Vol. 65, No. 1 spring 2020
12 prone to rust. T e pressures of war time construction meant that the steel plate was not leſt outside long
enough for weather to remove the mill scale leſt aſt er production. Aſt er a short time in the Atlantic the wind and salt did that job, taking the paint with it.
T ere is no question that Canadian corvettes and their crews went to war ill-prepared during 1941, but their presence permitted the trans-Atlantic convoy system, the bedrock of the Battle of the Atlantic, to be established.
With the United States’ entry into the war the focus shiſt ed away from the North Atlantic as U-boats moved to the unprotected American seaboard. T e USN’s reluctance to adopt a convoy system came as a shock to those who had been fi ghting since 1939, and, in March 1942, the RCN began convoys from Boston to Halifax. By May losses off the east coast were so severe that the RCN also initiated Caribbean tanker convoys, which continued until late summer when the reduced loss rate fi nally convinced the USN to establish their own convoy system. T e RCN placed six corvettes under USN operational control for those duties, and the RN lent others.
T e strength of the NEF was further reduced when sixteen ships were re-assigned to inshore convoy work in the St. Lawrence and on the ‘triangle run’ between New York, Halifax, and St. Johns. In August an additional seventeen corvettes were withdrawn for Operation Torch, the Allied landings in North Africa. It was signifi cant
that the Canadian-built
British corvettes and ten of the revised corvettes, most of the best equipped in the RCN, were on loan to other navies by the fall of 1942.
T e remainder of the Canadian corvettes, most of the short fo’c’s’le builds, sailed through 1942 without new equipment, refi ts, repairs, or proper training. T e exigencies of war made this necessary, but the price of neglect was high. During the last half of 1942 eighty percent of ships lost in mid ocean were escorted by Canadian groups in slow convoys. T e British blamed poor leadership and training, while the RCN argued the root causes were outdated equipment and lack of destroyers. By the end of the
year merchant shipping losses were not sustainable, the RCN had reached its limit, and their forces were withdrawn from the mid-ocean escort role.
T ere were also corvette losses, balanced by some successes. Corvettes were not designed to withstand heavy damage, and one torpedo was enough to sink them. Levis had its bows blown off by a torpedo in September 1941 and sank with the loss of seventeen lives. In the same month Chambly squared the account by blowing U-501 to the surface, then ramming and sinking it. In December Windfl ower was sunk in collision with a freighter it was escorting. Spikenard was torpedoed in February 1942 near Iceland, only eight of the crew surviving fourteen hours in the water. Wetaskiwin shared in the sinking of U-558 in July, and Charlottetown was sunk off Gaspe in September. In August Oakville blew U-94 to the surface near Haiti, rammed it twice, and boarded the boat before it sank. In the same month Sackville damaged two U-boats and attacked a third in one day. Had the ship possessed modern radar and heavy anti-aircraſt weapons it might well have sunk all three, but the SW radar and machine guns were not enough to give a decisive edge at night and in the fog.
Modernization
T e Canadians had known early in the war that the British were modifying the forward half of their corvettes to make them more suitable for the Atlantic. Canada saw diff erent roles for these urgently needed ships so decided against modifying the fi rst production program while they were still being built. T e British had begun modernization of their ten Canadian Flowers, so that by early 1943 these were the best equipped corvettes in Canadian service. T e question Canada faced in 1942 was whether or not to start modernizing seventy ships that were now considered obsolete, or to construct new types such as the Castle-class corvette and River-class frigate. T e Naval Staff was unenthusiastic about modernizing the fi rst corvettes because of the long time each ship would be out of service, the complexity of the work, lack of shipyard space, and the diffi culty of obtaining equipment.
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