HMCS Crescent (R16)

Crescent in 1945
Career (United Kingdom)
Name: Crescent
Operator: Royal Navy
Builder: John Brown & Company, Clydebank [1]
Yard number: 607
Laid down: 16 September 1943
Launched: 20 July 1944
Identification: Pennant number: R16
Fate: transferred to Canada in January 1945
Career (Canada)
Name: Crescent
Operator: Royal Canadian Navy
Acquired: loaned 1945, purchased 1951[2]
Commissioned: 10 September 1945
Decommissioned: 1 April 1970
Identification: Pennant number: 226
Fate: Scrapped 1971
General characteristics (as built)
Class and type:C-class destroyer
Displacement:1,900 long tons (1,930 t) standard
2,535 long tons (2,576 t) full load
Length:326.7 ft (99.6 m)
Beam:35.6 ft (10.9 m)
Draught:10 ft 6 in (3.20 m)
Propulsion:2 Admiralty 3-drum boilers,
Parsons single-reduction geared steam turbines,
40,000 shp (29.8 MW), 2 shafts
Speed:36 kn (67 km/h; 41 mph)
32 kn (59 km/h; 37 mph) (full load)
Range:4,675 nautical miles (8,658 km; 5,380 mi) at 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph)
1,400 nautical miles (2,600 km; 1,600 mi) at 32 knots (59 km/h; 37 mph)
Complement:186
Armament:4 × QF 4.5-inch (113-mm) L/45 Mk IV guns on mounts CP Mk.V

2 × Bofors 40 mm L/60 guns on twin mount "Hazemeyer" Mk.IV;
2 × single 2-pounder

2 × 20 mm Oerlikon cannon

HMCS Crescent was a C-class destroyer that was built for the Royal Navy but was transferred before completion and saw active service with the Royal Canadian Navy. She was one of 32 destroyers of that class built between 1943 and 1945 as part of the War Emergency Programme.

After discussions about Canada's current fleet, the United Kingdom agreed to lend the Royal Canadian Navy a flotilla of C-class destroyers in January 1945. The ships had yet to be constructed and the surrender of Japan ended the war before any of the eight could be finished. In the end, only two were transferred, Crescent and HMCS Crusader, both named after ships which had been previously transferred to Canada and renamed. This time, they kept their names as the transfer was only made permanent in 1951.[2][3]

Operational history

After commissioning, Crescent was assigned to the west coast of Canada, arriving at Esquimalt, British Columbia in November 1945. She was given training duties until February 1949 when she was sent to China to safeguard Canadian interests during the Chinese Civil War.[4][5]

1949 'mutiny'

Some years after the war for which she was built, a noteworthy event in her history - and that of the Royal Canadian Navy as a whole - occurred on 20 March 1949, when she was at Nanjing, China - at the time the last mainland holdout of Chiang Kai-shek's Chinese Nationalists, which was to be overrun by the Communist People's Liberation Army a month later.

Whether with or without connection to the above circumstances (a later commission of inquiry headed by Rear-Admiral Rollo Mainguy found no such connection), on 20 March, eighty-three of Crescent‍ '​s junior ratings locked themselves in their messdecks, and refused to come out until getting the captain to hear their grievances.

The captain acted with great sensitivity to defuse the crisis, entering the mess for an informal discussion with the disgruntled crew members and carefully avoided using the term "mutiny" which could have had severe legal consequences for the sailors involved.

This case was almost simultaneous with two other cases of mass disobedience in other Canadian naval ships at very distant other locations: the destroyer Athabaskan at Manzanillo, Colima, Mexico and the aircraft carrier Magnificent in the Caribbean. In both of these other cases, the respective captains acted similarly to their colleague aboard Crescent.[6]

Refit and return to service

Crescent after her 1956 conversion to an anti-submarine frigate.

In 1953, Crescent underwent a major refit.[7] She was modernised for anti-submarine warfare and to serve as a fast fleet escort, similar to the Type 15 frigate of the Royal Navy, the second Canadian warship to so. The superstructure was extended aft, and the bridge was modified. Half of her gun armament was replaced by sonar, a Mark 10 Limbo anti-submarine mortar and homing torpedoes.[2] The project was considered the largest operation undertaken by a Canadian dockyard to that point.[7] She emerged from the refit in 1956. In 1959, she was used as a test bed for the new Variable Depth Sonar and was eventually permanently installed.[2][8]

Crescent served in an anti-submarine role until being paid off 1 April 1970 at Victoria. She was taken to Taiwan in 1971 to be broken up.[2][3]

Ship's Bell

The Christening Bells Project at Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt Naval and Military Museum includes information from the ship's bell of Crescent, which was used for baptism of babies onboard ship from 1946 to 1957. The bell is held by the Army Navy and Air Force Veterans, Sidney, British Columbia.[9]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "HMCS Crescent". Clydebuilt Ships Database. Retrieved 22 June 2014.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Macpherson, Ken; Barrie, Ron (2002). The Ships of Canada's Naval Forces, 1910-2002 (3 ed.). St. Catharines: Vanwell Publishing Limited. p. 242. ISBN 1551250721.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Colledge, J. J.; Warlow, Ben (2006) [1969]. Ships of the Royal Navy: The Complete Record of all Fighting Ships of the Royal Navy (Rev. ed.). London: Chatham Publishing. ISBN 978-1-86176-281-8. OCLC 67375475.
  4. ↑ Gimblett, Richard H. (2009). The Naval Service of Canada, 1910-2010: The Centennial Story. Dundurn. ISBN 1554884705.
  5. ↑ "Navy Denies Crescent in Action". Ottawa Citizen. 23 April 1949. Retrieved 22 June 2014.
  6. ↑ Gimblett, Richard, Dr. (Research Fellow with Dalhousie University's Centre for Foreign Policy Studies). "Dissension in the Ranks - 'Mutinies' in the Royal Canadian Navy". CFB Esquimalt Naval & Military Museum.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Crescent will be converted soon". Ottawa Citizen. 28 January 1953. Retrieved 22 June 2014.
  8. ↑ James A. Boutiller, ed. (1 January 1982). RCN in Retrospect, 1910-1968. UBC Press. p. 325. ISBN 0774801522.
  9. ↑ "The Christening Bells Project". CFB Esquimalt Naval & Military Museum. Retrieved 22 June 2014.