Allied Warships

HMCS St. Clair (I 65)

Destroyer of the Town class

NavyThe Royal Canadian Navy
TypeDestroyer
ClassTown 
PennantI 65 
Built byUnion Iron Works (San Francisco, California, U.S.A.) 
Ordered 
Laid down25 Mar 1918 
Launched4 Jul 1918 
Commissioned24 Sep 1940 
End service23 Aug 1944 
Loss position
 
History

USS Williams (DD 108) was renamed HMCS St. Clair (I.65) her name commemorating the river which forms the boundary between Michigan and Ontario the destroyer was fitted out for convoy escort duties and sailed for Britain on 30 November, in company with HMCS St. Croix and HMCS Niagara. Operating with the Clyde Escort force, St. Clair escorted convoys in and out of the heavily travelled "western approaches" to the British Isles in the spring of 1941. Late in May, when the German battleship Bismark and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen slipped through the Denmark Straits the old destroyer became involved in the effort to destroy the German battleship. Eventually, a British force located and sank Bismarck on 27 May but not before the tragic loss of the battle cruiser HMS Hood on 24 May. HMCS St. Clair, near the battle area, came under air attack by German long-range bombers. The old destroyer doggedly put up a good defense shooting at least one enemy plane. St. Clair subsequently joined the Newfoundland Escort Force after this group's establishment in June 1941 and operated on convoy escort missions between Newfoundland and Reykjavik, Iceland, through the end of 1941. St. Clair was assigned to the Western Local Escort Force following repairs at St. John, New Brunswick, in early 1942, and operated out of Halifax over the next two years escorting coastwise convoys until withdrawn from this service in 1943 due to her deteriorating condition. Operating as a submarine depot ship at Halifax until deemed unfit for further duty on 23 August 1944 when she was decommissioned. St. Clair was used as a fire-fighting and damage control hulk until 1946. She was handed over to the War Assets Corp. for disposal on 6 October 1946. St. Clair was subsequently broken up for scrap.

Commanding Officers:
A/Lt.Cdr. Dickson Carlile Wallace, RCNR
24 September 1940 – 5 April 1942
Promoted to Lt.Cdr. on 11 July 1941

Lt.Cdr. Gerald Ormsby Baugh, RCNR
6 April 1942 – 26 December 1943
OBE 5 June 1943

T/Lt. W.D. Boulton, RCNVR
27 December 1943 – 7 March 1944

T/Lt. James Evelyn Burnett, RCNVR
8 March 1944 – 23 August 1944 

Former nameUSS Williams (DD 108)

Commands listed for HMCS St. Clair (I 65)

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CommanderFromTo
1Dickson Carlile Wallace, RCNR24 Sep 19405 Apr 1942
2Gerald Ormsby Baugh, RCNR6 Apr 194226 Dec 1943
3W. D. Boulton, RCNVR27 Dec 19437 Mar 1944
4James Evelyn Burnett, RCNVR8 Mar 194423 Aug 1944

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Noteable events involving St. Clair include:


17 Jan 1942
The norwegian tanker Nyholt is torpedoed and sunk about 180 nautical miles south of Cape Race in position 45º46'N, 54º18'W by the German submarine U-87. HMCS St. Clair (Lt.Cdr. D.C. Wallace, RCNR) later picks up 23 survivors (two of these died later).

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