Lot 128
HMCS Ontario Presentation Plaque to The Right Honourable Vincent Massey, High Commissioner for Canada, 26th April, 1945
Provenance:
Estate of Vincent Massey (Batterwood), Port Hope
Note:
The current lot is the badge of the Minotaur class light cruiser HMCS Ontario. Massey played a part in her acquisition on her completion at the Harland & Wolf shipyards in Belfast. Originally intended as the Royal Navy's HMS Minotaur, with Massey's assistance as Canada's wartime High Commissioner in the U.K., on completion in July, 1944, she was transferred to the Canadian Navy as HMCS Ontario. As the plaque says, she was commissioned for service in our Navy on 26 April, 1945. The Canadian Navy had great plans for expansion and acquired two such cruisers, the other being HMCS Quebec. The Ontario served in the Pacific war against Japan in the late summer of 1945, bombarding Japanese forces near the home islands. She was the RCN's only ship involved in that war.
She was retained until October, 1958, by which time Canada had found she couldn't afford such ships, and was scrapped in 1960.