HMCS HAIDA, BATTLE ENSIGN FLYING

Professor Barry Gough has done an outstanding job of recording Haida's history from the time the con-cept of building Tribal-class destroyers was first mooted in Naval Service Headquarters, through her twenty years of active service and the struggle to get her to Toronto-right up to the current battle to ensure she survives as a national symbol of our naval heritage.

Sclater's charming book "Haida" (William Sclater, Oxford University Press, Toronto, 1946) was first published while the war was still raging, and presents a highly readable, but limited view, while Alan Butcher's effort ("I Remember Haida" Lancelot Press Ltd., Hantsport, NS, 1985) is strictly anecdotal and leaves much to be desired. E. C. Russell's little pamphlet gives a clinical overview of Haida's history, but reads like a summary of the Monthly Reports of Proceedings. Gough gives us the whole picture in highly readable but comprehensive terms.

A major portion of the work deals with the ship's outstanding performance under Harry DeWolf's commandin 1944. The chapter on Haida's activities in 1945, including her final trip to Norway under the command of Bob Welland, presents us with some stories that are recorded in print for the first time.

Drawing extensively on the original war diary which the navigating officer Norm Jackson kept for Dunn Lantier, the book provides a new look at the Korean war, as experienced in Haida, and a wealth of material will enlighten many readers to the scope and purpose of the Canadian effort in the early development of NATO, the beginnings of the Cold War, and the role of navies in time of peace.

The final chapters outline the determination of the members of Haida Incorporated to save the ship from destruction and bring her to her final resting place in Toronto. They felt their wildest dreams had been fulfilled when the Ontario government of John Robarts took ownership of Haida in 1970. However, the story of the next thirty years has been filled with ups and downs, and the neglect resulting from under-funding and apathy finally catches up with the ship in the late 1990s.

Fortunately, there seems to be a small reawakening of government interest at both the federal and provincial levels, leading to surveys and studies to find a way to restore and preserve the ship. It is devoutly hoped these studies will not be left to gather dust in the archives, and that the money and political will to save the ship will materialize in the foreseeable future.

This carefully researched, well written and beautifully illustrated book is a chronicle of our nation's history. It deserves to be in the collection of every naval buff and in every school library in Canada. Dr. Gough is a noted historian who has published or edited over twenty books. He is Professor of History and Assistant Dean of Arts at Wilfred Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario, and has generously donated all his earnings from this book to the Friends of HMCS Haida, to be dedicated to the preservation of the ship.

(Bob Willson is a member of NOAC Toronto Branch, and is Executive Director and Secretary of the Friends of HMCS Haida.)

(Originally Published in Vol. VII, No. 14, Spring 2001 issue of Starshell)