Royal Canadian Navy returns to Sound

By The Captain

This week we saw an unusual sight – the Royal Canadian Navy returning to Plymouth.

HMCS Ville de Quebec arrived on Sunday morning, from her home port in Halifax, Nova Scotia. She will be away for several months as she is joining the Royal Navy’s 8-month deployment to the Pacific – Operation Highmast.

Ville de Quebec is a Halifax class frigate and is the RCN’s equivalent of the Royal Navy Type 23, of which class the Devonport based HMS Richmond is also on the Pacific deployment.

The Halifax class has suffered the same fate as the Type 23s, in that their replacement has been endlessly delayed by political wrangling and ‘defence cuts’. In fact, the Halifaxes will have to struggle on even longer than the 23s, as the RCN replacements, the River class, based on our Type 26 frigates, will not be in service until the 2040s.

Ville de Quebec, having been launched in 1991, is the oldest ship on the deployment. In 2024, Vice Admiral Angus Topshee, RCN, publicly described the navy as being in a critical state, so it’s not just the UK Government who neglect defence needs!

Op Highmast will be led by HMS Prince of Wales and will also include the Type 45 air-defence destroyer, HMS Dauntless, the fleet tanker, RFA Tidespring, the Royal Norwegian Navy’s HNoMS Roald Amundsen, another frigate, and tanker HNoMS Maud and the Spanish frigate, ESPS Mendes Nunez.

An Astute-class nuclear submarine will join the deployment too. As usual, the name of the submarine has not been publicised, but it is believed that HMS Astute has just departed from Plymouth.

Whilst deployed, the Carrier Strike Group (CSG) will exercise with allied navies throughout the deployment. These will include the Italian, Royal Australian, Royal New Zealand and American navies. There will be endless PASSEXes (as they are called – Passage Exercises), where opportunities are taken by one or more ships from the CSG to exercise with friendly navies as their coasts are passed.

I will be reporting on the activities of Op Highmast as the deployment progresses.