HMCS Donnacona
Encyclopedia
Her Majesty's Canadian Ship
Her Majesty's Canadian Ship
The designation Her Majesty's Canadian Ship , is applied as a prefix to any Canadian Forces warship. In the reign of a king, the designation changes to His Majesty's Canadian Ship; the French version of the title remains unchanged in this instance...
Donnacona is a reserve unit of the Royal Canadian Navy
Royal Canadian Navy
The history of the Royal Canadian Navy goes back to 1910, when the naval force was created as the Naval Service of Canada and renamed a year later by King George V. The Royal Canadian Navy is one of the three environmental commands of the Canadian Forces...
based in Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
, Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
. As with all Naval Reserve divisions, its nearly 200 sailors specialize in port security, port inspection diving, naval intelligence, and the recruiting and retention of personnel who may supplement the Royal Canadian Navy on a full-time basis on board ship or at shore establishments.
History
In 1923, the first company of the Royal Canadian Volunteer Naval ReserveRoyal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve
The Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve was a naval reserve force of the Royal Canadian Navy, which replaced the Royal Navy Canadian Volunteer Reserve .-Foundation:...
was formed in Montreal. The unit was originally housed at 465 Sherbrooke West, a converted private residence, until 1935, and then at a Bell Canada building at 1057 Mountain Street until 1939. In August 1939 the unit moved to 1046 Mountain Street - again another old Bell property, but a much more appropriate one with a pillared main entrance and space for an indoor drill deck.
At the outbreak of the Second World War the unit was split into two co-located divisions to accommodate the high recruiting intake: NCSM Cartier
HMCS Cartier
HMCS Cartier was a commissioned surveying ship of the Royal Canadian Navy and saw service during World War I and World War II.-Pre-naval service:...
for francophones and for English speakers. In 1941 the units were merged again as HMCS Montreal and in 1943 this division was moved to 2055 Drummond Street
Drummond Street, Montreal
Drummond Street is a north-south street located in downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Spanning a total of 1.2 kilometres, it links Doctor Penfield Avenue in the north and De la Gauchetière Street in the south. Drummond Street opened in 1842 and owes its name to Jane Drummond , wife of Montreal...
(the building of the old Montreal Winter Club curling rink) and re-commissioned HMCS Donnacona.
In 1943, the new name of the Naval Reserve division was chosen to be used as the name of the ship featured in the film Corvette K-225
Corvette K-225
Corvette K -225 is a 1943 film starring Randolph Scott and Ella Raines. It was released in the UK as The Nelson Touch. Tony Gaudio was nominated for the 1943 Academy Award for Best Cinematography for his work on the film....
, featuring Randolph Scott
Randolph Scott
Randolph Scott was an American film actor whose career spanned from 1928 to 1962. As a leading man for all but the first three years of his cinematic career, Scott appeared in a variety of genres, including social dramas, crime dramas, comedies, musicals , adventure tales, war films, and even a few...
and Ella Raines
Ella Raines
Ella Wallace Raines was an American film and television actress.-Life and career:Born Ella Wallace Raubes near Snoqualmie Falls, Washington, Raines studied drama at the University of Washington and was appearing in a play there when she was seen by Howard Hawks...
. In 1944, HMCS Donnacona's football (combine with players from the HMCS Hyacinthe) team won the Grey Cup
Grey Cup
The Grey Cup is both the name of the championship of the Canadian Football League and the name of the trophy awarded to the victorious team. It is Canada's largest annual sports and television event, regularly drawing a Canadian viewing audience of about 3 to 4 million individuals...
, beating the Hamilton Wildcats
Hamilton Tiger-Cats
The Hamilton Tiger-Cats are a Canadian Football League team based in Hamilton, Ontario, founded in 1950 with the merger of the Hamilton Tigers and the Hamilton Wildcats. The Tiger-Cats play their home games at Ivor Wynne Stadium...
7-6 at the Civic Stadium
Ivor Wynne Stadium
Ivor Wynne Stadium is a Canadian football stadium located at the corner of Balsam and Beechwood Avenues, two blocks west of Gage Avenue North in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada...
to bring the cup to Montreal for only the second time.
In the summer of 2007, HMCS Donnacona was moved to a new purpose-built federal government facility at 3525 St-Jacques Street
Saint Jacques Street
Saint Jacques Street is a major street in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.The street has had two official names: St. James Street in English after St. James's, London; and its current appellation, rue Saint-Jacques, in French. Both names are sometimes used in English, though Saint-Jacques is the most...
shared with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Royal Canadian Mounted Police
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police , literally ‘Royal Gendarmerie of Canada’; colloquially known as The Mounties, and internally as ‘The Force’) is the national police force of Canada, and one of the most recognized of its kind in the world. It is unique in the world as a national, federal,...
(RCMP) and the Canada Border Services Agency
Canada Border Services Agency
The Canada Border Services Agency is a federal law enforcement agency that is responsible for border enforcement, immigration enforcement and customs services....
.
Operations
During the Second World War, HMCS Donnacona served as the Royal Canadian Navy's principal recruiting and initial training depot in what was then Canada's largest city, ultimately enrolling, instructing and temporarily housing many thousands of sailors by the war's end. During the war's demobilization phase, these sailors were finally administratively discharged at the unit.Throughout the Cold War, HMCS Donnacona provided hundreds of trained augmentees in support of naval and joint operations, as well as to the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
and the First Gulf War. The unit also provided personnel to the Afghanistan war and subsequent training mission, and to numerous United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
peacekeeping missions and NATO operations.
Domestically, HMCS Donnacona has contributed assets in the form of personnel and equipment to a number of aid to the civil power operations, including the 1990 Oka Crisis
Oka Crisis
The Oka Crisis was a land dispute between a group of Mohawk people and the town of Oka, Quebec, Canada which began on July 11, 1990 and lasted until September 26, 1990. At least one person died as a result...
, the 1995 G7 summit
G8
The Group of Eight is a forum, created by France in 1975, for the governments of seven major economies: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In 1997, the group added Russia, thus becoming the G8...
in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the 1997 Red River Flood, the 1998 Ice Storm
North American ice storm of 1998
The North American ice storm of 1998 was a massive combination of five smaller successive ice storms which combined to strike a relatively narrow swath of land from eastern Ontario to southern Quebec to Nova Scotia in Canada, and bordering areas from northern New York to central Maine in the...
, the 1998 crash of Swissair Flight 111
Swissair Flight 111
Swissair Flight 111 was a Swissair McDonnell Douglas MD-11 on a scheduled airline flight from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, United States to Cointrin International Airport in Geneva, Switzerland...
, the 2010 Winter Olympics
2010 Winter Olympics
The 2010 Winter Olympics, officially the XXI Olympic Winter Games or the 21st Winter Olympics, were a major international multi-sport event held from February 12–28, 2010, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, with some events held in the suburbs of Richmond, West Vancouver and the University...
in Vancouver, British Columbia, and the 2011 floods on the Richelieu River
2011 Lake Champlain and Richelieu River Floods
The 2011 Lake Champlain and Richelieu River Floods are a currently ongoing series of water level increases that began during the end of April 2011 and caused a subsequent overflow of the Richelieu River in Canada and Lake Champlain in the United States. The floods have affected about 3,000 homes in...
in Quebec and throughout Manitoba.
Finally, in addition to these named international and domestic operations, HMCS Donnacona's personnel provide on-going augmentation to Royal Canadian Navy operations and exercises on ships and at shore establishments on a full- and part-time basis.