HMCS Niagara

There have been one vessel and one establishment named HMCS Niagara in the Royal Canadian Navy.

HMCS Niagara (1st of name) (I57)

Built as part of the great destroyer-building programme of the United States Navy during the First World War, she was completed in 1919 as USS Thatcher and served with the US Pacific Fleet until 1922. The Town Class destroyer was transferred to the Royal Canadian Navy as HMCS Niagara at Halifax, Nova Scotia, on September 24, 1940, and sailed for the United Kingdom on November 30. In March 1941, she was assigned to Escort Group 4, Greenock, Scotland, but in June, joined the newly formed Newfoundland Escort Force.

On August 28, 1941, she was on hand to take aboard the crew of the German submarine U-570, which had surrendered to a Coastal Command aircraft south of Iceland, and been captured.

In common with the other Town Class destroyers, HMCS Niagara required major refits on a number of occasions and on March 2, 1944, following one of these, she became a torpedo-firing ship for training Torpedo Branch personnel at Halifax. She was paid off at Sydney, Nova Scotia, on September 15, 1945, sold in 1946 and broken up in 1947.

• Builder: Bethlehem Shipbuilding Corp.Ltd., Quincy, Massachusetts
• Date laid down:  June 8, 1918
• Date launched:  August 31, 1918
• Date commissioned: September 24, 1940
• Paid off: September 15, 1945
• Displacement: 1069.2 tonnes
• Dimensions: 95.8 m x 9.3 m x 2.6 m
• Speed: 28 knots
• Crew: 153
• Armament: (1940) four 4-inch (102-mm) guns (4 single mounts), twelve 21-inch (533-mm) torpedo tubes (4 tripple mounts), and depth charges.

HMCS Niagara (2nd of name)

The Canadian military has for a long time maintained a military liaison staff in the Canadian Embassy in Washington, District of Columbia, to represent its interests in the United States. The Royal Canadian Navy’s Naval Headquarters, known as HMCS Niagara, was located on Massachusetts Avenue Northwest from September 7, 1951, to September 1, 1965, and housed the Canadian Naval Attaché as well as the Naval Member of the Canadian Joint Staff.

• Date commissioned: September 7, 1951
• Paid off: September 1, 1965

Battle honours

Atlantic 1940-1944