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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 Givenchy's Crew, Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1919

Canadian sailor John Ambrose Kell kept this photograph as a souvenir of his service aboard the armed trawler HMCS Givenchy in 1919.

Givenchy's crew wear a variety of uniforms in this casual image. Note the sailor (back row, fourth from right) holding a brace and bit, as if he is about to drill into another crew member. As part of a postwar redistribution of ships, the armed yacht HMCS Stadacona and the trawlers HMCS Thiepval, HMCS Armentières, and Givenchy left Halifax, Nova Scotia, on 12 March 1919, arriving in Esquimalt, British Columbia, on 4 June.

George Metcalf Archival Collection
CWM 20090048-057