HMCS MEDICINE HAT

The Bangor Class minesweeper HMCS MEDICINE HAT, built by Canadian Vickers, Limited, Montreal, P.Q., was commissioned on 4 December 1941.  Her specifications were as follows:

Length overall 180’

Breadth, extreme  28’ 6”

Draught, full load, aft  11’ 9”

Speed, maximum  16½ knots

Displacement, standard 672 tons

Endurance, cruising 2,950 miles.

Two triple-expansion, steam reciprocating engines developing 2,400 horse-power drove her twin screws.  Her armament consisted of one 3-inch high-angle/low-angle mounting, one single Oerlikon, four 0.5-inch Colt machine-guns, and two Lewis guns.  She carried two depth-charge chutes and two throwers and from forty to seventy depth-charges.

In her more than three years of war service, MEDICINE HAT seldom engaged in the work for which she was designed.  Only for one short period in June 1943, when a U-boat laid a small mine field at the entrance of Halifax harbour, did she engage in minesweeping.  The remainder of her time was spent in escort service, convoying ships of the Sydney iron ore fleet, escorting the North Sydney to Newfoundland ferry and joining with the Western Local Escort Force at Halifax in escorting the larger transatlantic convoys as well as the smaller local convoys.  She was, like her sister Bangors, a maid-of-all-work.

After the war ended there was little prospect of further employment for minesweepers in Canadian waters, and MEDICINE HAT was paid off on 6 November 1945.  On 29 November 1945, she was turned over to the War Assets Corporation and later sold to Marine Industries, Limited, of Sorel, P.Q.

MEDICINE HAT remained at Sorel in “strategic reserve” until reclaimed by the RCN in June 1951.  After undergoing modernization and refit, the ship was towed to Sydney, Nova Scotia, in December 1952, to join the Reserve Fleet and there she remains.