Saturday, November 21, 2009

HMCS TERRA NOVA DDE 259


Decommissioned Restigouche Class destroyer HMCS TERRA NOVA DDE259 left Halifax on 20th November 2009 under tow to join her sister HMCS GATINEAU DDE236 at Pictou,Nova Scotia to be dismantled.This will leave only HMCS FRASER DDH233 at present at Jetty NN in the Bedford Basin as the last surviving example of the RCN's Canadian designed and built destroyer escorts, (20 ships). Hopefully, Fraser will be tidied up for next years 100th Anniversary of RCN/Canadian Navy celebrations.
HMCS Terra Nova (DDE 259) was a Restigouche-class destroyer that served in the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) and later the Canadian Forces from 1959-1997. 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 the 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 crest.
HMCS Terra Nova was laid down on June 11, 1953, at Victoria Machinery Depot Ltd., Victoria, British Columbia, and launched on June 21, 1955. She was commissioned into the RCN on June 6, 1959, with the pennant number 259. After being paid off in 1997, Terra Nova appeared, cast as an American destroyer, in the movie K-19: The Widowmaker.

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