HMCS Star is a Canadian Forces Naval Reserve Division (NRD) located in Hamilton, Ontario. Dubbed a stone frigate, HMCS Star is a land-based naval establishment for training part-time sailors as well as functioning as a local recruitment centre for the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN). The second oldest of 24 naval reserve divisions located in major cities across Canada, Star was stood up on 15 March 1923 as the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve (RCNVR) Hamilton Half Company and then on 1 November 1941 as HMCS Star.
Namesake Named after HMS Lord Melville/Star, the Royal Navy 14-gun brig launched at Kingston, Ontario, on 20 July 1813, the name Star honours the Royal Navy's presence on Lake Ontario and the defense of Canada during the War of 1812.
History Early history (1800s) Naval activity in Hamilton Harbour can be traced as far back as the late 18th and early 19th century when HMS Lord Melville, later HMS Star, of the British Provincial Marine and Royal Navy plied Lake Ontario conducting coastal protection operations.
During the Rebellions of 1837, a naval militia from Hamilton led by Canadian loyalist Sir Allan McNab and Royal Navy Captain Andrew Drew, ignited a diplomatic crisis known as the Caroline Affair, when a group of Hamiltonians captured the Canadian rebel supply vessel, SS Caroline, allegedly killing an American crew member and then setting fire to the ship before sending it over Niagara Falls. The Caroline Affair led to the legal principle of the "Caroline test" which states that the necessity for [self-defense] must be "instant, overwhelming, and leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation". Today, the "Caroline test" remains a part of customary international law.
The Militia Act of 1855 authorized the formation of Volunteer Marine Companies within the Province of Canada. Fearing invasion from the United States, seven years later on 31 January 1862, the Hamilton Volunteer Naval Company was stood up under the command of Captain Thomas Harbottle and Lieutenant George P. Malcomson.
With the American Civil War ending, in 1866 the Hamilton Naval Brigade was called out on short periods of active duty guarding the city and manning steamboats in response to Fenian cross-border raids. For their service during the Fenian Raids, Hamilton's naval volunteers were awarded the Canada General Service Medal with the Fenian Raid 1866 bar. Two years later, with the passage of a Militia Act of 1868, the Naval Companies of Garden Island, Toronto, Hamilton, Dunnville and Port Stanley were requested to signal their intention to remain in active service. All the units, including Hamilton, failed to meet the February 1869 deadline and therefore Hamilton's first, formal naval reserve unit ceased to exist.
First World War (1914–1918) When the Royal Canadian Navy was formed on 4 May 1910, there was no corresponding naval reserve until 1914 when the Royal Navy Canadian Volunteer Reserve (RNCVR) was stood up with minimal government support. Two years later, in 1916, the Hamilton Committee was formed to recruit sailors for the overseas division new RNCVR. The Committee included well known Hamiltonians, such as Hamilton city Alderman Captain George J. Guy and John H. Collinson, the first headmaster of Highfield School for Boys.
Between the wars (1923–1939) On 31 January 1923, Privy Council Order #139 established the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve (RCNVR) and on 15 March 1923 Lieutenant Ralph H. Yeates was appointed as the first commanding officer of the Hamilton Half Company (RCNVR). The Half Company initially shared offices with the Navy League in the Imperial Building on the corner of Main Street East & Hughson Street South in Hamilton. On 2 November 1923, the Half Company moved into the W. Grant Sail Loft on the corner of Bay Street North and Burlington Streets, sharing its building with Sea Cadets who had been formed six years earlier. On 2 July 1935, the Hamilton Half Company moved to the Williamson & Company Vinegar Works building at 41 Stuart Street, between Bay & MacNab where it stayed until 1943.
Second World War (1939–1945) On 1 November 1941, the Hamilton Half Company was commissioned as HMCS Star and became a major recruiting depot and wartime training barracks for the Royal Canadian Navy and the Women's Royal Canadian Naval Service (WRCNS). As late as 14 October 1941, the unit was considered to be called HMCS Brant, but the name was changed, likely to avoid confusion with a recently launched corvette .
On 7 May 1942 it was announced by the Navy that each major naval reserve unit would help meet the growing demand for technically skilled sailors within the fleet by training personnel in specialist skills. Shifting from a purely recruiting role and now to one of specialist training, Star was assigned to train new sailors in radio and electrical engineering. With that, 130 young men from across Canada were assigned to Hamilton and their training was divided between Star, Westdale Technical School (radio work) and Hamilton Technical Institute (electrical engineering). Due to the large complement of sailors at Star, a full medical and dental service was added to the unit.
In the winter of 1942, the University Naval Training Division (UNTD) concept was introduced in Hamilton by Professor A. W. "Jack" Baker, when he stood up an experimental reserve training division at the Ontario Agricultural College (OAC) in Guelph. Attached to HMCS Star for the school term, Baker aimed to establish other Naval Training Units at universities across Canada to secure recruits who will otherwise enter the army's Canadian Officers Training Corps (COTC) or the air force's University Air Training Plan (UATP).
In February 1943, with the success of the UNTD in Guelph, Professor Baker was brought into the RCNVR as an Acting Lieutenant Commander (SB) and appointed to the position of Staff Officer University Naval Training at McMaster University in Hamilton. Under Naval Order 2854 dated 19 June 1943, Baker set out across the country to establish 15 UNTDs. By the time the UNTD program was shut down in 1968, over 7,800 reserve officers were commissioned, of which 500 had trained at Star; and of whom 53 lost their lives during the Second World War.
On 1 February 1943, the Department of National Defence purchased near Eastwood Park from the City of Hamilton to accommodate the growing unit. On 24 April 1943, the foundations were laid for a new HMCS Star building, with the opening occurring six months later. Intended as a prototype for Naval Reserve structures, the building demonstrated good craftsmanship and handling of materials. At this time, HMCS Star had a strength of approximately one thousand personnel with 681 in trades training, 281 undergoing basic training and 56 officers.
Between 1941 and 1945, HMCS Star enlisted and trained 7,490 officers, men, and women for service during the Second World War. The Distinguished Service Medal was awarded to Chief Petty Officer Donald Portree, Torpedoman Dan Gearing and Signaller Eugine Tobin.
Cold War (1945–1989) Following the Second World War, HMCS Star returned to a peacetime footing, reactivating in October 1946 as a reserve division.
In June 1949, a party of sailors from the unit made a visit to former RCN corvettes being readied to be scrapped at Hamilton's steel mills. Their visit was to salvage whatever material would be of instructional value to the Division and to bring back memories to those that served on the ships during the war. In the same month the wardroom at Star was the first wardroom in the Royal Canadian Navy to be fitted with a television receiver, with programs coming in from as far as Buffalo, New York.
In July 1949, a training programme for naval reserve air maintenance personnel was announced to be opened at HMCS Star. The program featured specialist training and instruction in naval aircraft maintenance for 100 personnel. Full training equipment, including Supermarine Seafire aircraft was provided by RCN Air Station, HMCS Shearwater, with training being conducted in addition to the normal week-day drill.
In August 1949, HMCS Star provided a Fairmile-B class motor launch, two harbour craft, a cutter and two whalers to Exercise "Operation Seahorse" carried out in the Burlington Beach area. This navy, army and air force reserve exercise included transferring Royal Canadian Army Service Corps personnel and supplies from boats to amphibious DUKWs and then to shore while under aerial attack. The ships from Star succeeded in landing the army force, while Air Force reserve pilots conducted low level strafing attack and flour bag "bombardment" on the attackers. Earlier that same year, HMCS Star personnel aboard HMCS Portage participated in a similar inter-service assault landing exercise at Port Stanley, Ontario.
In January 1950, the HMCS Star Boxing Club was formed from the ship's company and the Hamilton Sea Cadet corps. The club staged fights with bouts between the Star crew and fighters from the Ontario Agricultural College of Guelph and Shamrock Athletic Club of Hamilton. During the same year, HMCS Star operationalized its first radar set conducting training and tracking ships entering and exiting Hamilton Harbour.
In June 1950, the unit sent its Fairmile-B class motor launch, PTC 706, to partake in exercise "Operation Beaver", a tri-service reserve beach assault manoeuvre at Port Stanley, Ontario. The exercise involved land units, including the Elgin Regiment, Kent Regiment, Essex Fusiliers and the Windsor Essex Scottish Regiment; sea units, including PTC 779 from HMCS Prevost, PTC 762 from HMCS Hunter and PTC 706 from HMCS Star; and 11 aircraft from the No. 420 City of London Auxiliary Squadron, Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF). During that same summer, PTC 706 spent weekends away from Star conducting various evolutions and making Ports of call to Port Dalhousie, Toronto, Youngstown, Cobourg, and Rochester, New York. In mid-August 1950, PTC 706 joined the minesweeper HMCS Portage and other Fairmiles from Toronto and Kingston for fleet manoeuvres off Presq'ile.
In November 1950, when hurricane winds caused by the Great Appalachian Storm struck the head of Lake Ontario and waves washed away lake shore cottages from Van Wagners beach, approximately 50 officers and sailors from Star and UNTD Guelph were amongst the first to respond as rescue crews. The sailors filled and placed heavy sandbags on temporary dikes, rigged lifelines and helped in other ways. In the midst of the rescue operation, the sailors were recalled to the unit to rescue three Fairmiles (PTC 706, PTC 721 and PTC 761), turned over to a Hamilton yard for winter storage, that had broken their lines.