HMCS Athabaskan (G07) was the first of three destroyers of the Royal Canadian Navy to bear this name. It was a destroyer of the Tribal Class, built in 1940-1941 in Great Britain by Vickers Armstrong of Newcastle upon Tyne.
Heavily damaged by a glider bomb during anti-submarine duties off Cape Ortegall, in the Bay of Biscay on 27 August 1943, Athabaskan was lost in the EnglishChannel on the night of 29 April 1944 after being torpedoed by the Greman Destroyer Escort T-24. Her commnding officer, Lieutenant Commader John Stubbs was killed in action after declining rescue by her sister ship Haida. 128 crew lost their lives in the sinking.
in 2004, the Canadian Navy provided a brass plaque to be laid on the wreck to commemorate the loss. The expedition found more information about the sinking but did not clarify the actual cause. The wreck is in a shattered condition spread over the sea bed.
One of three Canadian Oberon Class submarines built at Her Majesty’s Dockyard, Chatham, United Kingdom, HMCS Okanagan (SS-74) was initially laid down as HMS Onyx. Sold to the RCN while completing, she was commissioned on 23 September 1965. Like her sisters, Okanaga served all her time operating from Halifax, Nova Scotia with the exception of two deployments in 1977 and 1997 where she operated on the west coast in Esquimalt, British Columbia.
In 1979, approval was given for the three ships to undergo a Submarine Operational Update Program (SOUP). In the course of this, all were fitted with new fire control, sonar, communications and optical equipment, as well as new batteries, which improved their endurance. Carried out at Halifax, Nova Scotia, the procedure upgraded their status from that of passive "tame" targets to an aggressive capability. Though respectable enough craft in their prime, the "O" boats had long since reached the end of their useful lives and by July 1999, the three were paid off and replaced by the Victoria class.
