HMCS ST. CLAIR (I65)

HMCS ST. CLAIR

HMCS ST. CLAIR

The History of HMCS ST. CLAIR

HMCS St. Clair (I65) began as the United States Navy Wickes-class destroyer USS Williams (DD-108), built by Union Iron Works in San Francisco. Laid down on 25 March 1918, launched on 4 July 1918, and commissioned on 1 March 1919, Williams served with the US Pacific Fleet until decommissioned and laid up at San Diego in 1922.

Reactivated in 1940 for Neutrality Patrol duties, she was selected as one of 50 American destroyers transferred to Britain under the Destroyers for Bases agreement (later formalized as Lend-Lease). On 24 September 1940 at Halifax, Nova Scotia, she was handed over to Canada, commissioned into the RCN, and renamed HMCS St. Clair after the St. Clair River that forms part of the Canada-United States border. She was one of six such ships allocated directly to the RCN.

Fitted for convoy escort, St. Clair sailed for the United Kingdom on 30 November 1940 with HMCS St. Croix and HMCS Niagara. She arrived in the Clyde on 11 December and joined Escort Group 4 at Greenock for Western Approaches duty. In late May 1941, during the hunt for the German battleship Bismarck, she came under air attack west of Galway, Ireland, while in company with Royal Navy destroyers. When bombs capsized HMS Mashona, HMCS St. Clair rescued survivors and then sank the wreck. She also claimed to have shot down at least one German aircraft.

Assigned to the Newfoundland Escort Force, she collided with the oiler Clam on 17 June 1941 shortly after reaching St. John's. Repairs kept her out of service until early December 1941. From March 1942 she served with the Western Local Escort Force out of Halifax, escorting coastal convoys. In mid-1943 she joined Escort Group W-2, interrupted by two months attached to the training establishment HMCS Cornwallis.

By December 1943 her deteriorating condition led to her withdrawal from front-line duty; she became a depot ship for Royal Navy submarines conducting anti-submarine training at St. Margaret's Bay near Halifax.

In May 1944 she returned to Halifax for further repairs and was paid off on 23 August 1944. Reduced to a firefighting and damage-control training hulk in Bedford Basin, she was eventually handed over to the War Assets Corporation for disposal on 6 October 1946 and subsequently broken up.

HMCS ST. CLAIR Statistical Data

  • Pendant: I65
  • Type: Destroyer
  • Class: TOWN
  • Displacement: 1069 tonnes
  • Length: 314.3 ft
  • Width: 30.5 ft
  • Draught: 8.5 ft
  • Speed: 28 kts
  • Compliment: 10 Officers and 143 Crew
  • Arms: 4-4", 12-21" Torpedo Tubes (4 x III)
  • Builder: Union Iron Works, San Francisco. Calif.
  • Keel Laid: 25-Mar-18
  • Date Launched: 04-Jul-18
  • Date Commissioned: 24-Sep-40
  • Paid off: 23-Aug-44

Remarks

Ex USS WILLIAMS

Photos

HMCS St. Clair I65.

HMCS St. Clair I65.

Keywords: HMCS ST. CLAIR, Royal Canadian Navy Ship, Destroyer, TOWN Class