The Ships of Brawling Battleships Steel: Great Britain Battleship Canada

Laid down on November 27, 1911, launched on November 27, 1913 and commissioned on September 30, 1915, Canada carried a main armament of ten 14 inch main guns mounted two per turret; two centerline superfiring forward, two centerline superfiring aft and one centerline amidships that could fire to both sides. The unusual gun size for a World War One British battleship is explained by the fact that she was originally laid down as the Almirante Latorre ex-Valparaiso ex-Libertad for Chile in Great Britain. Two battleships had been ordered in response to the mini naval arms race occurring in South America at this time but the second (Almirante Cochrane) was never completed as planned, instead being purchased by Great Britain and later completed as the aircraft carrier Eagle. Early in construction, there was an attempt to purchase the ship by Turkey but this came to nothing. The British government confiscated the ship in August 1914 and completed her as the Canada. She was the only ship of her battleship class and was powered by turbines with coal-fired boilers. The Canada name, of course, commemorates the Dominion of Canada, a part of the British Empire on which the sun never set, but also dates back in use to a wooden 74-gun ship of the line built in 1765; just two years after Canada had been obtained by Great Britain from France. Spending the entire war with the Grand Fleet, Canada took part in the Battle of Jutland on May 31, 1916. She was returned to Chile in 1920 as the Almirante Latorre . Modernized in Britain from 1929 through 1931, she had an uneventful existence until decommissioned in October 1958. The once proud "super-dreadnought" was towed to Japan to be broken up in May 1959.

See other battleships: Agincourt, Erin, Dreadnought