Convoy Veterans of World War II Tell Their True Stories
The Canadian escort group C 2 was comprised of the RCN destroyers Gatineau and Chaudiere, the frigate St. Catharines, the Corvettes Chilliwack and Fennel, and the RN destroyer Icarus. these six and the RN corvette Kenilworth castle combined to sing U-744 in the North Atlantic in a prolonged drama on March 5 and 6, 1944. At 32 hours, this the second-longest successful hunt of the war.\ Chilliwack able seaman Ralph Chartrand recalls the action:\ When the sub started to surface, everything that...
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To the casual observer, World War II was won on land, but the war was actually decided by the Battle of the Atlantic. It was control of the seas that enabled the Allies to fight on land in Europe, and in the air. The victory at sea was a dangerous and deadly six-year struggle to deliver the necessities of life and war from North America to the United Kingdom. On the one side were the hunted -merchant ships sailing in convoys protected by warships. On the other side were the hunters-German submarines determined to sever the Atlantic Supply line and strangle the United Kingdom into submission. Canada played a significant role in this struggle by producing and sending to sea more than a hundred small escort vessels known as corvettes. In Corvettes Canada, Mac Johnston re-creates life aboard corvettes through the worlds of the veterans themselves. Within a framework of the basic events of the war, this book is an epic piece of oral history and is essentially the product of the memories of more than 250 men, collected by correspondence in a project that got underway with an initial personalized letter to several hundred corvette veterans in 1990. Hundreds of additional letters followed as more veterans were identified. The letter count rose to 1,400 and then 1,900 to flesh out the corvette story. From the fall of 1940 until May 1945, Corvettes Canada follows these small warships as they shepherd convoys of merchant ships carrying weapons, food, oil, raw materials and manufactured goods from North America to the United Kingdom. On the return trip, the escorts bring back the empty vessels for reloading. As told in the worlds of the veterans, the routines of life aboard a corvette are punctuated by sudden burst of fierce action—the life-and-death moments for warships, merchant ships and German submarines. This was but one enemy—the other was the North Atlantic itself, a powerful force that brought severe cold, icy storms and fierce gales. In addition to the famous Newfie-Derry Run on the North Atlantic, corvettes also saw duty in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, on the triangle run to New York and Boston, in the Caribbean, in the Mediterranean and in the English Channel, as well as the Pacific Ocean. Corvettes Canada is a remarkable achievement: an honest, engaging story of war told through first-hand experience and a celebration of the courage and resilience of young sailors whose efforts were critical to victory in Europe. The memories are accompanied by a treasure trove of photographs which bring that time to life. In total, the book is an achievement of a kind that will be an enduring legacy for generations of readers.
Ch. 1 "They didn't even have uniforms for us" / The race to build escorts 1Ch. 2 "There was nothing like an echo to shake you up" / Corvette and U-boat capabilities 13Ch. 3 "Engine stopped and lights glaring, but you had no time to think of death" / The Iceland Run, 1941 25Ch. 4 "Blood brothers to a cork when it came to riding out a rough sea" / Bad weather and the first corvette losses 37Ch. 5 "I do remember him telling me it was so cold on the North Atlantic, so cold... " / The sinking of HMCS Spikenard 51Ch. 6 "I met my husband at the Staten Island USO" / The main convoy routes, 1942 67Ch. 7 "You can imagine what a smelly, dirty-looking crew we were after a few days at sea" / Living conditions aboard corvettes 79Ch. 8 "If you want real tough, take life aboard a corvette while seasick" / Seasickness 93Ch. 9 "One dollar per day per man at sea" / Food and cooks 101Ch. 10 "Wartime at sea in the Atlantic was certainly a far cry from the relatively quiet time in the Pacific" / New theatres, 1942 113Ch. 11 "From the bridge above came the captain's command's - 'Abandon Ship!'" / The Mediterranean, 1942-43 131Ch. 12 "The winter, the sea - those were the enemy" / From rough to ready, 1943 147Ch. 13 "It's morale that's important" / Corvette life and characters 167Ch. 14 "There was no flash - just a huge wall of water into the sky" / The slogging continues, 1944 183Ch. 15 "A few days later we learned that we had been searching for Glenn Miller...No wreckage was ever found" / The English Channel, 1944-45 203Ch. 16 "The war is over! Splice the main brace" / War's end to the present 213Bibliography 228Index 229
