Nautical Research Journal
T e structural work involved lengthening the fo’c’s’le and enlarging the bridge, as per the revised corvettes; this would improve accommodations, seakeeping, command and control, and provide a platform for the new Hedgehog anti-submarine mortar. T e forward half of
the ships needed re-wiring with
the low power system necessary to operate gyro compasses, electronic plots, the latest Asdic sets, and the Hedgehog. Canada would need to acquire this high-tech equipment as well as 20-millimeter cannons for the new bridge and the 2-pounder anti- aircraſt gun for the aſt er tub. Most of this equipment and weaponry had to come from Britain or the United States, and Canada was at the far end of very long supply chains.
A complicating factor was that there were very few Canadian shipyards that could carry out the work. Once fi tted out for war service, corvettes could not return to the Great Lakes yards that had built the majority because they could no longer clear the locks on the St. Lawrence River. West coast yards were too far away, and shipyards on the east coast were backed up with repair work and new construction.
By the end of 1942 corvettes had had their mainmasts and minesweeping equipment removed, and around that time the Naval Staff authorized modifi cations that could be carried out quickly and economically, but not a full modernization program. T e authorized work included moving the foremast aſt of the bridge and expanding the bridge. Oerlikon cannons were mounted on the bridge wings and a second magnetic compass binnacle on an extended front so the captain could remain on the bridge during action. T e 2-pounder anti-aircraſt weapons were fi nally procured for the aſt er gun tub and a 20-inch searchlight was added there as well. Modern Type 271 centimetric radar sets were installed on a raised structure behind the bridge. T e modifi cations were mostly carried out in yards on the east coast or along the St. Lawrence below Montreal.
About six months aſt er the modifi cations were authorized,
the Naval Staff fi nally approved full
modernization of the corvette fl eet. However the work proceeded slowly with only fourteen corvettes
fi nding space in Canadian yards in 1943. T e RN modernized the remaining eight built for them in the United States under lend-lease, but only had dockyard space for two RCN corvettes that year, while two more completed modernization in American yards. During 1944, twenty-two corvettes were modernized in Canada and another eleven in the United States or Britain. Six short fo’c’s’le corvettes were sunk and the remaining fi ve were never modernized. T ose ships received the authorized improvements listed above, but went through the entire war with short fo’c’s’les and obsolete Asdics, their crew morale suff ering accordingly.
Even though Canadian corvettes had been withdrawn from the mid-Atlantic at the end of 1942, they remained the major escort force for convoys elsewhere. During the support for Operation Torch Ville de Quebec sank U-224, Port Arthur sank the Italian Tritone, and Regina sank Avorio. In March, while escorting Gibraltar convoys, Shediac shared in the sinking of U-87, and Prescott sank U-163. Against these successes the corvettes Louisburg and Weyburn were lost. In the fall of 1943 the RCN returned to the mid-Atlantic with three support groups providing assistance to convoys under attack, and over that winter they accounted for the sinking of three more U-boats: Snowberry sharing U-536, Camrose sharing U-757, and Chilliwack and Fennel sharing U-744 with fi ve other escorts aſt er a 32-hour hunt that expended 291 depth charges.
Late War Corvettes
By 1942 the solution to convoy escort was seen as the River-class frigate, known during its design stage as the ‘twin screw corvette’. By the end of the war Canada was operating seventy frigates, but in 1942 Canada ordered an additional fi ſt een corvettes from shipyards that would otherwise have been idled, an unthinkable prospect while the fate of the free world was being decided. T ese were not the obsolete ships of the earlier building programs, but the fi rst of the Increased Endurance (IE) type of the Flower-class. T eir hulls incorporated all the lessons learned during three years of fi ghting, including a bridge built to naval standards with an open pilotage and modern Asdic
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