HMCS Rainbow in 1910 |
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| Career (United Kingdom) | Royal Navy |
|---|---|
| Name: | HMS Rainbow |
| Builder: | Palmers |
| Launched: | 25 March 1891 |
| Commissioned: | 1893 |
| Out of service: | 1909 |
| Struck: | 1909 |
| Fate: | Transferred to Canada |
| Career (Canada) | |
| Name: | HMCS Rainbow |
| Acquired: | 4 August 1910 |
| Decommissioned: | 1920 |
| Struck: | 1920 |
| Fate: | Scrapped |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Apollo-class protected cruiser |
| Displacement: | 3,600 tons |
| Length: | 314 ft (95.7 m) |
| Beam: | 43.5 ft (13.3 m) |
| Draught: | 17.5 ft (5.3 m) |
| Speed: | 19.75 knots (36.58 km/h) |
| Complement: | 273 to 300 (Officers and Men) |
| Armament: |
2 × QF 6-inch (152.4 mm) guns |
HMCS Rainbow, formerly HMS Rainbow, was an Apollo-class protected cruiser built for Britain's Royal Navy by Palmers at Hebburn-On-Tyne in England. She was launched on 25 March 1891 as HMS Rainbow and entered service in 1893.
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She would serve in the China Station in Hong Kong from 1895 to 1898 and in Malta from 1898 to 1899. Rainbow had a an operating cost that was deemed excessive deemed excessive and, between 1900 and 1909, saw very little service. Most of her operations at this time were closer to England. During this time, she also saw a severe reduction in fleet support, resulting in only minor modernization. Her crew rotation at this time was used as a training cycle. Eventually, she was not used at sea from 1907 to 1909 at all. In early 1909, the Admiralty ordered her decommissioned and placed on the inactive list.
HMS Rainbow was presented to Canada in 1910, and was recommissioned HMCS Rainbow. In 1910, two old cruisers, HMCS Niobe and HMCS Rainbow (1891) were purchased from the Admiralty to be used as training ships at Royal Naval College of Canada in Halifax, Nova Scotia. [2]Classes at the Royal Naval College of Canada were held on HMCS Niobe, a ship used to train the cadets.[3] Damaged in the 1917 Halifax Explosion, she was scrapped in the 1920s. HMCS Niobe and Rainbow were the two first ships of the Royal Canadian Navy that were purchased from the Admiralty. She entered Canadian service on 4 May 1910. Her initial duties included training, ceremonial visits and fishery patrols. Rainbow served Canada's Pacific Coast from Esquimalt, British Columbia.
In 1914, Rainbow was called to Vancouver to assist with an international incident that was unfolding. The Komagata Maru, a ship filled with Sikh immigrants from India, challenged Canada's immigration law designed to prevent immigration from South Asia. The ship's passengers were not permitted to disembark even though they were British subjects. Rainbow was sent to force the ship to return to India. Twenty of the passengers were killed upon returning to Budge Budge, India, after they resisted an attempt to forcibly return them to Punjab.[4]
When World War I broke out, Rainbow was already underway on a mission to find and engage ships of the Imperial German Navy in the Pacific Ocean, in particular SMS Leipzig and SMS Nurnberg. She never met either of these ships, although she missed Leipzig by only a day at San Francisco.[5] This was to be Rainbow's first and only taste of peril.
In 1916 and early 1917, Rainbow was used to transport $140,000,000 in Russian gold bullion (valued in 1917 Canadian dollars) between Esquimalt and Vancouver.[6] This money was placed in trust with Canada by the Russian government for protection due to the impending Russian revolution.
The Royal Canadian Navy found that the cost of operating Rainbow was using up too much of the West Coast naval operations budget, and the crew of Rainbow were sorely needed on the Atlantic coast for the fight against the U-boats. Rainbow was decommissioned and de-activated on 8 May 1917, and her crew sent east. One month later, she was recommissioned in Esquimalt as a depot ship. She served in this capacity until 1920, when she was sold for scrap.
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