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The HMCS Prince Robert was the third of a series of Canadian National Steamships (CNS) passenger liners that were converted for the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN), first to armed merchant cruisers at the beginning of Second World War, then on January 2, 1943 was converted to a anti-aircraft escort. Towards the end of the war she was then converted into a transport ship and then finished off her post-war years as a luxury ocean liner.

For three years, they were the largest ships in the RCN.

The three 'Prince' ships were a unique part of Canada's war effort: taken out of mercantile service, converted to armed merchant cruisers, two of them (Prince David and Prince Henry) were reconfigured to infantry landing ships and one (Prince Robert) to an anti-aircraft escort; all three ships were paid off at war's end and then returned to mercantile service.

In the early part of the war, as armed merchant cruisers equipped with antique guns and very little armour, Prince Robert and her sisters were sent to hunt enemy submarines and surface ships, tasks better suited to warships. As the needs of the RCN changed, so were the 'Prince' ships able to adapt to new roles. Their flexibility offered the RCN greater scope and balance in its operations. They did not function as did the bulk of the Canadian fleet: no rushing back and forth across the ocean, cold and damp, chained to 50 degrees North. Prince Robert and her sisters, each with two separate employments, roamed most of the navigable world forming a little navy apart.

Pre-War History (1930 - 1939)
The Prince ships were built by Cammell Laird at Birkenhead in the United Kingdom for the Canadian National Steamships Company. They had been laid down in the prosperous years of the late 1920s and were commonly referred to as "Henry Worth Thornton's last extravagance". Their three funnels, three decks, cruiser sterns and accommodation for more than 300 passengers classed them as small luxury liners. When completed in 1930 they had cost $2,000,000 each. They were identical in every respect and were designed for fast passenger service off the British Columbia coast.

World War II
HMCS Prince Robert was purchased from the CNS in December, 1939, and initially fitted out as an armed merchant cruiser (AMC). She was commissioned in Vancouver July 31, 1940. under the command of Charles Taschereau Beard and left in mid-September for patrol off Mexico (where she was to help reinforce a blockade off the coast of Manzanillo and then on to South America.  On September 25th, she intercepted and captured the German freighter Weser . On December 15 she left Callao, Peru for Australia to act as escort to a Canada-bound troop convoy.  In May, 1942 she returned to the South Pacific for three months' escort and patrol duties under Royal Navy control on the New Zealand Station. She left Auckland on July 28, 1941 first for Easter Island where there were reports of a Japanese supply ship in the area, and onward back to Esquimalt where she arrived on August 24 for a short refit and a new commanding officer following the retirement of Commander Beard.

In November 1941, she was assigned escort duties once more and assigned the duty of escorting a shipload of ill-fated Canadian troops to Hong Kong as a part of the plan to defend Hong Kong from the Japanese. On her return she rejoined the Esquimalt Force.

In August 1942, HMCS Prince Robert was placed under US Navy control for duty in the Aleutians, arriving back at Esquimalt on November 4. She was paid off on January 2, 1943, for conversion to an auxiliary Anti-Aircraft ship, and was re-commissioned on June 7, 1942 at Vancouver, leaving Esquimalt 12 days later for the Clyde Estuary via Bermuda. In November, she was assigned to Gibraltar Command, Mediterranean Fleet, and employed as an A/A escort to both the U.K.-Sierra Leone and U.K.-Mediterranean convoys.

Even though she was nominally reassigned from the Gibraltar Command to Plymouth Command in January, 1944, she remained at the same duties, and from June to August escorted Mediterranean convoys. In September Prince Robert left Plymouth for Esquimalt, and upon arrival underwent a refit that lasted until June, 1945. She left Esquimalt on July 4, 1945, for service with the British Pacific Fleet, arriving at Sydney, Australia on August 10. On August 31 Prince Robert entered Hong Kong to facilitate the release of Canadian Prisoners of War. It was also here that her commanding officer had the honour of representing Canada and as a part of the surrender ceremonies. On October 20 she arrived at Esquimalt with repatriated Canadian prisoners from Hong Kong, and on December 10 was paid off and laid up in Lynn Creek, B.C.

HMCS Prince Robert was sold in 1948, first to the Charlton Steam Shipping Company (a forerunner of today's Celebrity Cruises) where she became the merchant vessel Charlton Sovereign and then in 1952, she was sold again to Fratelli Grimaldi Lines and was renamed again Lucania. She ended her service with the Grimaldi line in 1962 when she was ultimately scrapped.