HMCS Terra Nova (DDE 259)

HMCS Terra Nova at Pearl Harbor in 1986
Career (Canada)
Namesake: Terra Nova River
Builder: Victoria Machinery Depot Ltd., Victoria
Laid down: 11 June 1953
Launched: 21 June 1955
Commissioned: 6 June 1959
Decommissioned: 11 July 1997
Refit: 1968 (IRE)
9 November 1984 (DELEX)
August–September 1990 (Persian Gulf)
Homeport: CFB Halifax
Honours and
awards:		 Gulf and Kuwait, 1991
Fate: Laid up at CFB Halifax until November 2009 when moved to Pictou. Currently 85%+ scrapped. The hull has been stripped nearly down to the waterline.
General characteristics
Class and type:Restigouche-class destroyer
Displacement:As built: 2800 tonnes (deep load)
After IRE: 2900 tonnes (deep load)
Length:As built: 366 ft (111.6 m)
After IRE: 371 ft (113.1 m)
Beam:42 ft (12.8 m)
Draught:14 ft (4.3 m)
Propulsion:2-shaft English-Electric geared steam turbines, 2 Babcock and Wilcox boilers 30,000 shp (22,000 kW)
Speed:28 knots (52 km/h)
Range:4,750 nautical miles (8,797.0 km) at 14 knots (26 km/h)
Complement:As built: 249
After IRE/DELEX: 214
Sensors and
processing systems:		As built:
  • 1 × SPS-12 air search radar
  • 1 × SPS-10B surface search radar
  • 1 × Sperry Mk.2 navigation radar
  • 1 × SQS-501 high frequency bottom profiler sonar
  • 1 × SQS-502 high frequency mortar control sonar
  • 1 × SQS-503 hull mounted active search sonar
  • 1 × SQS-10 hull mounted active search sonar
  • 1 × Mk.69 gunnery control system with SPG-48 director forward
  • GUNAR Mk.64 GFCS with on-mount SPG-48 director aft

After IRE:

  • 1 × SPS-12 air search radar
  • 1 × SPS-10B surface search radar
  • 1 × Sperry Mk.2 navigation radar
  • 1 × SQS-501 high frequency bottom profiler sonar
  • 1 × SQS-502 high frequency mortar control sonar
  • 1 × SQS-503 hull mounted active search sonar
  • 1 × SQS-10 hull mounted active search sonar
  • 1 × AQA-5 Jezebel passive tracer sonar
  • 1 × Mk.69 gunnery control system with SPG-48 director forward

After DELEX:

  • 1 × Marconi SPS 502 air search radar
  • 1 × Raytheon SPS 10D surface search radar
  • 1 × Sperry Mk.127 E navigation radar
  • 1 × SQS-505 hull sonar
  • 1 × SQS 505 VDS sonar
  • 1 × Mk.69 gunnery control system with SPG-515 director forward

After Gulf War:

  • 1 × Marconi SPS 502 air search radar
  • 1 × Raytheon SPS 10D surface search radar
  • 1 × Sperry Mk.127 E navigation radar
  • 1 × SQS-505 hull sonar
  • 1 × SQS-505 VDS sonar
  • 1 × C-Tech mine avoidance sonar
  • 1 × Mk.69 gunnery control system with SPG-515 director forward
Electronic warfare
and decoys:		As built:
  • 1 × DAU HF/DF (high frequency direction finder)

After IRE:

  • 1 × ULQ-6 jammer
  • 1 × WLR-1C radar analyzer
  • 1 × UPD-501 radar detector
  • 1 × SRD-501 HF/DF

After DELEX:

  • 1 × CANEWS
  • 1 × ULQ-6 jammer

After Gulf War:

  • 1 × CANEWS
  • 1 × ULQ-6 jammer
  • 1 × ALR-74 threat warning
Armament:As built:
  • 1 × 3"/70 Mk.6 Vickers twin mount forward
  • 1 × 3"/50 Mk.33 FMC twin mount aft
  • 2 × Mk NC 10 Limbo ASW mortars
  • 2 × single Mk.2 "K-gun" launchers with homing torpedoes
  • 1 × 103 mm Bofors illumination rocket launchers

After IRE/DELEX:

  • 1 × 3"/70 Mk.6 Vickers twin mount forward
  • 1 × Mk.112 ASROC octuple launcher
  • 1 × Mk NC 10 Limbo ASW mortars
  • 2 × Mk.32 triple torpedo launchers firing Mk.46 Mod 5 torpedoes

After Gulf War:

  • 1 × 3"/70 Mk.6 Vickers twin mount forward
  • 2 × Harpoon quad SSM launchers
  • shoulder-launched Blowpipe and Javelin SAMs
  • 1 × Phalanx 20 mm CIWS
  • 2 × 40mm/60 Bofors guns
  • 6 × .50-cal machine guns
  • 2 × Mk.32 triple torpedo launchers firing Mk.46 Mod 5 torpedoes

HMCS Terra Nova (DDE 259) was a Restigouche-class destroyer that served in the Royal Canadian Navy and later the Canadian Forces from 1959-1997. After her final refit, she was a guided missile destroyer.

She was the sixth ship of her class and the first Canadian war ship to bear the name HMCS Terra Nova. The ship honours the Terra Nova River in Newfoundland as well as an earlier civilian ship, Terra Nova, which gained fame during a scientific exploration voyage to Antarctica. Both the river and the Antarctic (symbolized by a penguin) are featured on the ship's badge.

Terra Nova was laid down on 11 June 1953 at Victoria Machinery Depot Ltd., Victoria and launched on 21 June 1955. She was commissioned into the RCN on 6 June 1959 with the pennant number 259.

Terra Nova was selected by the Canadian Forces for the Improved Restigouche (IRE) project and completed this refit in 1968. She was also selected as one of ten destroyers in the Destroyer Life Extension (DELEX) project and completed this refit on 9 November 1984.

Westploy 1973 Terra Nova was given notice on a Friday afternoon that she was being deployed Monday morning for South East Asia in support of the Canadian Army component of ICCS in Vietnam.She was gone for 6 months until relieved by HMCS Kootenay.

Operation FRICTION

Terra Nova was selected in August 1990 for deployment with Operation FRICTION, the CF contribution to Operation DESERT STORM (the Gulf War). She had her Mk.112 ASROC octuple launcher and her Mk. NC10 Limbo ASW mortars removed and was fitted with 8 × Harpoon anti-ship missiles and a Phalanx close-in weapon system (CIWS). She was also enhanced with three detachments of Javelin surface-to-air missile systems from 119 Air Defence Battery. With this, she became the first guided-missile destroyer in the Canadian Navy.

Terra Nova was deployed with the Canadian Naval Task Group, led by flagship HMCS Athabaskan and the supply ship HMCS Protecteur. The Task Group was assigned to the international coalition maritime interdiction force in the central Persian Gulf which consisted of a variety of coalition naval forces on station through the fall of 1990. After Operation DESERT STORM began in January, the Canadian Naval Task Group undertook escort duties for hospital ships and other vulnerable coalition naval vessels.

Decommissioning

Terra Nova during a port visit to Norfolk, Virginia in 1995 alongside the US aircraft carrier Enterprise.

Terra Nova was decommissioned from active service in the CF on 11 July 1997.

After being paid off Terra Nova appeared, cast as an American destroyer, in the movie K-19: The Widowmaker.

In December 2007 there was discussion about sinking Terra Nova for a diving attraction in the St. Lawrence River near Brockville, Ontario, however the plans fell through and she remained laid up at CFB Halifax.

On September 18, 2009, the Department of National Defence called for bids for "the removal, dismantling and disposal" of HMCS Terra Nova and HMCS Gatineau (DDE 236). The deadline for submissions for the work was October 8, 2009. On November 4, 2009, DND announced that Aecon Fabco had won the bid and would tow both vessels to their Pictou Shipyard in Pictou, Nova Scotia.[1]

Terra Nova departed Halifax Harbour on November 20 under tow by the tugboat Atlantic Elm and arrived in Pictou on November 22, where she joined Gatineau which had arrived a few days earlier. By the summer of 2010 she was being cut up for scrap, mainly aluminum, stainless steel and carbon steel.[2] She later sank at her mooring and was raised by crane in April 2011.[3]

References

  1. ↑
  2. ↑ "Piece by piece: shipyard slowly dismantling two destroyers". The News (New Glasgow). July 23, 2010. Retrieved 22 April 2011.
  3. ↑ "Crane raising sunken decommissioned ship". The News (New Glasgow). April 18, 2011. Retrieved 22 April 2011.