The Battle of the Atlantic.The Royal Canadian Navys Greatest Campaign

THE

BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC THE ROYAL CANADIAN NAVY'S GREATEST CAMPAIGN

1939-1945

by

Dr. Roger Sarty

Access to History No.9

CEFBOOKS 2001

© Roger Sarty 2001 All rights reserved. No part of this work covered by copyright herein may be reproduced or used in any form - graphic, electronic, or mechanical, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Sarty, Roger Flynn, 1952The battle of the Atlantic: the Royal Canadian Navy's greatest campaign, 1939-1945 (Access to history series; no. 9) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 1-896979-44-0 1. Canada. Royal Canadian Navy-History- World War, 1939-1945. 2. World War, 1939-1945-Naval Operations, Canadian. 3. World War, 1939-1945Campaigns- Atlantic Ocean. I. Title. II. Series: Access to History series; no. 9. D779.C2S25 2001

940.54'5971 C2001-902764-8

Published by: CEFBOOKS PO BOX 40083, OTTAWA, ONTARIO K1V OW8 613-823-7000

This book is dedicated to the memory of the 110,000 Canadians who willingly gave their lives in the defence offreedom in the Twentieth Century. Lest We Forget Acknowledgements: We would like to thank Ontario Command of The Royal Canadian Legion and the Department of Canadian Heritage for the support which made this series possible. Additional thanks to Earl Kish, and Linda Horton for their valuable contributions to this book.

Publication of this book has been supported by the Canadian War Museum. Front cover: On Escort Duty by Harold Beament Back cover: Taber, 1943-44

II

(CWM 10052)

When ships announced their wounds by rockets, wrote Their own obituaries in flame that soared Two hundred feet and stabbed the arctic night Like some neurotic and untimely sunrise. Exploding tankers turned the sky to canvas, Soaked it in orange fire, kindled the sea, Then carpeted their graves with wreaths of soot. E.]. Pratt (Description of a night attack by V-boats on convoy SC-42 in September 1941.)

III

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IV

Table of Contents

Introduction

1

Historical Overview

3

The Battle of the Atlantic

4

Canada in Support, September 1939 to May 1940

5

Combat, May 1940 to May 1941

10

Wolfpacks

12

A Major Combatant, May to December 1941

14

SC-42

16

The Battle Comes to Canada, 1942

20

Climax of the Battle, September 1942 to May 1943

24

SC-107

28

Unrelenting Combat, June 1943 to May 1945

32

Support for the Invasion

34

Conclusion

41

Bibliography - Suggested Reading

42

v

Merchant ships of all nations in Bedford Basin, the great natural anchorage that forms the innermost part of Halifax harbour, waiting to sail in convoys protected by Canadian and other Allied warships. Halifax, right from the first days of the Second World War in September 1939, became the gathering place for merchant ships from Canadian and U.S. ports, and, somewhat later, ports in the Caribbean and South America that carried the oil, munitions, food, steel, wood and other resources upon which depended both Britain's survival, and the buildup ofAlliedforces for the defeat of Germany and Italy. (DND photo)

VI

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Introduction The Canadian navy's large contribution in the Battle of the Atlantic was critical to Allied victory in the Second World War. After the fall of France, the Low Countries and Norway to the German and Italian forces in the spring of 1940, the only Allied foothold in Europe was the British Isles. Britain's survival depended almost completely upon the transport of supplies, equipment and troops from North America across the Atlantic ocean in merchant ships. The Germans and, for a time, the Italians, endeavoured to sever this lifeline by sinking merchant ships with their rapidly expanding submarine fleets that operated from bases in France, close by the shipping routes to Britain. Canada's east coast ports played an important part in supplying Britain right from the first days of the war because they were the North American harbours closest to Europe. Canada, however, had a tiny navy that was able to do little more than help Britain's Royal Navy protect the sea routes off Canada and Newfoundland against long-range German warships. With the fall of France in 1940, Canada rushed most of its warships to Britain, and accelerated the construction of anti-submarine warships, a huge achievement given the fact that the shipbuilding industry had scarcely existed in 1939. There was no other choice, because the United States was still neutral, and Canada was Britain's largest ally. The first batches of the new Canadian anti-submarine warships were ready in the spring and summer of 1941, just when they were most desperately needed. Britain's navy had been strong enough to push the German submarines back from the coasts of the British Isles, but the submarines had simply moved out into the central Atlantic and to the west towards Newfoundland, where shipping was virtually unprotected.. The Canadian navy therefore provided fully half of the warships needed to escort shipping from Nova Scotia and Newfoundland all the way to Iceland. When the United States began to assist in the protection of Allied shipping in the fall of 1941, and then entered the war at Britain and Canada's side in December of that year, the great American navy did not have adequate numbers of anti-submarine warships. The German submarines, taking advantage of the United States's ill-preparedness, swarmed into American - and Canadian - waters. The Canadian navy gave substantial assistance in U.S. waters, while increasing protection of Canada's own 1

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coast, fully maintaining its transatlantic commitments, and also sending anti-submarine warships to screen the British and U.S. sea-carried armies that invaded North Africa. The Canadian navy shouldered a still larger share of transatlantic shipping protection as the Allies built up their forces in Britain during 1943 and the first half of 1944 for the landings at Normandy in France that began the Allied liberation of north-west Europe. The Canadian navy also provided strong and effective forces to screen the invasion fleet, and keep the English Channel safe for the shipment of supplies to the Allied armies in Europe. Even as Germany came under crushing blows in late 1944 and early 1945, the submarine force was able to operate in strength, launching attacks on shipping around the British Isles and in Canadian and US waters. The Canadian navy - now with 250 seagoing warships and over 90,000 personnel - was in intense combat with the submarines on both sides of the Atlantic until the surrender of Germany in May 1945. It was a remarkable achievement for a navy that had started the war with only six ocean-going warships and 3,500 personnel. t::' C\J

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Survivor USS Chatham. Torpedoed off Newfoundland August 27, 1942.

2

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Historical Overview On September 5th, 1941 His Majesty's Canadian Ship Moose Jaw, a corvette, set sail from St. John's, Newfoundland on its first ocean patrol, in company with another corvette, HMCS Chambly. Moose Jaw had been in service for just over two months. Most of the crew had not been in the navy for more than a few months before that. As the little ship made its way out between the cliffs that protect the mouth of St John's harbour, it immediately plunged into the heavy seas of one of the frequent fall storms on the north Atlantic. Almost all of the inexperienced crewmen became severely seasick and remained so while the storm continued to blow for four days. The little corvette, only slightly over 60 metres in length, rose up over top of the waves, bouncing like a cork, rather than cutting through the seas like bigger, heavier vessels. The motion, as the hull rose, rapidly fell, and twisted from side to side was wild, 'up and down hill all the time.' As the spray and wave tops flew across the decks, water dripped, sometimes poured, into the cramped spaces where over fifty men lived and worked. Life was almost unendurable. Some of Moose Jaw's seamen were too weak and ill to keep on their feet to do their duty. During the evening of September 10th, when the corvettes had reached the east coast of Greenland, flares shot up into the sky in the distance. These came from a group of more than 60 merchant vessels, sailing together as convoy SC-42, that had come under attack by German submarines. These were know as 'V-boats' to Allied seamen - an anglicisation of V-boot, the short form of the German term for submarine, untersee boot. Commander J.D. "Chummy" Prentice, Royal Canadian Navy, commanding officer of Chambly and one of the most aggressive officers in the Canadian navy, had brought his little warships to the right place at the right time. Chambly's sonar detected V-50l as the V-boat attempted to join the attack on the convoy. Prentice's well trained crew fired five depth charges that blew the submarine to the surface. V-50l came up close to Moose Jaw whose inexperienced gunners jammed the ship's single gun after missing one shot. Nevertheless, the corvette's young commanding officer, Lieutenant F.E. Grubb, RCN, gave chase. '[ managed to go alongside the submarine... and called on her to surrender. To my surprise, [ saw a man [the submarine's commanding officer} make a magnificent leap from the submarine's deck into our waist [the mid part of the corvette},

3

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and the remainder of her crew move to do likewise. Not being prepared to repel boarders I sheered off. The submarine altered across my bows and I rammed her After the impact she moved across my bows at reduced speed. The gun being cleared by that time I opened fire again. The crew jumped into the sea as soon as the first round went, and I ordered fire to be stopped... 'The submarine had been fatally damaged and was sinking. How was it that two small Canadian warships, designed mainly to patrol along the shoreline, rushed halfway across the perilous north Atlantic to join in a great sea battle? Why, especially, was Moose Jaw there when most of the crew had never even been on an ocean voyage? And how was it that a raw ship like Moose Jaw, that never should have been in such a dangerous situation, played its full share in the destruction of a powerful enemy submarine? Here lies the essence of the remarkable story of Canada's navy in the Battle of the Atlantic.

The Battle of the Atlantic "Amid the torrents of violent events one anxiety remained supreme. Battles might be won or lost, enterprises might succeed or miscarry, territories might be gained or quitted, but dominating all our power to carry the wa~ or even keep ourselves alive, lay our mastery ofa the ocean routes and the free approach and entry to our ports." Sir Winston Churchill, Prime Minister of Great Britain. The Battle of the Atlantic was the longest and most important naval campaign of the Second World War. It began in the first days of the world conflict in September 1939, and did not end until the final defeat of Germany in May 1945. The campaign ranged over the whole breadth of the Atlantic, from the shores of Europe to the coast of North America, and from the Arctic to the southern tropics. In this vast ocean space, the western Allied powers (Great Britain, Canada, and, later, the United States) fought the main European Axis powers (Germany, and later Italy) for control of the sea routes that link North and South America to Europe, the Mediterranean and Africa. At stake was nothing less than the outcome of the war. Only by gaining control of the Atlantic could the Allies hope to transport across the seas the millions of troops and millions of tons of supplies needed to assault and liberate Axis-held Europe. 4

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Canada in Support, September 1939 to May 1940 During the first months of the war, from September to May 1940, it appeared that Canada would undertake mainly support roles, rather than major combat responsibilities, in keeping open the Atlantic supply line to Britain and Europe. The German navy had very powerful warships - big battleships and cruisers - but very few of them. In these classes of warships, Britain and its major ally, France, had great superiority. During the First World War Germany had used submarines to attack Allied merchant shipping, but in 1939 Germany had only 26 submarines suitable to operate in the Atlantic. The waters off Canada's east coast and around Newfoundland - which was then a possession of Great Britain separate from Canada - were likely hunting grounds for the enemy. Canada was a critically important source of food and industrial resources for Britain, and these goods were carried in ships that sailed from Halifax and Sydney, Nova Scotia, Saint John, New Brunswick, and the ports in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the St. Lawrence River. Even larger quantities of supplies came from the United States, and ships sailing from American ports passed close by Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, the shortest route across the Atlantic. (The United States was neutral, but friendly to the Allies. The American government helped to ensure that its goods were available to the Allies.) Still, at most, only one or two German surface warships or submarines were likely to be able to get past Britain and France's superior navies to attack shipping in Canadian and Newfoundland waters, and large British and French warships soon operated from Halifax to help guard against this danger. Canada's navy was tiny. It had only seven fighting ships, 'River class' destroyers, which Canada had procured from Britain in the 1930s. The ~estroyers were fast and versatile; at just over 100 metres in length they were the smallest of the true ocean-going war ships. There were fewer than 3,500 naval personnel in the Canadian navy, of whom only half were full-time professional naval seamen. The rest were 'reservists', civilian seamen who received a few weeks of naval training each year or two, and ordinary citizens - students, business people, teachers - from across the country who received some basic training one night per week and for a week or two each summer.

5

September 1939 to May 1940

ATLANTIC

THE BATILE OF THE ICELAND

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Area of U-Boat Attacks

- - - - - - - - T H E BATTLE OF THE A T L A N T I C - - - - - - - -

The navy's job was to protect Canada's coastal waters by assisting big British and French warships and by making regular patrols in the approaches to ports and along the coasts. The seven destroyers were far too few for these duties, and the government ordered construction in Canada's shipyards of ninety-two coastal patrol vessels. The bulk of these were corvettes, which were about two thirds of the size of a destroyer, had a modest speed of 16 knots* (half that of a destroyer), a single gun for surface fighting, and depth charges for attacking submarines. These were simple ships, but the project was still a major challenge for Canada's shipbuilding industry, which was very small and not experienced in naval construction. In the opening days of the war, Britain, on the basis of its experience in the First World War, ordered valuable cargo ships to sail together in convoys, escorted by warships. The best anti-submarine escorts were destroyers, but Britain was short of these vessels, and therefore could provide anti-submarine escort only in the near approaches to the United Kingdom, where V-boats were most likely to be able to find convoys as they approached or sailed from the major ports. Similarly, on the western side of the Atlantic, the Canadian destroyers escorted convoys during their first two or three days' passage from Halifax. Big British cruisers or battleships stayed with the convoys all across the Atlantic to guard against fast German battleships and cruisers that, unlike submarines, had the extremely high speed of 30 knots or more, and observation platforms high in their tall masts necessary to find convoys on the vast high seas. The first convoy sailed from Halifax on September 16th, 1939. It carried the designation HX-l, and thereafter a convoy sailed approximately each week, continuing the numbering as HX-2, HX-3 and so forth. The early HX convoys had only 15 to 20 merchant ships, but the number soon grew to thirty to forty and more. At Halifax the vessels, which included many ships that had loaded at United States ports, assembled in Bedford Basin, a huge, deep inlet from the ocean, some eight km long and five kIn wide, that forms the innermost part of Halifax harbour. It is so perfect a place for ships to gather it is almost as if Mother Nature had designed it with convoys in mind. On the day of the sailing, the merchant ships left Bedford Basin one by one, following each other in single file down the great length of Halifax

* One nautical mile per hour or 1.85 km per hour. 7

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harbour - some twenty km - out to the ocean. There the ships formed into short but numerous columns, each about one Ian distant from its neighbour. Thus the convoy resembled a very wide checkerboard, some five to ten Ian across and about two km from front to back. The short, widely spaced columns reduced the danger of ships rushing ahead in an emergency with resulting pile ups and rear-end collisions. Ships also present the easiest target from the side, so the short columns minimized the vulnerable flanks of the convoy. No German submarines or surface ships came to hunt in Canadian waters. The German admirals wanted to, but Adolph Hitler, the Nazi leader, remembered that submarine warfare had been a major reason the United States had entered the First World War. Consequently he would not give permission to attack so near the neutral United States. Hitler felt such attacks could result in the Americans fully joining the Allied cause. German submarines sank merchant ships mainly in the waters near the United Kingdom; they found plentiful targets among the many ships not sailing in convoy, and therefore did not have to risk attacking the defended groups of ships that went between the United Kingdom and Canadian waters. Britain's Royal Navy, together with the French navy, kept the threat under control.

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9

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Combat, May 1940 to May 1941 The German offensive in May of 1940 conquered the whole of western Europe, transformed the war and the Canadian navy's role. At the end of May, as France was on the verge of collapse, Canada responded to Britain's appeal to send destroyers to help in the defence of the British Isles. Four of the RCN's river-class destroyers, all that were immediately available, immediately rushed across the Atlantic. After assisting with the evacuation of British and French troops from the coast of France in the face of the advancing German forces, the Canadian ships joined in the protection of merchant ships in the waters to the west of Britain and Ireland. The German submarine fleet, although still small, was much more effective than before because it was now able to operate from captured French ports along the Atlantic coast, right on Britain's doorstep. Operations were extremely intense, as Canadian ships dashed out into the Atlantic escorting an outgoing convoy, then, three or four days at sea, met up with an incoming convoy, all the while frequently diverted to rescue survivors from merchant ships that had been torpedoed. The HMCS Ottawa helped destroy one submarine, Faa di Bruno, part of the force Italy sent to hunt in the Atlantic (Italy entered the war on Germany's side in June 1940) and the HMCS St. Laurent severely damaged the German V-52. Canada paid heavily, however, losing two destroyers to collisions with friendly ships a not uncommon occurrence when ships had to manoeuvre close together in tense situations in the d:;tys before efficient radar - and a third destroyer was severely damaged by a torpedo from an Italian submarine. Over 200 men died in these three ships. Canada provided replacements from the few destroyers at Halifax, and thereby left Canadian waters almost unprotected. That was not the only help Canada sent. The United States, although still neutral, gave Britain fifty of its old destroyers, but the Royal Navy did not have enough personnel to crew them all. The Royal Canadian Navy therefore took over seven of them, and hurried the four that were in the best condition to Britain early in 1941. The first ten corvettes to be completed in Canadian shipyards, in late 1940, were built for the Royal Navy, but in view of the British manpower shortage, the Royal Canadian Navy also provided crews for these ships, which went to Britain in early 1941.

10 - - - - - - - - - -

Convoy, Afternoon, 1943 by Donald C. Mackay

(CWM 10400)

- - - T H E ROYAL CANADIAN NAVY'S GREATEST CAMPAIGN---

Wolfpacks The Canadian warships were by this time encountering a new form of submarine warfare. As the British navy gathered more and more merchant ships into convoys, including a new series, SC, for old, slow ships that sailed from Sydney, Nova Scotia, the Germans were forced to find a way to locate and attack convoys. The successful German response was 'wolfpacks' tactics. More submarines were becoming available from German shipyards, and with these it was becoming possible to set up long patrol lines, with submarines stationed twenty-five or thirty Ian apart - visibility distance - across the ocean approaches to the British Isles. When one of the submarines sighted a convoy, it radioed submarine headquarters in France, which directed all the other submarines in the patrol line to close in on the convoy. During the Second World War submarines were much more effective on the surface than when submerged. On the surface, the submarine's diesel engines drove them at eighteen or nineteen knots, and they were able to manoeuvre quickly to fire torpedoes at three or four ships; when submerged, and reliant upon battery-driven electric engines, the submarines could only move at a walking pace, not fast enough to pursue targets after firing a single group of torpedoes. Therefore, when chasing a convoy, the submarines kept over the horizon, beyond visibility distance from the naval escorts, and then, after night fall, came in fast, on the surface. The submariners could easily make out the shadows of the big merchant ships, but the lookouts on the merchant ships and naval escorts could see nothing of the low submarine hulls. In several of the early 'wolfpack' attacks on convoys, the German submarine patrol lines succeeded in locating the convoys six hundred or more Ian at sea, outside the zone where the destroyers joined to provide antisubmarine protection. In only one month between June 1940 and May 1941 were the losses of Allied merchant vessels less than 30; total losses for the period were some 540 ships. This spelled disaster for Britain which, cut off from supplies from continental Europe, was now almost completely dependent upon the goods carried from Canadian ports in merchant ships. If the Royal Navy could not more effectively protect merchant shipping, there would be no need for the German army in France to attempt to invade the British Isles: the British population would begin to starve. The only answer was to provide anti-submarine protection to convoys all across the Atlantic.

12 - - - - - - - - - -

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A Major Combatant, May-December 1941 Britain had only one ally who could offer immediate help in the central and western Atlantic: Canada. The Canadian navy agreed to provide a major share of a new force based at St John's, Newfoundland. These antisubmarine warships would take over from the local escorts that brought convoys out from Nova Scotia, and carryon all the way to Iceland. After relief by British escorts, the St John's ships would then refuel in Iceland and bring a convoy outward bound from Britain back towards Newfoundland. The Royal Navy released the eighteen Canadian destroyers and corvettes operating in British waters to form the nucleus of the 'Newfoundland Escort Force.' Reinforcements were to come from the additional corvettes that were now being completed in Canadian shipyards. The new corvettes that came down from the big shipyards on the St. Lawrence and Great Lakes as the ice cleared in the spring of 1941 were by no means ready for service, however. Even a simple warship like a corvette contained a great deal of equipment, including a sonar set, radio equipment, depth charge launchers, guns, and all of the devices and fittings necessary for ocean navigation, and to allow a crew of sixty men to live and work for the ten-day to two week crossing of some of the most stormy waters in the world. It takes several weeks of close attention and tests by technical experts and the crew of a newly built ship to ensure work has been correctly done, replace or repair defective items, and get everything properly adjusted. At the same time, the crew needs two months or more of training exercises and undemanding patrols in local waters to become accustomed to the ship and to working with one another with the necessary close teamwork. For convoy and anti-submarine operations that teamwork had to be finely honed and include a great deal of specialized knowledge and skill. Warships had to do further training in group exercises; otherwise they could not carry out the fast manoeuvres in blind night conditions that were essential to counter wolfpacks attacks. In Canada, in 1941, almost everything was lacking to make the new corvettes properly ready for service. Most of the people with reasonably good training and experience who were supposed to man the corvettes, had had to go to sea in late 1940 as crew for the seven former U.S. destroyers and the ten corvettes built for Britain. Indeed, the unexpected crises since May 1940 had drained away so many qualified seamen for

14 - - - - - - - - - -

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wide-ranging duties, that it was difficult to find instructors to give training to the new recruits upon whom the navy now depended. Similarly, the navy and the shipbuilders were unable to obtain key items of specialized equipment for the corvettes. These items had been promised by Britain, which was now unable to supply them. Canadian manufacturers needed time to learn how to build the complex electrical and mechanical devices. The plan was to give the new corvettes two or three months of easy coastal patrol service during which the crews could finish their training and the shipyards could complete the installation and adjustment of equipment. This proved impossible, however. In June and July, the Germans thrust far to the west, all the way to Newfoundland. At that same time, the British had to pull back escorts they had committed to the Newfoundland force in order to counter another German offensive against the large amount of shipping that travelled south of Britain to Gibraltar and down the coast of Africa. As a result most of the new Canadian corvettes had to rush into the full, gruelling convoy passages to Iceland and back. In September, the United States, although still neutral, agreed to take over convoy operations west of Iceland to allow the British to remove their escorts from Newfoundland for service in European and African waters. The U.S. Navy, however, was short of anti-submarine warships, and could therefore take over protection of only the fast HX convoys between Halifax and Iceland. That left the slow - and most vulnerable - SC convoys almost solely to the Royal Canadian Navy at precisely the time, in September and October, when the Germans, whose submarine force had now grown to over 100, made another big offensive towards Greenland and Newfoundland. 0210 Roughly 10-15 min. had elapsed since [my] first [torpedo] shot had been fired when I saw a destroyer closing...at high speed. I increased to full speed so as to make the destroyer pass astern with the aim ofenabling a shot from the stern tube which was ready to fire. I did not fire because the destroyer passed only 100 m. off the stern.6 heavy depth charge explosions then shook the boat. Both electric motors stopped and we soon were suspended at 25 m... Our situation could have been quite serious especially because the acoustic operator reported screw noises that were closing. From my position in the control room I also then heard a vessel closing from the port side...which then passed over our stern. Not a pleasant

15

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moment . 0920 1 concluded the following with respect to the attack on this particular convoy: Boats on their first war patrols with a new crew should in general at all costs avoid difficult situations such as... allowing themselves to penetrate the middle ofa convoy... The boat should initiate an attack in such a manner that there is sufficient time after firing to calmly get to a sufficient depth whilst under defensive attack by the escorts. Otherwise the result will be a tenacious acoustic pursuit with depth charging with the same result as occurred to my boat... In general the majority of the crew is not aware of the seriousness of a situation of the type that we encountered. This was the case in this instance, and the conduct of the crew was proper and calm. And yet, the majority faced a situation which they individually did not grasp until the most terrifying moments had been survived and there was an opportunity for calm reflection.. Log of U-564, Kapitanleutnant Reinhard Suhren, commanding officer, for 27 June 1941, reporting a counterattack by HMCS Ottawa during the battlefor HX-133

SC-42 A line of eleven V-boats caught the big slow convoy SC-42 off the coast of Greenland on September 9th, 1941. The escort for these 67 merchant ships initially comprised only four Canadian warships, the destroyer HMCS Skeena, and three corvettes, one of which, HMCS Kenogami, was making its first ocean crossing. The escort should have included twelve warships or more, at least three or four of them destroyers. Nevertheless, as the logs of the V-boats show, the outnumbered escorts did outstanding work. They analysed where the V-boats would next strike, racing around and through the convoy to the most vulnerable spots, hurling starshell into the sky to light up the areas where the submarines were manoeuvring to attack, and smothering anything that looked like it might be a submarine with depth charges and gunfire. Kenogami sighted the shadow of a surfaced submarine in the darkness and nevertheless gave a hard chase like a professional warship that forced the V -boat to submerge and withdraw from the battle. Skeena's veteran commanding officer, Commander J.C. "Jimmy" Hibbard, led the Canadian group with a masterful hand, organized a coordinated attack by his warships that heavily

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- - - T H E ROYAL CANADIAN NAVY'S GREATEST CAMPAIGN---

damaged another submarine. During the second night of the battle, the corvettes Chambly and Moose Jaw arrived to help, and, as described at the beginning of this book, destroyed one of the U-boats. Losses to the merchant ships, before a large British group finally reached the scene on September 11th, would have been much worse without the relentless defence by Skeena's group, but they were still extremely heavy: fourteen vessels, in which over 200 merchant seamen lost their lives despite heroic efforts by the other merchant ships and the escorts to rescue all survivors. During the next six weeks the Germans continued to push very large Uboat forces to Greenland and towards Newfoundland, and Canada's hard pressed warships were involved in three more large convoy battles. In one of them, SC-44, the Canadian navy lost its first corvette, HMCS Levis when it was hit by a torpedo in the dead of night. Fortunately it stayed afloat for several hours allowing most of the crew to get safely away. In the battle for SC-48, October 15th-18th, Canadian warships serving with British and American escorts, made two of the four attacks that damaged or drove off U-boats. This was another outstanding achievement, but at the same time several of the brand new Canadian corvettes had serious difficulties. All too frequently, they lost convoys at night or in stormy weather owing to the lack of complete navigational equipment and the inexperience of their crews. All too frequently as well, the corvettes, and the old U.S. destroyers, suffered serious mechanical breakdowns and had to struggle back to port instead of completing their missions. Commodore Leonard Murray, RCN, commander of the Canadian force based in Newfoundland began to wonder if his crews could stand the strain. In the words of Murray's senior staff officer, '[r]ecently corvettes have escorted convoys Eastboundfor sixteen days and then after betweenfour and eighteen hours in harbour have returned with Westbound convoys, this voyage lasting between fourteen and sixteen days. This is quite unacceptable.' Murray especially worried about the small group of experienced officers and non-commissioned officers who stood watch around the clock for days on end when dangerous weather and the nearness of the enemy left no margin for error.

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Firing of Depth Charge from HMCS "Picton", March 1942. (PA 116838)

Stern of HMCS Swansea in rough seas off Bermuda, January 1944.

(PA 116839)

19 - - - - - - - - - -

- - - T H E ROYAL CANADIAN NAVY'S GREATEST CAMPAIGN---

"With no sea experience... it will be necessary for the Commanding Officer to spend on the bridge as much of every 24 hours as his constitution will stand. This ... is more than the best constitution can be expected to support over a period of 28 days, with only a short break ofa few hours in harbour in the middle... we are asking a lot of the morale of an inexperienced crew, to expect them to be happy, and remain fighting fit and aggressive, in a ship in which they know their safety from marine accident alone, and not from any action of the enemy, depends upon the ability of the Captains to remain awake. It should also be remembered that this fortitude is being expected from men who have seen gasoline tankers disintegrate in five seconds, less than halfa mile away from them, and who have also been through the harrowing experience ofseeing men with little lights on their shoulders bobbing up and down in the water and shouting for help... Only the desperate operational situation which exists off our coast at the present time persuaded me to allow... (the ship) to proceed, however, because her... presence may result in saving the lives ofmany merchant seamen, in which case the sacrifice of the health of one Commanding Officer would be justified. " Rear-Admiral Leonard Murray, Flag Officer Newfoundland, to Naval Service Headquarters in Ottawa, November 6th, 1941, about the human costs of rushing newly built corvettes to sea with inexperienced crews.

The Battle Comes to Canada, 1942 The Canadian navy hoped to relax the nearly constant sea service for the escorts during the winter of 1941-1942 so that the crews could rest and complete their training, while the ships refitted. That is not how things turned out. On December 7th, 1941 the United States formally entered the war when Germany's Axis ally, Japan, attacked the U.S. Navy's Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands. With the United States now a full-fledged enemy, Hitler allowed his navy to attack in Canadian and American coastal waters. Early in January 1942, seven German submarines gathered close to Newfoundland, two close to Nova Scotia, and another three in U.S. waters to the south, with as many additional submarines following. By the end of the month they sank fifteen vessels among the coastal traffic, and another eleven further out to sea. These were all ships sailing alone, without pro- - - - - - - - - - 20 - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - T H E BATTLE OF THE A T L A N T I C - - - - - - - -

tection, for until the sudden appearance of the U-boats there had been no need to 'convoy' ships sailing between North American ports. It had been safe for ships returning from Britain to break off near Newfoundland and make the final run home on their own. The Canadian navy responded effectively to the new threat, quickly establishing coastal convoys between Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. That measure, which denied the submarines easy targets, brought the Germans to shift their focus south to U.S. waters, where it took several months for the U.S. Navy, confronted by enormous new demands of full scale war on both the Atlantic and the Pacific, to organize coastal convoys. The immediate difficulty for the Allies was that the United States, although the strongest industrial nation in the world, had just entered the war, and was therefore only beginning to build large numbers of anti-submarine warships. It would be a year or more before these vessels could be completed. In late 1940 and 1941 the Canadian navy had had the firms building the original 92 corvettes and other coastal escorts carryon to build another fifty or so. These vessels completed in 1942 had to be rushed to sea as hastily, and with as inadequate preparations, as the corvettes that had joined the Newfoundland force in 1941. Valuable as the new Canadian warships were, there were not nearly enough of them, and for a good reason. In early 1941, when plans were being made for construction for 1942, the German submarines had not yet shown that they could attack shipping all across the Atlantic. As a result Britain had asked Canada to concentrate on building merchant ships to replace the hundreds that had been sunk in 1940. Thus most of the expansion in Canadian shipbuilding in 1941 had been for merchant ships. These began to enter service on schedule early in 1942 - but precisely at the time when the new German offensives had demonstrated that huge numbers of additional escort warships were needed as well as merchant ships. Canada further expanded its shipbuilding in early 1942, to produce many more escorts as well as merchant ships. This was a great achievement for a country that had barely had a shipbuilding industry in 1939, but, as in the case of American industry, the expanded Canadian warship building programme could not begin delivery of greatly increased numbers of escorts until 1943. In the meantime, even if the Canadian escorts were unequal to growing demands, the Canadian ships were virtually the only ones available. In February 1942, the German submarines, now fully aware of the weak

-------------21-------------

- - - T H E ROYAL CANADIAN NAVY'S GREATEST CAMPAIGN---

defences in American waters, hit the unprotected southerly traffic between Halifax and the United States, so the Royal Canadian Navy had to organize a large new convoy service from Nova Scotia to Boston. With the submarines regularly patrolling south of Newfoundland and close to Nova Scotia, it was also necessary to provide more escorts for the big HX and SC convoys on the first 700 kIn leg of their voyages from Halifax to the joining point for the transatlantic escorts, and also to keep together return convoys from Great Britain all the way to Halifax. In the spring and summer of 1942 the pressure grew still heavier. The Germans, taking advantage of the very weak defences off Virginia and south to the Caribbean, were sinking forty to fifty ships a month in these waters, including tankers that carried crude oil from South America to supply eastern Canada. To avert a fuel crisis, the Royal Canadian Navy had to escort tankers all the way from Halifax to the Caribbean and back. Because of all these commitments, the navy was able to spare very few warships to protect the Gulf of St. Lawrence, when the ice cleared in May 1942 and heavy steamer traffic began to sail to and from Montreal and the many other ports on the gulf and the St Lawrence river. Between May and mid-September a total of four submarines hunted in the St. Lawrence, sinking eighteen ships. This included two Canadian escorts; the new corvette, HMCS Charlottetown, (5 killed and 13 seriously injured), and the armed yacht, HMCS Raccoon (the total crew of 35 perished). In August and September 1942, the Canadian, British and American navies more closely integrated shipping protection forces in North American waters. The result was to move much of the assembly of the big transatlantic convoys from Nova Scotia to New York, the greatest loading port in North America. This concentrated shipping into fewer, larger convoys, that could then become the focal point for efficient use of the escorts available. The Canadian navy had the responsibility for protecting the big convoys all the way from New York to Newfoundland, where the transatlantic escorts took over, a distance of some 1500 km. The Canadian navy had also, under the new system, to escort groups of ships that had loaded at Canadian ports out to join the big convoys at sea as they passed from New York by Nova Scotia. This system was more effective than shuttling ships back and forth along the coastal routes between Sydney, Halifax, Boston and New York, but it also involved long voyages for little escorts

- - - - - - - - - - ' - - - - 22 - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - T H E BATTLE OF THE A T L A N T I C - - - - - - - -

LOSSES OFF mE

EASTERN SEABOARD January to July 1942

•

Merchant Ships sunk

23

- - - T H E ROYAL CANADIAN NAVY'S GREATEST CAMPAIGN---

ill suited to such open ocean passages.

We closed him at 200 yards... and the submarine started an evading action. We kept moving in and just missed ramming his stern. We were so close that we couldn't depress our guns, but we were firing anyway... From my perch on the bridge I could see the German commander plainly in the conning tower, but a short time later he was killed by a shell from one of our 4.7s which struck the conning tower. The Nazis concentrated their fire on our bridge and the first few shots started a fire on the starboard side... With all our guns blazing, our point five [machine gun] gunners kept spraying the submarine's decks. I saw one of our 4.7's hit the conning tower again and this time the V-boat decided to take a gamble and dive ... We crossed his stern several times but I think we were too close for him to use his torpedo tubes... We slapped right into him again and then, for good measure let go charges from our port and starboard throwers which exploded under him... By this time the Germans had had enough and had lined themselves along the deck with their hands held high... Then, as the Nazis plunged into the sea, the submarine went up by the stern, shookfor a second and took the last plunge. Lieutenant-Commander John H. Stubbs, RCN, commanding officer of HMCS Assiniboine describes the destruction of V-210 on August 6th, 1942. There was another plea for help. The first British and American offensive against German forces was to be the invasion of North Africa in November 1942, and there were not enough anti-submarine warships to protect the invasion convoys on their passages between Britain and the Mediterranean Sea. At the end of September the Canadian navy sent seventeen corvettes for this duty. Most of the vessels had to be extracted from the overworked transatlantic and North American waters escort forces.

Climax of the Battle, September 1942 to May 1943 The integrated defences along the North American coast greatly reduced German successes, but at the cost of tying down many Allied warships. Chance and German tenacity still inflicted some devastating losses that made it impossible to redeploy escorts to other theatres. Improved Canadian defences in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, for example, drove the 24 - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - T H E BATTLE OF THE A T L A N T I C - - - - - - - -

submarine U-69 out of those waters, and it hid in the Cabot Strait, between Cape Breton and Newfoundland, so that it could, if Canadian warships and aircraft came too close, escape quickly into the open ocean. On the pitchblack night of October 13th-14th, when the submarine was completely invisible while it searched on the surface, it sighted the Newfoundland ferry Caribou. The Canadian navy minesweeper protecting the ferry had no radar, and therefore no chance of intercepting the submarine as it fired two torpedoes. The ferry sank quickly, and 137 of the 225 people on board were drowned. Most of the victims were women and children. The build-up of the Allied defences in North American waters, and for the protection of convoys for the invasion of North Africa, were achieved in part by reducing the forces based in Newfoundland that escorted the transatlantic convoys to Britain. Once again, as in the difficult fall of 1941, many convoys sailed across the central ocean with an escort that included only a single destroyer and four or five corvettes. In other respects the situation was worse than in 1941. Many convoys had been saved from attack in 1941 because the British intelligence service had been able to decode German radio signals that showed where the submarines were patrolling, allowing the shore commands to direct the convoys to safe routes. Early in 1942 the German navy introduced an improved encryption machine that Allied intelligence could not 'crack'. In 1941 the convoys had followed varying routes, many of them far to the north close to support from aircraft and additional escorts based in Iceland. The northern routes, however, cost a great deal in extra steaming time and in damage to ships by Arctic storms. To overcome these difficulties, and to release the merchant ships and escorts necessary to cope with the situation in North American waters and other theatres, during 1942 the convoys followed a more efficient southerly, direct route between Newfoundland and Britain. In the summer of 1942, as opposition to the submarines stiffened in North American waters, they began to return to wolfpacks attacks on convoys in the mid-Atlantic. The"German force was, in the latter part of 1942, still growing reaching a strength of over 200 submarines, twice as many as had been available in 1941. With these numbers the Germans were able to maintain the pressure off Canada and the United States while simultaneously spreading patrol lines across the transatlantic routes. During the initial part of the renewed wolfpacks offensive, in July, August and early September, the Canadian escort groups held their own. The four convoys

-------------25-------------

- - - T H E ROYAL CANADIAN NAVY'S GREATEST CAMPAIGN---

HMCS Restigouche, one of the six 'River-class' destroyers that were the Canadian navys only seagoing warships in September 1939. These ships were 329 feet long, had a maximum beam (width) of33 feet, and displaced 1,375 tons; they were manned by 180 personnel. The ships were very fast, with a maximum speed of 31 knots, but also had a long endurance, which enabled them to escort a convoy across the whole of the Atlantic. These qualities made the ships the best anti-submarine warships through much of the war. In this photograph ( 1941 or 1942) the after-most of the heavy (4.7-inch) guns and one set of torpedo tubes have already been removed to allow the ship to carry additional depth charges, for anti-submarine duty and additional light anti-aircraft guns to counter enemy aircraft attacks in European waters. (DND photo)

26 - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - T H E BATTLE OF THE A T L A N T I C - - - - - - - -

protected by the Canadian navy that came under attack suffered moderate losses, while, during this period, Canadian warships destroyed four submarines in the north Atlantic, and a fifth in the Caribbean. These victories included two intense close-in, actions, not unlike Chambly and Moose Jaw's fight of the year before. On August 2nd, while protecting SC-94 south of Greenland in foggy conditions, the destroyer HMCS Assiniboine happened upon V-210 as it was running rapidly on the surface in pursuit of the convoy. The two vessels swept each other with their rapid fire guns until the destroyer was finally able to outmanoeuvre the submarine and ram it, smashing open the hull. During the battle, the German shells had started an intense fire on Assiniboine's deck that engulfed the wheelhouse. Acting Chief Petty Officer Max Bernays nevertheless stood by his post, even as his companions fled the flames. Bernays, although injured by a shell fragment, single-handedly executed the many complex turns, and passed the steady stream of instructions to the engine room that were necessary to make the ship manoeuvre rapidly. Bernays received the Conspicuous Gallantry Medal, the highest decoration received by a non-commissioned member of the Canadian navy in the Battle of the Atlantic. On August 28th, the corvette HMCS Oakville, while escorting a tanker convoy near Haiti in the Caribbean, responded to a report by an American aircraft that had damaged V-94. The submarine dove, but Oakville blew it to the surface with depth charges, and then swept in with guns blazing to ram and destroy the submarine. During the fall and early winter of 1942 the Germans succeeded in concentrating larger and larger 'packs' to attack convoys whose defences were progressively weakened by warship losses that could not quickly be replaced. The Canadian escort groups faced some of the most severe challenges among the Allied navies. Far and away the most effective Canadian ships were the six 'River' class destroyers, but three of these were lost or severely damaged in the fall of 1942. Most of the Canadian ships, moreover, lacked recently developed short-wave radar, the only radar that could dependably detect submarines as they attacked on the surface at night. The navy's small technical services, and Canada's emerging electronics industry, had failed to arrange an early supply of the modern equipment, and the British and American navies were not able to provide adequate numbers of the new sets. Worse, as is now known, in the fall of 1942 the Germans had fitted in their submarines equipment that could detect the emissions of

-------------27-------------

- - - T H E ROYAL CANADIAN NAVY'S GREATEST CAMPAIGN---

the long-wave radar in Canadian ships. By tracking these emissions, the Germans were able to find and attack convoys, and to avoid escorts when they began to approach. Finally, Canadian escort groups usually were assigned to protect the slow convoys, which plodded along at six knots an hour or less, and were much easier for the submarines to pursue than the fast convoys that proceeded at ten knots or more.

The Attack on SC-I07 Canadian escorted convoys suffered some of the worst losses during the pitched battles of late 1942. Acting ~ieutenant Commander D.W. "Debbie" Piers, RCN, commanding officer of the destroyer HMCS Restigouche, later recalled the frustration and horror of the one-sided battle for SC-107, in early November 1942. In addition to his ship, he had only five corvettes. His one advantage was that Restigouche was equipped with 'high-frequency direction-finding' equipment, which gave the precise direction of radio signals from the U-boats, thus enabling the escorts to hunt in the right area. Unfortunately, only Restigouche among the escorts had sufficient speed to make these hunts. "... all the time the enemy U boat wireless [radio] activity [was] getting stronger and stronger. And the estimates that we would get at night from the Admiralty [in Britain] and from [the U.S. Navy in] Washington of the disposition of U boats in the North Atlantic showed that... five, seven, nine, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen ... nineteen U boats were known to be closing in on convoy SC-107. Well! We headed beyond that magic circle of 500 miles from Newfoundland [and] we knew there was [now J no hope of receiving any air cover [assistance from air force bombers], and we knew we had many hundreds ofmiles to go to reach air cover from Iceland. And sure enough, first night [when beyond 500 miles from Newfoundland], sometime around midnight... the attacks developed... We then entered into a period of 72 hours of absolute nightmare... The first night, two, three, ships were sunk in spite of all endeavours to make the alterations of course, to chase the high frequency [direction bearings]. The Restigouche was just run absolutely ragged, we kept getting these [directional radio warnings] and every time without fail, I'd go dashing off at full speed, as fast as the ship would go... drop depth charges... try to put that one down, but there we were, surrounded by U - - - - - - - - - - - 28 - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - T H E BATTLE OF THE A T L A N T I C - - - - - - - -

boats. Their system ofattack was, to get ahead by day, away ahead, out of sight... and then somewhere around midnight or one o'clock in the morning, maybe a little earlier... they'd come in, under the cover ofdarkness... we were busy rearranging the screen [rapidly moving the escorts around the convoy to block V-boats}, chasing [their radio} signals... firing snowflake [powerful flares that illuminated a large area}... We did that so many times we ran out of snowflake flares ... It just got to be such a situation that I didn't have a moment to verify whether [a} ship had been torpedoed. And the convoy went on Attack after attack... And this went on for 72 hours." D. W Piers, Lieutenant-Commander, HMCS Restigouche

Although the outnumbered escorts blocked many of the V-boats' attacks, the submarines sank fifteen merchant vessels, fully a third of the entire convoy. The heavy losses to SC-107 and other convoys, which threatened to cut off supplies essential to the British economy and war effort, forced the British government to take dramatic action. A hundred or more ships were being lost each month, nearly as many as in the worst months off the eastern seaboard earlier in the year. Merchant losses for 1942 totalled more than 1,100 vessels. Therefore the Royal Navy gathered up its best anti-submarine ships from other duties and assigned them to 'support groups', which cruised at mid-Atlantic and rushed to the help of convoys that came under attack. The support groups frequently succeeded in hitting the submarines by surprise as they chased convoys. To replace warships that had to be sent from the eastern Atlantic for the support groups, the British government asked Canada to send its four north Atlantic escort groups to British ports. There, while helping out with duties that were less strenuous than the north Atlantic run, the Canadian ships could refit with British shortwave radar and other new equipment, and have a chance to train with British instructors in the latest anti-submarine tactics. However things did not turn out that way. So great was the German pressure on the north Atlantic convoys that only three of the four groups went to the eastern Atlantic, and then, for only eight to ten weeks in February to March 1943, instead of the four months that had been planned.

-------------29-------------

- - - T H E ROYAL CANADIAN NAVY'S GREATEST CAMPAIGN---

Thus the Canadian groups, together with other Canadian warships that helped keep USN groups up to strength, played a large role in defending convoys while the British support groups gradually turned the tide against the submarines. Although the three Canadian groups that went to the eastern Atlantic did receive new equipment, they had little time for rest. Rather, the groups protected convoys from Britain to the Mediterranean that were supporting the Anglo-American invasion of North Africa. While escorting these convoys, the destroyer HMCS St. Croix and the corvette HMCS Shediac cooperated in a depth charge attack that destroyed a German submarine. Meanwhile, the Canadian corvettes that had come in September and October to support the invasion, had destroyed two Italian and two German submarines, but at the cost of two corvettes sunk, HMCS Weyburn, which hit mines, and HMCS Louisburg, which was torpedoed by an enemy aircraft and went down quickly with heavy loss of life. Because the Canadian escort groups were assigned to the traditional role of close defence around convoys, and were for a time diverted to the eastern Atlantic, they did not play a prominent role in the destruction of U-boats by the special British support groups. Still, the support groups could not have done their job if Canadian warships had not protected the convoys and provided relief to British forces in the eastern Atlantic. In recognition of the large role the Canadian navy was playing in the defence of Atlantic shipping, the British and U.S. High Command agreed that the ocean from south of Nova Scotia up to the Arctic circle, and out past eastern Newfoundland, should now become a Canadian command. On April 30th, 1943 Rear-Admiral Murray took up the appointment Commanderin-Chief, Canadian Northwest Atlantic, with his headquarters at Halifax. Since 1941 Canada's Atlantic ocean frontier had been commanded by an American admiral, and before th~t by a British admiral. Murray now controlled all Allied convoy defence forces from the waters north of New York out past Saint John's Newfoundland; he was the only Canadian officer in either World War to have such a senior Allied command. By the end of May 1943 the British support groups, aided by a fresh and virtually complete break into German radio codes by the British intelligence services, had inflicted such heavy losses on submarines attempting to attack convoys that the Germans withdrew from the convoy routes.

- - - - - - - - - - 30 - - - - - - - - - -

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This was the decisive turn in the Battle of the Atlantic, for the transatlantic convoys were the key to keeping Britain supplied and building up forces there for the eventual liberation of Europe. During the pitched battles from January to May 1943 the U-boats sank 300 merchant vessels, but after July losses dropped to less than 20 ships per month, a great improvement.

Unrelenting Combat, June 1943-May 1945 In May 1943 the Allies succeeded in driving back the German submarine force, but failed to destroy it. German industry was making good the losses, and scientists were developing new devices and techniques that would allow the submarines to once again, regain the offensive. Using evasive tactics, including radio silence, the submarines continued to infiltrate Canadian waters. U-119 laid 66 mines off the mouth of Halifax Harbour on June 1943, which fortunately sank only one small vessel before minesweepers began to clear the shipping channel. In the fall another submarine mined the approaches to St John's, Newfoundland, and U-537 slipped into the northern tip of Labrador to place an automated weather station ashore to provide information about fronts moving east across the Arctic and north Atlantic that determined conditions on the battle fronts in Europe. The submarines also endeavoured to revive attacks on convoys. In late September 1943, they used a new weapon, acoustic torpedoes that homed on the sound of ships propellers to inflict crippling losses on the escort of the combined convoys ONS-18 and ON-202. Among the ships lost was the venerable former US destroyer, HMCS St. Croix, which while in Canadian service, had destroyed two German submarines. Tragically, the British warship that had picked up St. Croix's crew was torpedoed itself, and thus only one man from the Canadian destroyer's complement of 160 survived. Allied scientists - with Canadian naval scientists in the lead - quickly devised a counter to the acoustic torpedoes. Noise-making devices towed at a safe distance behind a ship drew the torpedoes away from their intended target. But the equipment was awkward to use, and the escort had to proceed at a slow speed, which complicated still more the difficult art of anti-submarine warfare.

- - - - - - - - - - 32 - - - - - - - - - -

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Among the German innovations in 1943 was the acoustic torpedo, dubbed the "Gnat". It homed on the noise made by the propeller of a ship. This secret weapon was put to devastating effect in an attack by a swarm of submarines against 63 merchant ships of Convoys ONS-18 and ON-202. In a running four day battle, September 22th-23rd, 1943, the V-boats sank seven merchant vessels and four warships, including the H.M.C.S. St. Croix.

GREENLAND

- - - T H E ROYAL CANADIAN NAVY'S GREATEST CAMPAIGN---

During the latter part of 1943 the Royal Canadian Navy's Atlantic fleet began to gain in offensive power. Frigates finally started to arrive from Canadian shipyards. These vessels, half again bigger than corvettes, and, unlike the corvettes, expressly designed for convoy escort and anti-submarine duties on the high seas, also carried a heavier armament. At the same time the Canadian navy took over six destroyers from the Royal Navy, and continued with modernization of all its ships with short-wave radar and other electronic equipment. The RCN began to organize its own support groups for submarine hunting, and from November 1943 through April 1944 Canadian warships destroyed or assisted in the sinking of eight U-boats.

Supportfor the Invasion of Europe The Allies needed all the strength and power the Canadian fleet could muster. At stake was the greatest seaborne invasion in history: the Allied invasion of France to liberate north-west Europe and crush Germany, planned for the spring of 1944. The invasion was utterly dependent upon increased deliveries of men, equipment and supplies across the north Atlantic to Britain, and the mustering of additional anti-submarine forces that could then keep the English Channel clear of submarines so that the invasion fleets could reach the coast of France. The Canadian anti-submarine fleet made a very large contribution. Early in 1944 the Canadian escort groups, expanded to a total of eight, took over all protection of convoys across the north Atlantic to allow the Royal Navy to concentrate its anti-submarine ships for invasion duties. As the invasion date neared, the Canadian navy also provided two groups of destroyers and two groups of frigates (a total of twenty warships) for submarine hunting duties in the Channel and its approaches, nineteen corvettes to escort invasion ships, and sixteen minesweepers to clear the fields of mines laid by the Germans off the French coast. The minesweepers carried out their duties with clockwork precision in the dark hours before the invasion, across the beaches of Normandy, on the morning of June 6th, 1944. The Canadian anti-submarine vessels helped provide the strong defences that virtually closed out the submarines that attempted to come into the Channel. By the end of August 1944, the Canadian destroyers and frigates supporting the invasion had destroyed five submarines.

- - - - - - - - - - - 34 - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - T H E BATTLE OF THE A T L A N T I C - - - - - - - -

HMCS Weyburn was one ofthe 64 corvettes built in Canada in 1940-41. These were small ships, 205 feet in length, with a maximum beam of33 feet, and a displacement ofapproximately 950 tons, that were rather slow with a maximum speed of 16 knots. They had been designed only for patrol in coastal waters, but were pressed into transatlantic anti-submarine escort duty starting in May 1941. Destroyers were the best anti-submarine warships, but it was possible to assign only one or two to each merchant convoy; three or four corvettes therefore completed the defences of each convoy. Based on the design of commercial whale-hunting ships, the corvettes were very seaworthy and had a long range, but they were uncomfortable and crowded for the crews. Their short, round hulls rose up over the top of waves, giving a wild ride like a roller-coaster. The accommodation in the little hulls was intended for only 50 personnel, but long-range ocean escort and the fitting of additional weapons and equipment resulted in the crews increasing to 85 personnel or more. The original armament of the corvettes, as shown here, included a simple 4-inch gun (which can be seen on the forward part of the ship), a few anti-aircraft machine guns, a basic sonar set, and, at the stern, depth charges. Weyburn was built in 1941. It served in the Gulf of St. Lawrence during 1942. In the fall of that year the ship crossed the Atlantic to support the invasion of North Africa and was sunk by German mines near Gibraltar on February 22nd, 1943, with the loss of seven members of the crew. (DND photo)

35

- - - T H E ROYAL CANADIAN NAVY'S GREATEST CAMPAIGN---

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The above schematic indicates the efficiency and teamwork required to destroy a Uboat in the North Atlantic. Seven warships (five were Canadian) chased the enemy vessel. After a 32-hour "hunt to exhaustion ", the second longest of the war; the escorts forced the U-744 to surface and covered it with gunfire. The U-boat had a highly experienced crew and had executed expert evasive measures, including prolonged dives to depths of nearly 200 metres. In the hunt the warships dropped 291 depth charges (87,300 pounds of high explosive) and exchanged 1,500 communication signals to get their victim. Amazingly the wily U-boat almost got away.

36

The Boarding of the U-744, 1944 by Tom Wood

(CWM 10545)

- - - T H E ROYAL CANADIAN NAVY'S GREATEST CAMPAIGN---

Yet, despite the success of the invasion, the German submarine force was far from beaten. Allied attacks on submarines had usually relied on sightings of the submarines when they were cruising on the surface, to recharge the electrical batteries for their underwater propulsion systems, or endeavouring to chase shipping at speed. Sonar, for underwater target location, had only a limited range, and was useful mainly in searching a limited area where a submarine was known recently to have submerged. In early 1944 the Germans began to mount 'schnorkel' breathing tubes on their submarines, which allowed them to cruise about eight metres under the surface while showing only a narrow air intake above water, which was all but invisible. In this way, the submarines could run their powerful diesel engines while submerged, and never rise to the surface for weeks on end. Although the submerged speed of the submarines was still too slow to catch most ships, the submarines could once again push close to the mouths of British - and Canadian and American - harbours, and fire torpedoes at ships as they left or entered ports. With the rocks and old shipwrecks littering the ocean floor near the coasts, and the complex currents and temperature layers in coastal waters, escorts often found that their sonar was incapable of finding the submarines. So serious was the threat in British waters, and so overextended was the Royal Navy, that the Canadian navy continued to maintain at least twenty of its best anti-submarine destroyers and frigates in British waters. Their work required nearly constant alertness, for at any moment a torpedo could - and did- come racing silently from the depths. Beginning in the summer of 1944 the Germans also sent four or five schnorkel submarines at a time to hunt in Canadian coastal waters. Because of the greater importance of the transatlantic convoys and the protection of British waters, the Canadian navy kept only minimum forces at home. These were not strong enough to find and sink the enemy vessels, but did sufficiently intimidate the Germans that losses in Canadian waters were light - some 15 ships during the last year of the war. Among them was the corvette HMCS Shawinigan, which, while on a routine patrol off Port-aux-Basques, Newfoundland, on the night of November 24th, 1944, had the back luck to pass right across the sights ofU-1228. All 91 men on board the Shawinigan died.

- - - - - - - - - - 38 - - - - - - - - - -

Canadian Tribal Destroyers in Action, 1946 by Tony Law

(CWM 10248)

- - - T H E ROYAL CANADIAN NAVY'S GREATEST CAMPAIGN---

The Sinking of HMCS Shawinigan 0145 Coast shining beautifully in moonlight, Table Mountain, Sugar Loaf, Cape Ray [Newfoundland] beacons showing up as gleams on the horizon... 0150 Hydrophone pickup at bearing 2000 . To periscope depth. 0210 At bearing 2100 destroyer [sic] tacking along basic course NE... 0220 Turned offfor stern pursuit... 0230 Tube VI fired turning shot bow... aiming point stern, estimated range [2500 metres] 0232 Torpedo and screw noises merge. 0234 A hit after 4 min 0 sees. High, 50 m, large explosion column with heavy shower ofsparks, after collapse ofexplosion column, only 10m high now, then smoke cloud, destroyer disappeared. On hydrophone set screw noises disappeared with hit, great roaring and crackling sounds.... 0236 Depth charge detonations at intervals of 1-3 minutes. Surmise destroyer depth charges going off as triggers activated when depth reached... Kapitanleutant Marienfeld, commanding officer, recording the attack that sank the corvette HMCS Shawinigan. There were no survivors. 'At 1320Z [Greenwich Mean Time] 27th ofNovember, while carrying out a search in accordance with your signal 270109, aircraft reported a large oil slick...and it was closed for investigation. Oil, apparently boiler fuel, covered a considerable area, and in searching further, six bodies wearing R.C.N. life belts were located floating in the sea, and transferred [sic] to "TRURO" for passage to Sydney. The oil slick was made up in part of heavy fuel oil, and resembled chunks of mud floating on the water. Each body was wearing a life belt when recovered, and appeared to be floating upright in the water, with the face submerged... it is considered that the bodies were from H.M.C.S. "SHAWINIGAN". Acting Commander W.C. Halliday, Royal Canadian Naval Reserve, commanding officer HMCS Springhill.

- - - - - - - - - - 40 - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - T H E BATTLE OF THE A T L A N T I C - - - - - - - -

On April 16th, 1945, only three weeks before the final collapse of Germany, U-190, lurking close off Halifax, sank the minesweeper HMCS Esquimalt, with the loss of 44 crew members. U-190 escaped massive searches by warships and aircraft, and surrendered to Canadian forces on May 11th, 1945, three days after Germany ordered all its submarines to surface and give themselves up. So intense was the combat during the last year of the war, and so great the Canadian navy's role, that it suffered the loss of eight warships sunk and four others severely damaged by enemy action. This was more than the total losses to the enemy of eight warships sunk and one severely damaged during the whole period September 1939 to April 1944. Despite the intense difficulties during the last year of the war in locating enemy submarines that used new tactics and equipment to evade Allied detection systems, the Canadian navy destroyed, or assisted in the destruction of ten submarines, for a total of 32 during the war.

Conclusion "The Canadian Navy solved the problem of the Atlantic convoys." Admiral Sir Percy Noble, Royal Navy. The main purpose of the Royal Canadian Navy's Atlantic forces, however, was not to sink submarines, but to protect the shipping that sustained Britain and made the liberation of Europe possible. The real achievement of the navy was the fact that merchant ships made 25,343 voyages from North America to Britain under Canadian protection, and in so doing delivered 164,783,921 tonnes of cargo. This was an enormous job that, during the most critical times of the war, the great navies of Britain and the United States simply did not have the specialized resources to do. Canada, in filling that gap, had achieved a near wonder in maritime history. The tiny nucleus force of 1939 had by November 1944 expanded over thirty-fold to 261 sea-going escorts, and 95,795 personnel, both men and women. Two thousand and twenty-four Canadian sailors perished. Most of the 2,024 who died during the war, gave their lives in the Atlantic battle, and many of them have no known grave except the grey northern ocean. Their names are inscribed on the Halifax Memorial, a . granite cross on the shore of Point Pleasant Park. The memorial looks out to sea down the channel through which thousands of merchant ships and

-------------41-------------

01

- - - T H E ROYAL CANADIAN NAVY'S GREATEST CAMPAIGN---

hundreds of warships filed to and from the north Atlantic in 1939-1945. The lush woods of the park and the surrounding shores, which quickly turns to the harsh granite of Halifax's outer harbour, would have been the last peaceful landscape seen by many thousands of Allied seamen. Canada's losses in the Atlantic were moderate compared to other nations. More than 1,300 British merchant ships were destroyed during the conflict, and with them nearly 23,000 seamen lost. These losses would have been much higher without Canada's unheralded naval effort. Canadians provided nearly half of all escorts to shipping across the vital north Atlantic bridge during critical periods in the war. The Canadian navy helped ensure the final defeat of Adolf Hitler and the Axis powers. Without the supplies and troops delivered under Canadian protection, the Allied landings in occupied Europe could not have taken place as soon as they did, and with the strength needed to ensure success.

Bibliography - Suggested Reading Canada and the Battle of the Atlantic by Dr. R. Sarty. Art Global, 1998. The Far Distant Ships by J. Schull. Queen's Printer, 1952. The Corvette Navy by J.B. Lamb. MacMillan of Canada, 1977. A Nation Forged in Fire by J.L. Granatstein and D. Morton. Lester, Orpen & Denys, 1989. The Maritime Defence of Canada by Dr. R. Sarty. North Atlantic Run: The Royal Canadian Navy and the Battle for the Convoys by M. Milner. University of Toronto Press, 1985. U-Boats against Canada: German Submarines in Canadian Waters by M.L. Hadley. McGill Queen's Press,1985.

The author, Dr. Roger Sarty is one of Canada's foremost military historians. A graduate of Duke University and the University of Toronto, Dr. Sarty has written extensively on the naval and military forces of Canada. He is the author of The Maritime Defence of Canada, Canada and the Battle of the Atlantic, contributed to the Official History of the Royal Canadian Air F~rce, and is the co-author of the forth-coming official history ofthe Royal Canadian Navy. Currently Dr. Sarty is the Director ofthe Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. - - - - - - - - - - 42 - - - - - - - - - -