The navy’s remaining duties were largely supervisory ones at the nation’s various ports, since the civilian crews of government vessels carried out most of the actual work.
Under the terms of the Naval Service Act, both cruisers, despite their obsolescence, were placed at the disposal of the British Admiralty “for general service in the Royal Navy” once war was declared. In anticipation of the British declaration of war on 4 August 1914, the RCN’s largest warship, the cruiser Niobe, was in dockyard hands at Halifax being fitted for duty (it would not emerge from drydock to begin its power trials until early September), while the navy’s other warship, Rainbow, based in the Pacific at Esquimalt, had already proceeded to sea. Peter Rindlisbacher, HMCS Niobe at Daybreak, depicting the ship proceeding out to sea.
0 kommentar(er)
