HMCS CAPE BRETON (II)

HMCS CAPE BRETON, the Escort Maintenance Ship at present in service with the Royal Canadian Navy, was built by the Burrard Dry Dock Co., Ltd., of Vancouver in 1944-1945. Originally commissioned as HMS Flamborough Head, she was one of eight Maintenance and Accommodation Ships [1] built in Vancouver for loan under the Mutual Aid Agreement to the Royal Navy, primarily for service with the Pacific Fleet. A large ship with bluff bows, high freeboard, and capacious holds, Flamborough Head, now CAPE BRETON, measures 441 feet 6 inches in length, 57 feet one inch in breadth, with a mean draft under full load of 20 feet 10 inches, giving her a full load displacement of 10,268 tons. Her single screw is driven by a steam reciprocating engine of 2,500 horse-power designed to give her a speed of some ten knots.

HMCS CAPE BRETON (II)

Under the terms of an agreement made early in 1948 between Britain and Canada, it was decided that the “Head” Class ships on loan would be retained by the Royal Navy for as long as they were required, and that they would then be returned to Canada. Early in 1950, the Admiralty gave notice that they no longer required the services of HMS Beachy Head and a few months later they advised the RCN that they were prepared to return Flamborough Head. When the first ship was offered, the RCN was inclined to refuse her and have her disposed of through Crown Assets, but when Flamborough Head was offered, the Korean “police action” had begun, and the RCN had embarked upon an expansion programme. Consequently, the Admiralty was requested to return both ships. Flamborough Head was the first one to sail and arrived at Halifax on 23 April, 1951 [2]. On 2 May, 1951, she was formally accepted by the Royal Canadian Navy.

When the decision was taken to acquire Flamborough Head and Beachy Head, the intention of the naval authorities had been to refit the ships and maintain them in reserve as emergency repair ships for the fleet. The post-war RCN had however been experiencing considerable difficulty in retaining the services of experienced Petty Officers in the technical branches, and this problem became even more acute after the outbreak of Korean hostilities and the subsequent increase in size of the navy. The RCN therefore decided to establish its own naval trade school with a view to recruiting young men and providing them with naval and technical training to the stage where they could take up duties as Petty Officers in the technical branches.

The decision to establish a naval trades school and the arrival of Flamborough Head in Canada roughly coincided, and it was therefore decided that until the necessary buildings could be constructed ashore the naval trades school would be accommodated in the newly acquired ship. Flamborough Head was therefore taken in hand and remodelled to provide classrooms, work-shops, and living accommodation. New machine tools and equipment were fitted in the work-shops and a central heating system installed.

The refitting and remodelling of Flamborough Head took considerable time, and meanwhile a publicity campaign was started in the spring of 1952 to recruit 100 young men for the proposed Technical Apprentice Training scheme. Recruiting fell somewhat short of expectations, but by the end of 1952 there were 66 Ordinary Seamen Apprentices undergoing their new-entry training at HMCS CORNWALLIS in preparation for the commissioning of their new school and the beginning of their technical training.

The refitting and remodelling of Flamborough Head was completed during January 1953 and at a ceremony at Halifax on 31 January, the ship was officially re-named CAPE BRETON by Mrs. W. W. Porteous, wife of the Superintendent, HMC DOCKYARD, Halifax. At the conclusion of this ceremony, Commander(E) E. N. Clarke, CD, RCN, formally commissioned the ship and she joined the fleet as HMCS CAPE BRETON. It is interesting to note that this was the first time in the history of the RCN for a ship afloat to be commanded by an Engineer Officer.

HMCS CAPE BRETON was the second ship in the RCN to bear this name. The first CAPE BRETON had been a River Class frigate built by the Morton Engineering and Dry Dock Company of Quebec City and commissioned on 25 October, 1943. Early in 1944, the first CAPE BRETON sailed to Londonderry to join Escort Group 6 (EG-6) for service in European waters. She served with EG-6 until October 1944, most of the time on convoy escort duty. Perhaps her most important mission was the escort of convoy RA-59 from Murmansk to Britain in April and May 1944; during the passage of this convoy one merchant ship was lost but the aircraft escort retaliated by sinking three U-boats. CAPE BRETON carried out one attack on a U-boat but the contact was lost in the ice and the enemy escaped. Subsequently, CAPE BRETON took part with EG-6 in anti-submarine patrols at the entrance to the English Channel and in the Bay of Biscay to prevent enemy submarines from the Biscay ports from interfering with the ships engaged in the invasion of Normandy. EG-6 encountered no U-boats during these periods, but on a later patrol between the Orkneys and Faeroes one of the group, HMCS ANNAN, sank the outward-bound U-1006; CAPE BRETON returned to Canada in October 1944 and went into refit at Shelburne, N.S., on 6 November. Her refit was completed late in March 1945 and after working up at Bermuda in April, CAPE BRETON sailed once more as escort for a convoy bound for Londonderry. Her sailing date on this mission was 8 May, 1945, the day the war in Europe ended, so instead of joining EG-9 in European waters, as had been planned, CAPE BRETON returned almost immediately to North America. This time she was ordered to Vancouver, for it had been decided to refit her for tropical service in the war against Japan. She was taken in hand for refit by the Burrard Dry Dock Company at North Vancouver on 26 June and was still there when the Japanese surrendered on 14 August. Her refit was stopped, and by 1 October, CAPE BRETON was in Esquimalt sending her stores ashore. She was paid off on 26 January, 1946 and sold to Wagner, Stein and Greene Company of Victoria, who dismantled her and scuttled the bare hull as part of a breakwater.

It was from the first CAPE BRETON that the present ship inherited the Battle Honours: Arctic 1944; Normandy 1944; and Atlantic 1944-45. She did not however inherit an official badge from the first CAPE BRETON, who was no longer in the RCN when the policy of assigning official ships’ badges was first promulgated. Consequently, when it was decided to commission a second CAPE BRETON it was necessary to devise an official badge for her use. The badge finally approved shows a silver spur gear, representing the machinery of the Engineering Branch, upon a blue field symbolic of the sea. On the spur gear are three devices known in heraldry as “ermine spots”, black in colour and placed in trefoil fashion with the points in the centre. Between the “spots” are three thistle blooms in their natural colours, with the tips of the stems joining in the centre. The “ermine spots” are taken from the arms of Brittany in memory of the early fishermen and settlers from that province who first settled in Cape Breton; the thistle blooms commemorate the Scottish settlers who settled in that region after Nova Scotia came under British rule.

When HMCS CAPE BRETON, second of name, commissioned on 30 January, 1953, a total of 66 Ordinary Seaman Apprentices were on hand to begin their two-year training course in such trades as Engineering Artificer, Shipwright, Electrical Technician, Air Artificer, and Armourer [3]. Instructional classes began in the second week of the commission, and although there were the usual “teething troubles” (the most important one being shortage of qualified instructional staff), the “floating schoolhouse” which was HMCS CAPE BRETON was soon functioning efficiently.

For more than five years, CAPE BRETON continued to function as the RCN’s Technical Apprentice Training Establishment, the whole period being spent alongside a jetty in HMC DOCKYARD at Halifax. The original plan had been to enter 100 apprentices in 1953 and another 100 in 1954, but, as has been noticed, only 66 actually began instruction in January 1953, and it was later decided to limit the entry to 50 apprentices a year. Later, beginning in January 1956, the plan was again changed to admit 30 apprentices twice a year, in January and August. Not all of these apprentices were recruited from civilian life; from the beginning, transfers from within the RCN were permitted. A total of approximately 300 apprentices were entered in CAPE BRETON, and although the rate of attrition of some of the classes was rather high, the number of men who successfully completed the prescribed courses was sufficiently great to warrant the continuation of the scheme.

The allocation of CAPE BRETON to apprentice training had from the beginning been considered a temporary measure until shore facilities could be provided. In 1958, such facilities became available with the completion of the Naval Technical School at HMCS NADEN, Esquimalt, B.C. Consequently, on 6 June, 1958, the Technical Apprentice Training Establishment in CAPE BRETON was closed down for transfer to NADEN. CAPE BRETON herself followed her apprentices to the West Coast, sailing from Halifax on 27June and arriving at Esquimalt on 31 July, 1958. There, on 25 August, 1958, the ship was paid off for conversion to a mobile repair ship or, to give her later designation, an escort maintenance ship.

CAPE BRETON’s refit took over one year, for the changes which had to be made were many. When completed, she was fitted out with engineering and electrical workshops and possessed such facilities as a blacksmith shop, a sheet metal shop, welding shop, a pipe and coppersmith’s shop, and a plate shop. A large proportion of her ship’s company is made up of technical personnel, and she is capable of carrying out repairs to all manner of electrical and electronic equipment, diesel engines, communications equipment, and indeed all the equipment in a modern ship-of-war. She is also prepared to carry out hull repairs, both above and below the water line. In addition to carrying out repairs, CAPE BRETON can also supply a limited amount of logistic support to the ships of the fleet. Emergency requirements of equipment and stores can be quickly supplied to CAPE BRETON by air, for she is fitted with a helicopter landing platform.

CAPE BRETON’s conversion had not been fully completed when, on 16 November, 1959, she was recommissioned as an active unit of the Royal Canadian Navy by Commander M. F. Oliver, CD, RCN. For the next ten weeks her ship’s company worked along with dockyard personnel to put the finishing touches on the conversion, and by the 1st of February 1960 the ship had completed trials and was ready for her first cruise, a “shake-down” cruise to Magdalena Bay, Mexico. Upon her return to Esquimalt on 14 March, CAPE BRETON took up her assigned duty as Escort Maintenance Ship to the RCN’s Pacific Fleet.

Since that date, CAPE BRETON has continued to carry out this duty. Most of her time is spent alongside at Esquimalt, tending to the needs of the warships at the base, but periodically she functions as a mobile repair ship and accompanies RCN squadrons on exercises in local waters and occasionally in such far off places as Pearl Harbor. Her presence ensures that, on exercises and operations away from their home port, the ships of Canada’s Pacific squadrons will not suffer from the lack of repair and maintenance facilities. With her sister ship CAPE SCOTT, which serves in the same capacity on Canada’s East Coast, HMCS CAPE BRETON has gone a long way towards providing those two essentials of modern naval warfare, mobility and flexibility.

COMMANDING OFFICERS HMCS CAPE BRETON (II)

• 31 January 1953  to 21 March 1954
  Commander (E) E. N. Clarke, CD, RCN. (promoted to Captain (E) on 1 January 1954)
• 22 March 1954  to  8 March 1956
  Commander (E) D. H. Fairney, CD, RCN.
• 9 March 1956  to  2 July 1956
  Captain (E) J. S. Ross, CD, RCN.
• 3 July 1956  to  31 July 1957
  Commander (E) F. Harley, CD, RCN. (promoted to Captain (E) on 1 July 1957)
• 1 August 1957  to 26 August 1957
  Lieutenant-Commander (E) K. W. Salmon, CD, RCN.
• 27 August 1957  to 11 June 1958
  Commander (E) J. C. Chauvin, CD, RCN.
• 12 June 1958  to  1 August 1958
  Commander H. R. Beck, CD, RCN.
• 2 August 1958  to 25 August 1958
  Lieutenant-Commander R. P. LeMay, CD, RCN.
• 16 November 1959  to 24 June 1962
  Commander M. F. Oliver, CD, RCN.
• 25 June 1962  to present date (as of time of writing)
  Commander I. A. McPhee, CD, RCN.