HMCS Terra Nova (DDE 259)

HMCS Terra Nova (DDE 259) was a Restigouche-class destroyer that served in the Royal Canadian Navy and later the Canadian Forces from 1959-1997. After her final refit, she was a guided missile destroyer.

She was the sixth ship of her class and the first Canadian war ship to bear the name HMCS Terra Nova. The ship honours the Terra Nova River in Newfoundland as well as an earlier civilian ship the Terra Nova, which gained fame during a scientific exploration voyage to Antarctica. Both the river and the Antarctic (symbolized by a penguin) are featured on the ship's badge.

Terra Nova was laid down on 11 June 1953 at Victoria Machinery Depot Ltd., Victoria and launched on 21 June 1955. She was commissioned into the RCN on 6 June 1959 with the pennant number 259.

Terra Nova was selected by the Canadian Forces for the Improved Restigouche (IRE) project and completed this refit in 1968. She was also selected as one of ten destroyers in the Destroyer Life Extension (DELEX) project and completed this refit on 9 November 1984.

Westploy 1973 Terra Nova was given notice on a Friday afternoon that she was being deployed Monday morning for South East Asia in support of the Canadian Army component of ICCS in Vietnam.She was gone for 6 months until relieved by HMCS Kootenay.

Operation FRICTION
Terra Nova was selected in August 1990 for deployment with Operation FRICTION, the CF contribution to Operation DESERT STORM (the Gulf War). She had her Mk.112 ASROC octuple launcher and her Mk. NC10 Limbo ASW mortars removed and was fitted with 8 X Harpoon anti-ship missiles and a Phalanx close-in weapon system (CIWS). She was also enhanced with three detachments of Javelin surface-to-air missile systems from 119 Air Defence Battery. With this, she became the first guided-missile destroyer in the Canadian Navy.

Terra Nova was deployed with the Canadian Naval Task Group, led by flagship HMCS Athabaskan (DDH 282) and the supply ship HMCS Protecteur (AOR 509). The Task Group was assigned to the international coalition maritime interdiction force in the central Persian Gulf which consisted of a variety of coalition naval forces on station through the fall of 1990. After Operation DESERT STORM began in January, the Canadian Naval Task Group undertook escort duties for hospital ships and other vulnerable coalition naval vessels.

Decommissioning
Terra Nova was decommissioned from active service in the CF on 11 July 1997.

After being paid off Terra Nova appeared, cast as an American destroyer, in the movie K-19: The Widowmaker.

In December 2007 there was discussion about sinking Terra Nova for a diving attraction in the St. Lawrence River near Brockville, Ontario, however the plans fell through and she remained laid up at CFB Halifax.

On September 18, 2009, the Department of National Defence called for bids for "the removal, dismantling and disposal" of HMCS Terra Nova and HMCS Gatineau (DDE 236). The deadline for submissions for the work was October 8, 2009. On November 4, 2009, DND announced that Aecon Fabco had won the bid and would tow both vessels to their Pictou Shipyard in Pictou, Nova Scotia.

Terra Nova departed Halifax Harbour on November 20 under tow by the tugboat Atlantic Elm and arrived in Pictou on November 22, where she joined the Gatineau which had arrived a few days earlier. By the summer of 2010 she was being cut up for scrap, mainly aluminum, stainless steel and carbon steel. She later sank at her mooring and was raised by crane in April 2011.