page_title: HMCS Nootka (R96)
section_title: Construction and career
hierarchical_section_title: HMCS Nootka (R96) / Construction and career
caption_attribution_description: The Royal Navy oiler RFA Wave Sovereign (A211) resupplying the aircraft carrier HMS Ocean (R68) and the Canadian Tribal-class destroyer HMCS Nootka (DDE 213) off Korea in 1952.
context_page_description: HMCS Nootka was a Tribal-class destroyer that served in the Royal Canadian Navy from 1946 to 1964. Constructed too late to take part in the Second World War, the ship saw service in the Korean War. She received the unit name Nootka while still under construction in Halifax, Nova Scotia after the RCN renamed the Fundy-class minesweeper Nootka to Nanoose in 1943. Nootka was the second Canadian Tribal to be constructed in Canada and the second Canadian warship to circumnavigate the world. The ship was sold for scrap and broken up at Faslane, Scotland in 1965.
context_section_description: Nootka was ordered as part of the 1942–43 building programme by the RCN in June 1941. The second Tribal to be constructed in Canada, the ship's keel was laid down on 20 May 1942 at Halifax Shipyards in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Construction of the ship was slowed by a shortage of skilled labour and engineering personnel. By the end of 1943, Nootka's construction was several months behind schedule. This delayed the construction of the fourth Canadian-built Tribal as there were only two slips at Halifax capable of building the destroyers. Further delays were caused by the contractor for the ships' boilers ad engines, John Inglis Company. The contractor had been overwhelmed by the complexity of the design and the engines for the first Canadian Tribal, Micmac arrived only one full year after the ship's launch. Nootka was christened by Miss R. Gallant, a shipyard employee and named for the Nuu-chah-nulth people, formerly called the "Nootka", an aboriginal people of the Canadian Pacific Coast. The destroyer was launched on 26 April 1944 and commissioned into the RCN on 7 August 1946, performing sea trials off of Halifax.
  After commissioning, Nootka served as a training ship for the Atlantic Fleet. She was one of the ships assigned to take part in Operation Scuttled, the training exercise designed to sink  U-190, a German U-boat that had surrendered to the RCN at the end of the Second World War. However, before Nootka and her fellow ships could find the range on the submarine, the aircraft of the Naval Air Arm successfully attacked the vessel and sank her. In September 1948, she joined the aircraft carrier HMCS Magnificent and sister ship HMCS Haida on a training cruise to the Ungava Peninsula in Quebec. There the two destroyers left the aircraft carrier and toured the north, visiting Churchill, Manitoba, becoming the first RCN warships to penetrate Hudson Bay. She remained as a training vessel until her conversion to a destroyer escort after being paid off on 15 August 1949.
  During the Korean War, Canada rotated its destroyers in and out of the theatre. Nootka departed from Halifax on 25 November 1950 and transited the Panama Canal for the first of two tours of duty. On her first tour, she relieved HMCS Sioux, taking her place as one of the three Canadian destroyers assigned to the region. On 25 January, she was sent for shore bombardment duties in the Inchon area in January and was fired upon by Communist guns. For the first three months of 1951, the three Canadian destroyers in theatre spent the majority of their time screening aircraft carriers and performing inshore patrols. On 16 March 1950 she became the Senior Officer's Ship for the Canadian force in the theatre, replacing Cayuga. In early April 1951,  Nootka was assigned to the west coast blockade patrol. On 13–14 May, Nootka captured two junks, five sampans and 28 prisoners after encountering a Chinese fishing fleet off the west coast. Later in May, the destroyer transferred to the east coast, performing bombardment, aircraft carrier screening and patrol missions. Nootka sailed for home on 20 July, replaced by Cayuga.
  Her second tour in Korean waters took place from 12 February 1952 until 9 February 1952. Nootka was assigned to the Island Campaign on the west coast, supporting guerrillas and Republic of Korea troops in the islands around Chodo. The ship took part in the Island Campaign in the Haeju region in March. For the majority of 1952, Nootka supported the Island campaign off the west coast. During one inshore patrol around the islands on 26 September, Nootka sank a North Korean minelaying junk, rescuing its crew of five. She returned to Halifax on 17 December 1952 via the Mediterranean Sea, having become the second Canadian warship to circumnavigate the globe and the first destroyer to do so by the Suez Canal. Nootka underwent further conversion and modernization in 1953–1954 and resumed training duties with the Atlantic Fleet. In January 1958, Nootka collided with HMCS Algonquin while operating in the Atlantic with the First Canadian Escort Squadron. She participat
caption: RFA Wave Sovereign replenishing HMS Ocean and HMCS Nootka off Korea, 1952
exif: {}