Final version of the Blue Ensign, worn as a jack by the Royal Canadian Navy 1957-65.

HMCS Prince David was one of three Canadian National Steamships Canadian National Railway passenger liners that were converted for the Royal Canadian Navy, first to Armed Merchant Cruisers at the beginning of World War II, then Infantry Landing Ships or Anti Aircraft Escort. For three years, they were the largest ships in the RCN. The three ‘Prince’ ships were a unique part of Canada’s war effort: taken out of mercantile service, converted to Armed Merchant Cruisers, reconfigured to Infantry Landing Ships and Anti Aircraft Escort, paid off at war’s end and then returned to mercantile service. In the early part of the war, as Armed Merchant Cruisers equipped with antique guns and very little armour, Prince David and her sisters were sent to hunt enemy submarines and surface ships.

Canadian World War II navy recruitment poster.

HMCS Sackville is a Flower-class corvette that served in the Royal Canadian Navy and later as a civilian research vessel. She is now a museum ship and famous as the last surviving Flower-class corvette in the world. She has an honoured home moored next to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, Halifax.

HMCS Oriole is the Sail Training Vessel of the Canadian Navy based at CFB Esquimalt in Victoria, British Columbia. She is a 31 metre sailing ketch, currently the oldest commissioned vessel in the Canadian Navy, and also the longest serving commissioned ship.

HMCS Bras d'Or was a hydrofoil that served in the Canadian Forces from 1968 to 1971. It is claimed she was the fastest warship ever built, achieving 60 knots max. The vessel was originally built for the Royal Canadian Navy as a project for testing anti-submarine warfare technology on an ocean-going hydrofoil then commissioned into the unified Candian Armed Forces; changes in priorities led to the project cancellation.

Canadian Sailors from the patrol frigate HMCS Ville De Quebec board a Landing Craft Utility from the U.S. Navy’s, Assault Craft Unit Two based out of Naval Amphibious Base, Little Creek, Va. Canadian Navy and U.S. military forces often undertake joint exercises.

HMCS Halifax. In 2010, as part of Operation Hestia, she was deployed to the waters around Haiti to assist in relief efforts after the January 2010 earthquake, along with HMCS Athabaskan.

HMCS Nipagon underway during NATO Exercise Ocean Safari '85. Lt Julian Stockwin was a liaison officer with the USN at Pearl Harbor during this exercise.

Sailors have always enjoyed their “scran”! Here, cooks aboard the Canadian Navy Halifax-class patrol frigate HMCS Toronto prepare lobster tail for lunch as Toronto conducts operations in the Mediterranean Sea.