HMCS Saguenay

There have been two vessels named HMCS Saguenay in the Royal Canadian Navy.

HMCS Saguenay (1st of name) (D79 / H01 / I79)

HMCS Saguenay, a Saguenay Class destroyer, was one of the first ships built for the Royal Canadian Navy. HMCS Saguenay was commissioned on 22 May 1931 at Portsmouth, United Kingdom, and arrived at Halifax, Nova Scotia, following her maiden voyage. With the outbreak of the Second World War, she escorted local convoys until late September, when she was assigned to the America and West Indies Station based at Kingston, Jamaica.

On 23 October 1939, in the Yucatan Channel, she intercepted the German tanker Emmy Friederich, which scuttled herself. HMCS Saguenay then returned to Halifax to resume local escort duty until 16 October 1940, when she sailed for the United Kingdom. On 1 December 1940, she was torpedoed by the Italian submarine Argo, 300 miles west of Ireland. The attack left her bow wrecked and twenty-one dead. After undergoing repairs, she joined the Newfoundland Escort Force, then forming.

On 15 November 1942, she was rammed by the Panamanian freighter Azra south of Cape Race, Newfoundland, and lost her stern when her depth charges exploded. The ship was docked at Saint John, New Brunswick and her stern was sealed off. She was then taken to Cornwallis, Nova Scotia, in October 1943 to serve as a training ship. Paid off on 30 July 1945, she was broken up in 1946.

HMCS Saguenay (2nd of name) (206)

The seven St-Laurent Class destroyers were the first anti-submarine vessels designed and built in Canada. Built by Halifax Shipyards Ltd., the St-Laurent Class destroyer HMCS Saguenay was commissioned on 15 December 1956. She transferred to Esquimalt, British Columbia on the west coast in 1959. Her conversion to a destroyer helicopter began on 22 August 1963. Re-commissioned on 14 May 1965, she returned that July to Halifax. Like the other ships of her class, HMCS Saguenay specialized in an anti-submarine warfare role during the Cold War. She conducted national and international responsibilities from sovereignty patrols to NATO exercises.

On 16 August 1986, while on Standing Naval Force Atlantic exercises in the Baltic Sea, she collided with the German submarine U-17. Returning home for repairs, she was again in service by March 1987. HMCS Saguenay was paid off on 31 August 1990 and, on 25 June 1994, scuttled as a recreational divers' wreck outside Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.

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