NAVY NEWS, MAY 2010

● HMCS Sackville in her post-1944 refi t confi guration, with extended fo’c’sle

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HMCS SACKVILLE, the last remaining Flower- class corvette and Canada’s Naval Memorial, is a floating museum as well as a memorial,

write Jacqui Good and Hugh Macpherson.

A total of 269 Flower-class

corvettes were built during World War 2, almost all in the UK and Canada. Sackville was built in St John, New Brunswick, and spent most of her active life based in St John’s, Newfoundland, as a member of the famed Fifth Escort Group, the Barber Pole Brigade.

She is now located in Halifax, home of Canada’s East Coast Navy, and she has been restored to reflect life at sea in1944 during the Battle of the Atlantic. There are uniformed mannequins in the mess, lifting cups of coffee to their lips. Others are taking a nap in hammocks slung above the table.

Sometimes there are live

actors offering tours of the corvette and singing Roll along,

Wavy Navy.

Visitors are invited to take a

turn at the wheel, clamber up and down ladders, check out the engine room and take aim with the guns. Restoration of the original equipment is an ongoing project.

And now, everyone who visits Sackville can learn about the Type 271 radar – “the set that won the war at sea”, according to James Lamb in his classic tale

On the Triangle Run.

At the outbreak of the war no Canadian ships were equipped with radar, and when Canadian- designed radar sets were installed in ships like Sackville, they were found to be unsuitable for the rigours of the North Atlantic winter.

They used a longer wavelength, and it was difficult to tell if the returned signal was a trawler, an iceberg or an enemy submarine. The problem was amplified by the fog banks and rough seas of the Western North Atlantic. After a series of frustrating encounters with U-boats, Canadian captains demanded to get their hands on a new British development which used shorter wavelengths than the Canadian equipment.

The 271 radar was the best of its kind in 1942 and significantly

Flower of Canada

improved the odds of a corvette finding and sinking an enemy submarine.

An early model was installed in Sackville in Londonderry late in 1942. That original equipment is long gone, but a similar set was discovered in a warehouse some 25 years ago.

A member of the Canadian

Naval Memorial Trust, which has custody and care of the ship, made it a cause to bring the radar back to life. The Royal Navy Museum of Radar and Communications, located in HMS Collingwood in Fareham, provided valuable research, and even a long- forgotten copy of the technical and operator’s manuals. When the restored radar was

unveiled in June 2008, Lt Cdr Bill Legg RN (Rtd) was beaming – he is curator of the Radar Museum, and was on hand in Halifax for the event. For the actual restoration the Trust approached

work,

Cobham Surveillance, based in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, and a subsidiary of Cobham plc, in the UK. To their delight the company, which develops and designs electronic tracking and locating equipment, signed on immediately. Cobham engineers cleaned up the old radar, replacing, refurbishing and polishing, until the set looked like it had just arrived from the manufacturer. Then they tackled the complicated task of creating a display that explains how radar works and how this set would have looked under wartime

conditions.

An audio narrative was synchronized to the display – and, the icing on the cake, two World War 2 veteran radar operators, Guy Oulette, (ex-RCN) and Sid Gould (ex-RN), both members of the Trust, reprised their roles as radar operators.

Both Cobham and the RN Radar Museum are being recognised with pusser and shiny new plaques aboard Sackville. Their collaboration is exactly the type of involvement that Canada’s National Naval Memorial needs to encourage as it works toward creating a museum full of interactive, educational, adventures. The ship’s triple expansion

engines have been rigged with hydraulics so that they can be slowly turned over, the bridge is being rebuilt, as close as possible to the original and the radio room is in operation.

And another link with a commercial organisation has also yielded results – Lockheed Martin, once again with the help of the RN Radar Museum, have undertaken the formidable job of restoring a long neglected ASDIC, the 144/147, to as close to working condition as possible.

The goal is to have all this equipment and other restorations ready for the Queen’s visit to Halifax in late June.

The visit will be a highlight of the 100th anniversary celebrations of the Canadian Navy.

But this Sackville is more than a floating and live museum; she is the Canadian National Memorial to more than 2,000

enemy U-boats and is the last of the wartime Flower Class corvettes that served so valiantly in World War II, especially in the Battle of the Atlantic. Celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the Canadian Navy and experience firsthand what it was like to serve at sea in these rugged little warships.

C

● HMCS Sackville pictured during the war with her original short fo’c’sle confi guration

ome on board HMCS Sackville, Canada’s Naval Memorial, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Sackville distinguished herself in a number of engagements with

young men, many from inland cities and the prairies who had never seen salt water, who gave their lives in the Battle of the Atlantic.

The gallant old ship is a

tribute to all those who served and are serving Canada at sea, to all those who served in Flower-class corvettes, and she is the special care and love of the hundreds of Trustees who

rescued, restored and maintain “the last corvette”. For more information on becoming a Trustee or assisting in the care of the ship see www.

hmcssackville.com

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