HMCS Vancouver (F6A)
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HMCS ''Vancouver'', was a
Thornycroft Thornycroft was an English vehicle manufacturer which built coaches, buses, and trucks from 1896 until 1977. History In 1896, naval engineer John Isaac Thornycroft formed the Thornycroft Steam Carriage and Van Company which built its f ...
, formerly HMS ''Toreador'' built for the
Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...
in 1917–1919. Seeing limited service with the Royal Navy, the ship was loaned to the
Royal Canadian Navy The Royal Canadian Navy (RCN; , ''MRC'') is the Navy, naval force of Canada. The navy is one of three environmental commands within the Canadian Armed Forces. As of February 2024, the RCN operates 12 s, 12 s, 4 s, 4 s, 8 s, and several auxiliary ...
in March 1928. The destroyer served primarily as a training vessel until 1936 when the vessel was discarded.


Design

During the
First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
, Royal Navy intelligence investigated German torpedo craft and found that they were more lightly armed than the designs the United Kingdom was building. The Royal Navy altered their destroyer designs so that the ships would be less expensive. This meant that the design known as the Admiralty modified 'Trenchant' or S class would be smaller, faster and less expensive, ships which could be built quickly. The ships had a complement of 90 officers and ratings.Gardiner & Gray, p. 85 The Thornycroft version of the S class displaced . The vessels were long, had a
beam Beam may refer to: Streams of particles or energy *Light beam, or beam of light, a directional projection of light energy **Laser beam *Radio beam *Particle beam, a stream of charged or neutral particles **Charged particle beam, a spatially lo ...
of and a draught of . They were larger than their
sister ship A sister ship is a ship of the same Ship class, class or of virtually identical design to another ship. Such vessels share a nearly identical hull and superstructure layout, similar size, and roughly comparable features and equipment. They o ...
s of the Yarrow or Admiralty design. The S class had a trawler-like
bow BOW as an acronym may refer to: * Bag of waters, amniotic sac * Bartow Municipal Airport (IATA:BOW), a public use airport near Bartow, Florida, United States * Basic operating weight of an aircraft * BOW counties, made of Brown, Outagamie, and Winn ...
with a more sharply sheered and turtleback
forecastle The forecastle ( ; contracted as fo'c'sle or fo'c's'le) is the upper deck (ship), deck of a sailing ship forward of the foremast, or, historically, the forward part of a ship with the sailors' living quarters. Related to the latter meaning is t ...
. The Thornycroft S-class design was propelled by two shafts driven by Brown-Curtis
steam turbine A steam turbine or steam turbine engine is a machine or heat engine that extracts thermal energy from pressurized steam and uses it to do mechanical work utilising a rotating output shaft. Its modern manifestation was invented by Sir Charles Par ...
s powered by three
Yarrow boiler Yarrow boilers are an important class of high-pressure water-tube boilers. They were developed by Yarrow Shipbuilders, Yarrow & Co. (London), Shipbuilders and Engineers and were widely used on ships, particularly warships. The Yarrow boiler desi ...
s (built by Thornycroft). This created .Parkes, 1933 This gave the ships a maximum speed of . S-class destroyers were armed with three quick-firing (QF) /45 calibre Mk IV guns in three single mounts. The forecastle gun was placed on a raised platform. They were also equipped with a QF 2-pounder (40 mm) pom-pom for use against aircraft. The vessels also had four Lewis machine guns installed. All S-class destroyers had four
torpedo tube A torpedo tube is a cylindrical device for launching torpedoes. There are two main types of torpedo tube: underwater tubes fitted to submarines and some surface ships, and deck-mounted units (also referred to as torpedo launchers) installed aboa ...
s installed in two twin mounts. Unlike the Admiralty and Yarrow designs, all Thornycroft designed ships were equipped with two 18-inch (450 mm) torpedo tubes. Arrayed along the sides of the ship, they were fitted to fire through a narrow aperture.


Royal Navy

''Toreador'' was ordered in June 1917 as part of the second order of Thornycroft S-class destroyer for the Royal Navy. She was
laid down Laying the keel or laying down is the formal recognition of the start of a ship's construction. It is often marked with a ceremony attended by dignitaries from the shipbuilding company and the ultimate owners of the ship. Keel laying is one ...
in November 1917 and launched on 7 December 1918. She was placed in reserve at
HMNB Portsmouth His Majesty's Naval Base, Portsmouth (HMNB Portsmouth) is one of three operating bases in the United Kingdom for the Royal Navy (the others being HMNB Clyde and HMNB Devonport). Portsmouth Naval Base is part of the city of Portsmouth; it is loc ...
in May 1919.


Royal Canadian Navy

''Toreador'', along with her
sister A sister is a woman or a girl who shares parents or a parent with another individual; a female sibling. The male counterpart is a brother. Although the term typically refers to a familial relationship, it is sometimes used endearingly to ref ...
, were loaned by the British government to Canada in 1927 to replace their two existing destroyers, and .Johnston et al., p. 1009 At the same time the Canadian Government commissioned the construction of two further destroyers, and at
Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Hampshire, England. Most of Portsmouth is located on Portsea Island, off the south coast of England in the Solent, making Portsmouth the only city in En ...
.Macpherson & Barrie, p. 14 The vessel was renamed ''Vancouver'', after the famous explorer,
George Vancouver Captain (Royal Navy), Captain George Vancouver (; 22 June 1757 – 10 May 1798) was a Royal Navy officer and explorer best known for leading the Vancouver Expedition, which explored and charted North America's northwestern West Coast of the Uni ...
. ''Vancouver'' and ''Champlain'' were the first two ships with names associated with Canada. During the 1930s ''Vancouver'' served on the west coast of Canada alongside ''Skeena''. German (1990), p. 62 The vessel was used as a training vessel, visiting many ports along the coast.Johnston et al., p. 1016 In 1930, ''Vancouver'' was named in the
London Naval Treaty The London Naval Treaty, officially the Treaty for the Limitation and Reduction of Naval Armament, was an agreement between the United Kingdom, Empire of Japan, Japan, French Third Republic, France, Kingdom of Italy, Italy, and the United Stat ...
, which put limits on the amount of warships a nation could have and their size. Initially the west coast training ships did not have a cruise through the
Caribbean Sea The Caribbean Sea is a sea of the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean in the tropics of the Western Hemisphere, located south of the Gulf of Mexico and southwest of the Sargasso Sea. It is bounded by the Greater Antilles to the north from Cuba ...
like their east coast comrades. However, after a couple of winters in Canadian waters, ''Vancouver'' was sent to join ''Champlain'' in the West Indies.Johnston et al. p. 1017 In 1931, the British Foreign Office requested that Canada send one of its vessels to El Salvador due to an increased threat to British persons and property there following a rebellion until a Royal Navy ship could arrive. Arriving on 23 January 1932, ''Vancouver'' and ''Skeena'' went to separate ports initially. ''Vancouver'' was sent to Port La Union, where the ship refueled and re-provisioned. While there the British Charge d'Affairs sent an order by telephone for the ship to land an armed platoon, however, the order was never followed. Most of the time at Port La Union was spent passing idle and the destroyer remained there until 25 January when she departed for
Acajutla Acajutla is a seaport city in Sonsonate Department, El Salvador. The city is located at on the Pacific coast of Central America and is El Salvador's principal seaport from which a large portion of the nation's exports of coffee, sugar, and Balsa ...
. She remained at Acajutla until after the senior officers had returned from their inspection of what became known as
la matanza ( Spanish for 'The Massacre') refers to a communist- Indigenous rebellion that took place in El Salvador between 22 and 25 January 1932. After the revolt was suppressed, it was followed by large-scale government killings in western El Salv ...
.Johnston et al. pp. 1029–30 During a training deployment to the Caribbean Sea in 1934, ''Vancouver'' took part in the longest cruise attempted by the Royal Canadian Navy to that point. On that same deployment, the ship spent one week training with the British
Home Fleet The Home Fleet was a fleet of the Royal Navy that operated from the United Kingdom's territorial waters from 1902 with intervals until 1967. In 1967, it was merged with the Mediterranean Fleet creating the new Western Fleet. Before the First ...
.Johnston et al., p. 1037 By 1935 the condition of the two S-class destroyers in Canadian service had deteriorated significantly. Custom at this time was to give an active destroyer a thorough and complete refit (referred to as a D2) every six to eight years. ''Vancouver'', which had been completed in 1918, had never undergone such a refit. She and her sister ship were surveyed by naval engineers in 1934 and the report concluded that it would cost $165,000 to refit both ships.Johnston et al, p. 1052 This had to be done as the loan conditions with the British government stipulated that the ships had to be returned in good condition. Rendering them safe for an ocean crossing to the United Kingdom would still cost $50,000 more than a standard refit. Canada intended to return the S-class destroyers to the United Kingdom as they were considered antiquated. The United Kingdom initially wanted to have them scrapped at home, however they agreed to have them broken up in Canada as they were no longer sure of the two vessels crossing the ocean. It was also agreed that the armament of the destroyers would remain in Canadian stockpiles after the ships were broken up.Johnston et al., p. 1078 ''Vancouver'' were noted as being set for disposal in 1936. She was
paid off Ship commissioning is the act or ceremony of placing a ship in active service and may be regarded as a particular application of the general concepts and practices of project commissioning. The term is most commonly applied to placing a warship i ...
on 25 November 1936 and broken up in 1937.


References


Notes


References

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External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Vancouver (F6A) Ships built in Southampton 1918 ships S-class destroyers (1917) of the Royal Canadian Navy Ships built by John I. Thornycroft & Company