[7] Late delivery of the Mk VI directors delayed completion such that none of the "Cr"s entered service before the end of the Second World War.

[11][12] After a year's negotiation, the Admiralty agreed to lend the Royal Canadian Navy a flotilla of C-class destroyers in January 1945.

As they were only loaned, the two ships kept their names, unlike the last HMS Crusader to have been transferred to the Royal Canadian Navy.

[12] The vessel was commissioned into the Royal Canadian Navy on 15 November 1945 at Clydebank with the pennant number R20.

[12] Crusader was completed on 26 November 1945[13] and transited to the west coast of Canada via the Azores and the Caribbean Sea.

On 14 February 1955, the destroyer departed Esquimalt for Halifax, Nova Scotia for use as a test and evaluation ship.