HMCS Terry Fox (DDE-264)
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The HMCS Terry Fox (DDE-264), formerly HMCS Qu'Appelle, was a Mackenzie-class destroyer escort that served in the Royal Canadian Navy and later the Canadian Forces. The ship's insignia and logo was the head of a fox facing forward centered in a diagonal line double white with a red center sqiggley line from the top left to bottom right. The moniker of the ship was "Follow the Fox". She is the second Canadian naval unit to carry the name HMCS Qu'Appelle and the first to carry the name HMCS Terry Fox.
History[edit | edit source]
Qu'Appelle was laid down on January 14th 1960 at Davie Shipbuilding Ltd., Lauzon and launched on May 2nd 1962. She was commissioned into the RCN on September 14th 1963.
On August 11th 1981, the Qu'Appelle was rechristened as HMCS Terry Fox in honor of the then recently deceased Canadian humanitarian Terry Fox.
She was assigned to the Pacific Fleet and served largely as a training ship with the RCN and later in the CF under Maritime Forces Pacific (MARPAC). She underwent the Destroyer Life Extension Project (DELEX) in 1982.
In early 1984, the Terry Fox was temporarily reassigned to the Maritime Command Atlantic so that it could sail along with the aircraft carrier HMCS Eagle On April 25th 1984, the Terry Fox was part assigned to first "Canada Squadron" which included aircraft carrier HMCS Eagle, guided missile destroyers Ontario and British Columbia, destroyer escort Annapolis, and patrol submarine HMCS Ojibwa and takes part in exercises where "Canada Squadron faces off against a battlegroup led by American supercarrier USS Saratoga (CV-60).
Afterwards, the Terry Fox continued along with the Eagle battlegroup to CFB Esquimalt making stops at Norfolk, Miami, Santo Domingo, Rio de Janiero, Buenos Aires, Stanley, Valparaiso, Lima, Acapulco, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle en route to Esquimalt. After arriving, the Terry Fox spends a few days being resupplied and undergoing maintenance before heading out again.
The battlegroup spends several months sailing around the Pacific Ocean making stops at Pearl Harbor, Sydney, Singapore, Hong Kong, Subic Bay, and Tokyo before heading back to Esquimalt.
In February 1991, the Terry Fox heads to out to the Red Sea as part of a battlegroup including destroyers HMCS Iroquois (DDH-280), Alberta (DDG-287), HMCS Newfoundland (DDG-289) and newly commissioned frigate HMCS Vancouver (FFH-331) to relieve the vessels of the HMCS Eagle battlegroup.
She was decommissioned from Maritime Command on March 13th 1992. She would quickly by made into a museum ship.
