HMCS Crusader

There has been only one vessel named Crusader in the Royal Canadian Navy.

HMCS Crusader  (R20 / D120 / 228) / Cr-class Destroyer

In January 1945, after a year’s discussion, the British Admiralty agreed to lend the RCN a flotilla of Cr-class destroyers for use against the Japanese. The Pacific war ended, however, before any of the eight ships had been completed, and only two were transferred. The previous ships to bear their Royal Navy names, Crescent and Crusader, had been lost during the war as HMCS Fraser and Ottawa; this time they retained their names even after the transfer was made permanent in 1951.

Crusader was virtually identical to Algonquin and Sioux, differing principally in having only one set of torpedo tubes and in being armed with 4.5-inch guns instead of 4.7-inch. She arrived at Esquimalt in January 1946, having made the journey via the Azores and the West Indies. She was almost immediately paid off into reserve, a state in which she was to spend several years.

Crusader was recommissioned in 1951, initially for training purposes but subsequently carried out two tours of duty in the Korean theatre, the first between June 1952 and June 1953, the second after the armistice, from November 1953 to August 1954. During the first tour, Crusader established a reputation as a “train buster,” destroying four North Korean trains, more than any other single ship in that conflict. Reverting to the training role, she also served as a test vehicle for a prototype VDS (variable depth sonar) outfit, a more permanent installation of which was made in Crescent in 1960.  Crusader was paid off at Halifax in 1960 and sold for scrapping in 1963.

• Builder: John Brown & Co. Ltd., Glasgow, Scotland
• Date laid down: 15 November 1943
• Date launched: 5 October 1944
• Date commissioned: 15 November 1945
• Date paid off: 21 January 1946
• Date recommissioned: 2 April 1951
• Date paid off: 15 January 1960
• Displacement: 1 778.1 tonnes
• Dimensions: 110.1 m x 10.9 m x 3.5 m
• Speed: 31 knots
• Crew: 244
• Armament: four 4.5-inch, four 40-mm, four 20-mm, four 21-inch TT (1 x IV)

Motto: By This Sign Conquer

Battle honours:

Korea 1952-53