HMCS Huron

There have been 2 vessels named Huron in the Royal Canadian Navy. Both were named in honour of the Huron First Nation.

HMCS Huron (1st of the name) (G24 / 216)

Commissioned July 19, 1943, the Tribal Class destroyer HMCS Huron was assigned to the 3rd Destroyer Flotilla of the British Home Fleet where, for the rest of the year, she escorted convoys to and from North Russia. In February 1944, she joined the 10th Flotilla at Plymouth, United Kingdom, for invasion duties, serving in the Channel and the Bay of Biscay. She was present on D-Day on June 6, 1944. She assisted in sinking torpedo boat T 29 and destroyer Z 32. She returned to Canada and began her refit, but this was stopped owing to Victory-in-Japan Day and she was paid off on March 9, 1946. In 1950, she was re-commissioned at Halifax, Nova Scotia, for training purposes. On January 22, 1951, she sailed on the first of 2 tours of duty in Korean waters. She then reverted to her peacetime role until she was finally paid off on April 30, 1963, at Halifax. She was broken up at La Spezia, Italy in 1965.

HMCS Huron (2nd of the name) (281)

The Iroquois Class destroyer HMCS Huron was commissioned on December 16, 1972, in Sorel, Quebec, and operated from Halifax. She was designed to provide convoy protection and anti-submarine warfare against the huge Soviet submarine service during the Cold War. She attended the Silver Jubilee naval review in the United Kingdom in 1977. In 1980, while on patrol, she rescued the crew of the Canadian freighter Maurice Desgagnés, whose cargo had shifted and holed her hull. In 1980, she took part in exercises in the Mediterranean and was chosen to carry the Canadian Governor-General on a tour of five Scandinavian ports. In 1987, she was transferred to Esquimalt, British Columbia, and, in 1990, HMCS Huron, HMCS Kootenay and HMCS Annapolis paid the first visit to Vladivostok by Canadian warships since the Second World War. In 1991, she relieved her sister-ship HMCS Athabaskan in the Persian Gulf, after which she underwent a year-long refit. HMCS Huron was deployed to the Adriatic Sea in 1993 in support of the United Nations naval embargo of the former Yugoslavia and in 1999, HMCS Huron intercepted a civilian ship smuggling illegal migrants off the coast of British Columbia. On December 4, 2000, HMCS Huron was laid up and placed in reserve to be paid off May 31, 2003. Over the next 4 years, she was stripped of everything that could be used by her 3 sister-ships. On May 14, 2007, she was towed 150 km west of Vancouver, British Columbia as part of an exercise called TRIDENT FURY. There, she was used as a target by a naval task force of 8 ships and 40 aircraft and, after 5 hours, sunk.

Motto:  “Ready the Brave”

Battle honours

  • Arctic 1943-1945
  • English Channel 1944
  • Normandy 1944
  • Korea 1951-1953

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