HMCS Micmac ( R10 ) HMCS " Micmac " , pennants R10 and 214 , was a destroyer which served the Royal Canadian Navy from 1945 to 1964 . " Micmac " was the first modern , high - performance warship built in Canada . She was the first of four Tribal destroyers built at the Halifax Shipyard and one of eight Tribal - class destroyers to serve in the RCN . Background . " Micmac " was one of 27 Tribal - class destroyers completed for the Royal Navy ( RN ) , the Royal Australian Navy ( RAN ) , and the Royal Canadian Navy . She was the lead ship of the Canadian wartime Tribal Destroyer program , followed by sister ships , and . Ordered in early 1941 she did not commission until late 1945 , after the end of hostilities . " Micmac " s construction was overlong , taking 57 months from the date of order to the date of commission ; about twice that of Tribals built elsewhere . For example " Micmac " s Australian - built sister , — ordered by the RAN in September 1939 , laid down on 10 February 1940 , launched on 7 February 1942 , and commissioned on 23 November 1942 — took but 29 months while the twenty Tribals constructed for the RN ( 16 ) and RCN ( 4 ) in British yards averaged but 26 months from the date of order to the date of commission . " Micmac " s delay mainly was due to economic and political issues that permeated the entire Canadian Destroyer Project . Economic Issues . Economically , Canada ' s overall limited industrial capacity was a major factor . Tribal class fleet destroyers hull construction required a high - tensile ( HT ) specialty steel that was neither made in Canada nor available for purchase from the United States . Steel which Great Britain , overtaxed by the growing demands of a general European war , could not provide and that Canadian mills proved slow to produce . The hulls of low performance corvettes and frigates , designed to merchant ship standards and powered by triple expansion steam engines , could be built from the mild steel readily available from Canadian sources . However , high performance warships , like destroyers , require hulls built as light as practical to obtain the maximum speed possible from the available power plant whilst still carrying a useful armament . A strong yet lightweight hull requires high - strength steel and such speciality steel of the exact specification required for a Tribal hull simply was not to be had from North American sources when " Micmac " was ordered . The propulsion plant required for a Tribal was also unavailable from Britain . And the Canadian order for " Micmac " s machinery was a " first in class " effort for the designated manufacturer . Turbine engines of the size and complexity required by the Tribals never before had been built in Canada . Further , at the time " Micmac " s engines were ordered , the primary contractor , John Inglis and Company , was itself in considerable administrative difficulty arising from the increased demands of wartime procurement . The serious impact of this situation may be grasped when one considers that , despite taking an inordinate 32 months from laying down to launch , " Micmac " s hull nonetheless lay alongside for another full year awaiting the delivery of her machinery before her fitting out could commence . Civil Political Issues . Building a high performance warship is a complex undertaking that all too often strains the capabilities of experienced shipbuilders . Even when all the requisite materials and technical facilities are readily available difficulties abound . While Canada had few such enterprises in 1941 , some did exist . Yet , as events proved , the shipyard selected for construction of the Tribals , Halifax Shipyards Limited , was both undersized and ill equipped for the task even when compared to alternative Canadian yards . At the outbreak of war in 1939 Halifax Shipyard , located in the City of Halifax , was distant from the major industrial centre of Canada . The city had a modest population and an even more modest industrial capacity . Further , from 1940 until the end of the war the limited , albeit increasing , technical facilities and skilled labour force available to Halifax Shipyard were necessarily concentrated upon repair and refit of ships damaged in innumerable Atlantic convoys departing from Bedford Basin . Thus , competition for such limited resources as were available was intense . Halifax , between 1940 and 1945 , was one of the busiest and most congested ports in the world . While no shipyard in Canada had ever constructed a ship that even approached the complexity of a modern destroyer , Halifax Shipyard had limited experience even by Canadian standards . While Halifax Shipyard had built four freighters at the end of World War I as well as a powerful and successful icebreaker , the CGS " N . B . McLean " , in 1930 " Micmac " s yard number , hull No . 12 , indicates just how limited was its prior experience . Further , the shipyard was already working at capacity handling repair work for Atlantic convoy ships damaged in transit . Therefore , it is significant that the selection of Halifax Shipyard over the larger and more experienced Vickers yards in Montreal , was made by Canada ' s Minister of Defence for Naval Services , Angus L . Macdonald . MacDonald was both a Nova Scotia native and a former Premier of that province , an office he would re - occupy after the war ' s end until his death in 1954 . However the selection of the Halifax yard also had several advantages . Aside from benefiting from the proximity of naval staff at the RCN ' s Halifax Naval Dockyard next door to the Halifax Shipyard , the destroyer program also helped stabilize the capacity of the yard by retaining a workforce . Demand for skilled shipyard works soared in the winter but fell off in the summer causing many workers to leave . The destroyer program kept a large year round workforce available that could be switch from repair to new ship construction as needed . , Service Politics . The selection of the extremely advanced Tribal design for domestic construction was specifically that of the Chief of the Naval Staff , Admiral P . W . Nelles who was influenced by institutional considerations for the future of the RCN . It is recalled that the RCN was only established in 1910 and then primarily as a ploy by Laurier ' s Liberal administration to avoid paying for British Dreadnoughts . Following World War I the RCN was progressively reduced in strength until by 1922 its very survival as an independent service was placed at risk . This experience had some influence on members of the Naval Staff who were determined to forestall any possible re - occurrence at the end of World War II . Nelles ' evident design was to employ the funding opportunities afforded by the conflict in Europe to establish the post - war RCN as a major , and therefore permanent , part of Canada ' s defence strategy . Obtaining the necessary infrastructure to support a ' big ship ' fleet and the technical know - how to do so in the vicinity of the Navy ' s home port of Halifax was crucial to that endeavour . Such was the incongruity of the policy choices made with respect to the Canadian Tribal program that it appeared to some contemporary observers , both in and out of the RCN , that while obtaining the means to build a destroyer was claimed vital for the war effort , the actual construction of a destroyer evidently was somewhat less so . Career . HMCS " Micmac " was launched on 18 September 1943 , named in honour of the Mi ' kmaq people of Nova Scotia , continuing the tradition of naming Canadian Tribal - class destroyers after Canadian First Nations . After many difficulties , especially the delayed arrival of the propulsion system from Inglis in Toronto , " Micmac " was commissioned on 18 September 1945 , captained by Lieutenant Commander R . L . Hennessy , DSC , RCN . Although the war she was intended for had ended the previous May , " Micmac " was nonetheless the very first destroyer ever constructed in Canada . At an estimated cost of $ 8 , 500 , 000 . 00 CAD , roughly four times what it cost the RN to build a Tribal , she was also the single most expensive piece of military or naval equipment produced in Canada up to that time . Commissioned into a rapidly shrinking navy and built for a form of naval war that could never again occur , " Micmac " was already obsolescent . In fact , her surviving sisters in the Royal Navy were themselves all paid off to disposal in 1945 and scrapped by 1949 . Nonetheless , while the rest of Canada demobilized and dozens of other HMC Ships paid off into reserve or to disposal , " Micmac ' s " crew completed her workups and the ship entered into the routine existence of a peacetime navy with an horizon empty of any potential enemy . Collision . In March 1947 , " Micmac " received a new commanding officer , LCdr . J . C . Littler , RCN , ( Cdr . from 1 - 7 - 47 ) and entered a yard period at HMC Dockyard Halifax to refit and upgrade her automatic weapons . Early in the morning of 16 July 1947 , " Micmac " embarked a number of civilian contractors and proceeded to sea from Halifax to conduct full power trials off Sambro Head . Shortly after the trials completed , just before 13 : 00 hrs , HMCS " Micmac " was in collision with the Victory ship ( ex - " Fort Astoria " ) . Although damage to the " Yarmouth County " was slight and none of her crew were injured , " Micmac " suffered 15 injured and five dead . Five more crewmen , together with a civilian dock worker , were also lost at sea and presumed dead . " Micmac " s upper works , forward of the bridge , were extensively damaged . ' A ' mount together with its guns was completely destroyed . Moreover , she lost 40 ' of bow , her hull was badly deformed on the port side , and her keel was broken just under ' B ' mount . So badly damaged was the vessel that initially she was considered a constructive total loss . Notwithstanding her extensive damage , it was decided to take " Micmac " in hand for reconstruction as a destroyer escort along with her six surviving sisters . After extensive , albeit temporary , repairs and partial conversion , " Micmac " recommissioned on 16 November 1949 , LCdr . F . C . Frewer , RCN , commanding . However , " Micmac " s interim repairs did not extend to her broken keel ; a state which compromised her structural integrity . Because of this her forward hull could not withstand the deck thrust produced by the recoil of the four 4 " / 45 HA guns that were planned for her DDE conversion . In consequence " Micmac " was instead fitted with a single Squid Mk IV triple barrel ASW mortar in the ' A ' mount position and a single 40mm Bofors quad mount in the ' B ' mount position . All her 4 . 7 " guns were removed and a twin 4 " / 45 HA mount was shipped in Y position . This configuration gave " Micmac " a distinctive , if decidedly odd - looking , profile . DDE Conversion . On 30 November 1951 " Micmac " again paid off , this time to complete her conversion to the new DDE Tribal configuration . During this conversion her broken keel was finally made good and the forward armament was returned to a conventional arrangement of four 4 " / 45 HA guns in two twin mounts . " Micmac " recommissioned as DDE 214 on 14 August 1953 , Cdr . G . M . Wadds , RCN , commanding , but did not complete her workups until September of the following year . Because of her hull damage and prolonged refit " Micmac " was not considered for operations in the Korean War . As she was completed too late to see service in WWII and was unavailable for deployment at the time of the Korean War , " Micmac " has the distinction of being the only one of the 27 members of her class never to fire a shot in anger . Instead , her service years were spent as a training ship and sometime guard ship to the aircraft carrier . In common with the rest of her class , " Micmac " did not age well . Originally designed to counter enlarged French , German , and Italian inter - war destroyer classes — therefore intended primarily for service in the relatively sheltered waters of the Mediterranean and North Seas — the remarkably heavy armament and very high speed of the Tribal class were purchased at the cost of extremely light hull construction . The transverse strength design of the class , coupled with light hull plating , therefore lacked sufficient longitudinal stability and proved far too flexible and weak in North Atlantic service . In the absence of longitudinal strength member s the increased strength of high tensile steel plate could not entirely compensate for its simple lack of mass . Consequently , ships of this class proved particularly susceptible to structural damage when operating at speed . They also frequently suffered machinery casualties due to excessive hull flexure in heavy seas . Retirement . Hull cracks , feed water and fuel tank leaks , structural failures and turbine damage were a commonplace in Tribals even when they were new . Successive ShipAlts which addressed these issues with stiffener plates , frames , stringers , braces and even turbine blade redesign had limited success . Likely it was this consideration which influenced the RN ' s decision to dispose of their four surviving Tribal destroyers before 1950 even though none of those ships were then more than 12 years old . As the years passed all of Canada ' s Tribals , both British and Canadian built , developed more frequent and more extensive structural defects necessitating increasingly long yard time for repairs and restrictions placed on their employment . Eventually , the growing cost of their maintenance and their demands on the Navy ' s restricted manpower no longer could be justified by their decreased capabilities . Thus , in late 1963 the RCN decided to retire the entire class . " Micmac " finally paid off to disposal in March 1964 along with her sisters . She was sold and in 1965 went to the ship breakers at Faslane , Scotland . The original " Micmac " s ship ' s bell is installed on the mast of HMCS " Acadia " Sea Cadet training centre at the Cornwallis Park training facility near Digby , Nova Scotia . was the gunnery training ship assigned to from 1944 to the end of hostilities . ( By coincidence , HMCS " Acadia " had been commanded by the same LCdr . Littler who captained " Micmac " at the time of her collision . ) In the 1970s the name HMCS " Micmac " was allocated to the Sea Cadet Summer Training Centre located on the lower section of CFB Shearwater . Of the five General Training divisions at HMCS " Acadia " , one is named " Micmac " . All of the RCN Tribal - class ship ' s names have at various times been assigned to training divisions of officer cadets at the former Royal Roads Military College . One Canadian Tribal - class destroyer , the British - built , survives as a museum ship docked in Hamilton , Ontario .