For the first time since the Royal Canadian Navy began Operation Caribbe in 2006, the two ships involved in the counter narcotics mission, the Brandon and Saskatoon were both commanded by females. In the case of the latter, it was St. Thomas native Nadia Shields’ first deployment as commander of a Kingston-class warship. The CECI grad and mother of three explains what it’s like to be away from home for four months or longer.
Shields and her crew return to their home base in Esquimalt tomorrow (May 20) after a four-month deployment with Operation Caribbe – a counter narcotics operation in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean. She explains the purpose of the mission.
In partnership with the U.S. Coast Guard, the ships seized 6,436 kg of cocaine with an estimated value of $268.3 million U.S.
When myFM talked to Shields at the beginning of April, she and her crew were half-way through the operation and she described what was happening that day in the Eastern Pacific Ocean.
It provided an opportunity to undertake maintenance on the vessel and as Shields explains, even mid-ocean, COVID-19 still had an impact.
She adds the risk of a COVID-19 outbreak aboard one of the ships would result in a dangerous situation.
Upon arrival in Esquimalt, Shields will get some time off to return to her husband and three children in Halifax.
Shields graduated from CECI in 2002 and decided to follow her brother and grandfather into the Canadian Forces under the Regular Officer Training Program at RMC in Kingston. She graduated in 2006 with a degree in business commerce and was sent on an anti-piracy and anti-terrorism mission in the Gulf of Aden, which lies between Somalia and Oman. Her advice to a young woman contemplating a military career, “Do it.”
Previously a navigator aboard HMCS Charlottetown and then third in command aboard the Halifax-class frigate HMCS Toronto, Shields continues to set her sights higher.
There is one more St. Thomas connection on HMCS Saskatoon, advises Shields. The mechanical mine-sweeping crane was manufactured in St. Thomas by Arva Industries.
“So we have a piece of St. Thomas onboard the ship to remind me of home.”
