Interwar Years
The 1920s: A Navy Struggling to Survive

Following the end of the First World War, the Royal Canadian Navy faced significant threats to its continued existence. In the face of significant cutbacks, the navy focused on maintaining a small force to train sailors and to protect the country's coasts against enemy ships.

HMCS Aurora

The light cruiser HMCS Aurora, the Royal Canadian Navy's new flagship, arrived in Halifax with the destroyers HMCS Patriot and HMCS Patrician on 21 December 1920.

Aurora was an updated version of the cruisers around which the RCN had originally intended to build a fleet. Although Britain had initially offered an older coal-burning cruiser, the Canadian government pressed for and obtained a more modern oil-burning vessel. Aurora was decommissioned less than two years later, after a round of severe budget cuts to the RCN.

George Metcalf Archival Collection
CWM 19800258-015_1