HMCS ROBERT HAMPTON GRAY 435

 

Harry DeWolf Class Arctic and Offshore Patrol Vessel

 

 

Harry DeWolf Class AOPV Artist's Impression

 

Laid Down: 21 Aug 2023

Floated up: 09 Dec 2024, Bedford Basic, Halifax, NS

Commissioned: 

Paid off: 

 

The Royal Canadian Navy announced that the sixth Arctic and Offshore Patrol Ship under the National Shipbuilding Strategy will be named in honour of Lieutenant Robert Hampton Gray, a Second World War Canadian naval hero.

 

"By naming the sixth Arctic and Offshore Patrol Ship after Lt Gray, we honour his as a Canadian naval hero, and celebrate his outstanding leadership and heroism"

 

 

Lt Gray joined the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve in 1940 and served as a pilot in the Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm. He embarked in His Majesty’s Ship (HMS) Formidable with 1841 Squadron, joining the war in the Pacific as part of Operation Iceberg, the invasion of Okinawa, Japan, in April 1945.

 

Lt Gray was awarded the Victoria Cross posthumously for courage and determination in carrying out daring air strikes on the Japanese destroyer His Imperial Japanese Majesty’s Ship (HIJMS) Amakusa.

 

On August 9, 1945, he led two flights of Corsair aircraft to attack naval vessels in Onagawa Bay, Japan. He opened the attack run flying straight into concentrated anti-aircraft fire and was hit almost immediately.

 

With his aircraft on fire and one bomb lost, he continued the attack and released his remaining bomb on the escort vessel HIJMS Amakusa, causing the ship to capsize and sink. His aircraft then crashed into the sea and his body was never recovered.

 

Lt Gray was the only member of the RCN to be awarded the Victoria Cross during the Second World War.

 

In 1946, the Geographic Board of Canada named Gray’s Peak, a mountain in British Columbia’s Kokanee Glacier Provincial Park, in honour of Lt Gray and his brother John, also killed during the war.

 

In 1989, a memorial was erected to him at Onagawa Bay, the only memorial dedicated to a foreign service member on Japanese soil. (Source: Gov't of Canada website - RCN - Harry Dewolf Class)

 

 

Photos and Documents

 

The future HMCS ROBERT HAMPTON GRAY after being rolled out of the assembly hall at Halifax Shipyard - 16 Aug 2024

Courtesy of Barry Gerrard

 

 

  

(left) The future HMCS ROBERT HAMPTON GRAY on a barge in Bedford Basin ready to be floated up

(right) The future HMCS ROBERT HAMPTON GRAYafter being floated up in Bedford Basin 09 Dec 2024

Source: Royal Canadian Navy Yesterday and today Facebook page

 

 

The ship's badge for HMCS ROBERT HAMPTON GRAY

Blazon:  On a plate an eagle stooping Azure beaked and membered Or holding in its claws a trident bendwise sinister Gules, all within the Badge Frame for Ships and Naval Reserve Divisions.

 

Significance: The eagle descending on its prey is taken from the badge of 1841 Naval Air Squadron of the Royal Navy, with which Lt Robert Hampton Gray, a pilot of the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve, served. The trident is taken from the badge of HMS Formidable, the ship from which the squadron operated. Its deep red colour refers to the ribbon of the Victoria Cross awarded posthumously to Lt Gray for his valour in leading an air attack on a Japanese destroyer in August 1945. The white background refers to the Arctic environment in which HMCS Robert Hampton Gray will operate.

 

Motto:  Fortitudo, Sollertia Constantiaque - These Latin words mean "Courage, skill and determination." They were qualities of Robert Hampton Gray cited in the "Mentioned in Despatches" honouring him for his role in the attack on the defences around the German battleship Tirpitz in Norway in August 1944.

 

 

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