Browse "Navy"

James Alexander Gordon, naval commander (b 1782; d 1869).

Alexander Forrester Inglis Cochrane, naval officer (b at Scotland 23 Apr 1758; d at Paris, France 26 Jan 1832).

From 1991 to the present, members of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) and civilian police forces, including the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), have served in peace operations in the Balkans. Their mission was to provide security and stability following the breakup of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Nearly 40,000 Canadians have served in the Balkans, and 23 CAF members died while deployed there.

Robert Heriot Barclay, naval officer (b at Kettle [Kettlehill], Scotland, 18 Sep 1786; d at Edinburgh 8 May 1837). Robert Barclay was only 11 when he began his naval career in 1798, joining the crew of the 44-gun ship Anson as a midshipman.

Sir Edward Belcher, naval surveyor, explorer (born 27 February 1799 in Halifax, NS; died 18 March 1877 in London, England).

Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle, soldier, author (b in Eng 1791; d at Kingston, Canada W 2 Nov 1847). Educated at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, Bonnycastle entered the Royal Engineers as an officer, serving in the WAR OF 1812.

Public interest in the military training of young Canadians has waxed in time of wars and threat of wars, and waned in peacetime.

James Campbell Clouston, naval officer (born 31 August 1900 in Montréal, Québec; died 2 or 3 June 1940 at sea, in the English Channel near Gravelines, France). Born and raised in Montréal, Campbell Clouston joined the British Royal Navy in 1918 and served on ships in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. During the Second World War, Clouston acted as pier master during the Allied evacuation at Dunkirk, overseeing the evacuation of nearly 200,000 servicemen between 27 May and 2 June 1940. He died at sea after his boat was sunk by German aircraft. In September 2017, a commemorative plaque was dedicated to him in Montréal.

From 1993 to 1995, Canada was a leading contributor to a series of United Nations peacekeeping missions in the African nation of Rwanda. However, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR), led by Canadian Major-General Roméo Dallaire, was powerless to prevent the slaughter of 800,000 Rwandans in 1994. Following the genocide, a new contingent of Canadian troops returned to Rwanda as part of UNAMIR II, tasked with restoring order and bringing aid to the devastated population. Hundreds of Canadian soldiers, including Dallaire, returned from their service in Rwanda deeply scarred by what they had witnessed.

In 1992–93, Canada contributed military forces to UNITAF, a United Nations–backed humanitarian mission in the African nation of Somalia. The mission was hampered by the fact that some of the warring factions in the Somalia conflict attacked the international forces that were trying to restore order and deliver food to a starving population. The Canadian effort was also clouded by the murder of a Somali teenager by Canadian troops. The crime — and alleged cover-up by Defence officials in Ottawa — became one of the most infamous scandals in Canadian history.

Since 1990, peacekeepers from the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) and civilian police forces, including the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), have served in Haiti on various United Nations (UN) missions. The purpose of these missions was to help stop the internal violence and civil unrest that had plagued the country for years and help promote and protect human rights and strengthen police and judicial systems.

Military supremacy did not solve the problem of how to bring real social and economic stability to the colony for d'Aulnay. After his accidental death by drowning in 1650, Acadia lapsed again into internal strife.

Sir Charles Edmund Kingsmill, naval officer, public servant (b at Guelph, Canada W 7 July 1855; d at Portland, Ont 15 July 1935). He joined the Royal Navy as a midshipman in 1869, served in the Sudan in 1884 and as British vice-consul and agent at Zeyla, Aden.

George Clarence Jones, naval officer (b at Halifax 24 Oct 1895; d at Ottawa 8 Feb 1946). Jones joined the Royal Canadian Navy in 1911 and spent WWI at sea in British warships.

George Cockburn, Royal Navy officer, military figure in the WAR OF 1812 (b at London, England, 22 Apr 1772; d at Leamington Spa, Warwickshire, England, 19 Aug 1853).

"For most conspicuous bravery or some daring or pre-eminent act of valour or self-sacrifice or extreme devotion to duty in the presence of the enemy." Such dry words to describe the courage and daring ascribed to the Victoria Cross (VC), the Commonwealth's highest decoration for bravery.

Jacques-Pierre de Taffanel de La Jonquière, Marquis de La Jonquière, naval officer, governor general of New France, appointed 1746, served 1749-52 (b near Albi, France 18 Apr 1685; d at Québec 17 Mar 1752). In 1746 La Jonquière was a veteran of 49 years in the French navy.

Esteban José Martínez Fernández y Martínez de la Sierra, naval officer (b at Seville, Spain 9 Dec 1742; d at Loreto, Mexico 28 Oct 1798). In 1774 he sailed with Juan Pérez Hernández on an exploratory voyage from San Blas, Mexico, to the northern Haida Gwaii and Nootka Sound.

Isaac de Razilly, naval captain, knight of Malta, colonizer and lieutenant-general in Acadia (b at Château d'Oiseaumelle, Touraine, France 1587; d at La Hève, Acadia 1636).

Captain George Downie, naval officer, military figure in the WAR OF 1812 (b at New Ross, Ireland; d near Plattsburgh, NY, 11 Sept 1814). George Downie joined the Royal Navy in the 1790s and was promoted to lieutenant in 1802.