at the nearby port of Digby, Nova Scotia where she was used for gunnery training for recruits and advanced gunnery training for petty officers and officers.
[edit] Post war service
With the end of the war, HMCS Acadia was paid off by the RCN on November 3, 1945 and returned for the second time to the Canadian Hydrographic Service as CSS Acadia. In addition to her work with the CHS, CSS Acadia participated in military survey missions for the Royal Navy, Royal Canadian Navy, and United States Navy.
She was retired from active service on November 28, 1969 and was transferred to the Bedford Institute of Oceanography (BIO) for use as a museum ship. On February 9, 1980, BIO transferred the CSS Acadia to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic for preservation and interpretation.
She is currently one of the only vessels still afloat known to have survived the Halifax Explosion.
[edit] Specifications
- Launched: 1913 (as civilian hydrographic survey vessel CSS Acadia)
- Commissioned: January 16, 1917; October 2, 1939 (HMCS Acadia)
- Paid Off: March 1919, November 3, 1945
- Displacement: 1350 tons
- Length: 170 feet
- Width: 33.5 feet
- Draught: 19 feet
- Speed: 8 knots
- Crew: 59
- Armament: 1 X 4 inch Naval gun, 1 X 12 Pounder (Naval gun capable of firing a 12 pound shot)
[edit] World War II Commanding Officers
- LT J.O. Boothby, (RCN) 20/2/1940 - 1/4/1940
- LCDR H.G. Shadforth (RCNR-Later renamed RCNVR) 12/4/1940 - ?
- LT S. Henderson (RCNR-Later renamed RCNVR) 29/4/1941 - 11/11/1941
- LCDR J.L. Diver (RCNR-Later renamed RCNVR) 12/11/1941 - 19/9/1943
- LCDR R.V. Campbell (RCNR-Later renamed RCNVR) 20/9/1943 - 15/12/1943
- LCDR J.C. Littler (RCNR-Later renamed RCNVR) 16/12/1943 - 30/3/1944
- LCDR R.A.S. MacNeil (RCNR-Later renamed RCNVR) 31/3/1944 - 6/6/1944
- Skipper/LT F.W. Durant (RCNR-Later renamed RCNVR) 7/6/1944 - 4/3/1945
- Skipper/LT C.C. Clattenburg (RCNR-Later renamed RCNVR) 5/3/1945 - Decommissioning
[edit] Modern usage of the unit name HMCS Acadia
Following completion of her second tour of military service with the Royal Canadian Navy in November 1945, the vessel relinquished use of the unit name HMCS Acadia and returned to civilian operation with the Canadian Hydrographic Service as the CSS Acadia.
In 1956 the RCN recommissioned the unit name HMCS Acadia for a new shore-based Royal Canadian Sea Cadet summer training centre. See CSTC HMCS Acadia for more information.
