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HMCS Caribou – Royal Canadian Naval Reserve Division Corner Brook Newfoundland
by John M. MacFarlane 2016
Opening of HMCS Caribou. (Photo from Crowsnest Magazine)
On August 28th, 1953, a naval reserve division was commissioned at Corner Brook on Newfoundland’s west coast. Corner Brook had been the headquarters in the Second World War of the Corner Brook Patrol.
The Hon. Brooke Claxton, Minister of National Defence (Photo from Crowsnest Magazine)
The first commanding officer was Lieutenant–Commander F.K. Rowsell RCN(R). Present at the commissioning ceremony was the Hon. Brooke Claxton and Commodore Adams. The guests of honour included, Hon. J. W. Pickersgill, Secretary of State and a Newfoundland representative in the House of Commons; H. M. Spencer Lewin, manager of Bowater’s huge pulp and paper plant at Corner Brook, and Captain V. L. A. Campbell, RN, (Ret'd), wartime Senior Naval Officer at Corner Brook.
A harbourcraft was assigned to the Division which was returned to Halifax when the Division paid–off in 1958.
Some naval officers associated with HMCS Caribou were:
- Butler, Frederick D. – Lieutenant (L) (RCN(R))
- Chaney, Lawrence MBE – Lieutenant (RCN)
- Edward, Peter W. – Surgeon Lieutenant (RCN(R))
- Edwards, Frederick John – Commander (S) (RCN(R))
- Edwards, P.W. – Constructor Lieutenant (RCN)
- Hoddinot, Donald F. – Chaplain (Class II) (RCN(R))
- March, Raymond" – Chaplain (Class II) (RCN(R))
- Newbury, Frank Edwards – Lieutenant (L) (RCN(R))
- Rowsall, Frederick Llewellyn – Lieutenant–Commander (RCN(R))
- Strong, Howard W. – Lieutenant–Commander (RCN(R))
To quote from this article please cite:
MacFarlane, John M. (2016) HMCS Caribou – Royal Canadian Naval Reserve Division Corner Brook Newfoundland. Nauticapedia.ca 2016. http://nauticapedia.ca/Articles/Caribou_HMCS.php
Site News: April 19, 2024
The vessel database has been updated and is now holding 92,229 vessel histories (with 15,629 images and 13,195 records of ship wrecks and marine disasters). The mariner and naval biography database has also been updated and now contains 58,616 entries (with 4,013 images).
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