The St. Laurent-class destroyer was a class of destroyer escorts that served the Royal Canadian Navy and later the Canadian Forces from the mid-1950s to the mid-1990s. This was the first major class of warship designed and built in Canada. They were analogous to the British Type 12 Whitby-class frigate, intended for the same ASW mission and using the same machinery but used a dramatically different hull form and predominantly American equipment rather than British. There were seven ships of the class commissioned between 1955 and 1957. They were originally intended as destroyer escorts (DDE) but were later refitted and reclassed as destroyer helicopter escorts (DDH). Design and description The need for the St. Laurent class came about in 1949 when Canada joined NATO and the Cold War was in its infancy. The Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) was assigned responsibility for anti-submarine warfare (ASW) and controlling sea space in the western North Atlantic. Design work for a new class of destroyer escorts began in June 1949 with the original completion date slated for 1955. They were designed by Montreal naval architects German and Milne, under the direction of a senior constructor, Sir Rowland Baker, seconded from the British Director of Naval Construction. Baker produced a design basically similar to the Whitby-class (Type 12) frigate, while incorporating several ideas of his own. Different in appearance to the Type 12 design, the ship that resulted was similar in many respects. The St Laurent class were built to an operational requirement much like that which produced the British Type 12, and were powered by the same machinery plant. The rounded deck-edge forward was adopted to prevent ice forming. The vessels were designed to operate in harsh Canadian conditions. They were built to counter nuclear, biological and chemical attack conditions, which led to a design with a rounded hull, a continuous main deck, and the addition of a pre-wetting system to wash away contaminants. The living spaces on the ship were part of a "citadel" which could be sealed off from contamination for the crew safety. The ships were sometimes referred to as "Cadillacs" for their relatively luxurious crew compartments; these were also the first Canadian warships to have a bunk for every crew member since previous warship designs had used hammocks. Other innovative features not found on other ships of its time included an operations room separate from the bridge, from which the