K143 was my father's ship. It was the first Canadian naval vessel sunk in the Mediterranean. He went down with it while it was escorting a convoy to North Africa on Feb. 6, 1943. It was attacked by aircraft of the "axis" and received an aerial torpedo amidships. Since my father was an engine room artificer, he was not able to abandon ship.
My father was one of those men. He served on HMCS Moose Jaw, Saskatoon and Huntsville. He was supposed to transfer to HMCS Shawinigan, who was lost in the Gulf of St. Lawrence with all hands. He was lucky.
@@keithwatson1384 sadly, they've gone and PC'd the lower deck ranks by replacing "seaman" with "sailor". Leading Sailor instead of Leading Seaman (for example) just sounds stupid to my ears. Glad I've retired.
True they don't talk much about the corvettes or minesweepers much in this documentary, but It was trying to cover the whole war in a half-hour show. They were mentioned, but the destroyers were always considered more glamorous and more filmable by filmmakers. But, all in all, they did a pretty good job of paying tribute to the Canadian Navy.
When I served there were still many who has served during WWII. As one told me, he tried to join the RCN in September ‘39 but the navy wasn’t ready to take in the many they needed. So he enlisted in The Black Watch and had to wait a number of months until he was able to transfer.
Interesting video. Reading the comments also is worthwhile with respect needing to be shown all around; Corvettes, merchants, warships & others. Never did mention HMCS Uganda/Quebec & HMCS Ontario also being the two light cruisers that boosted Canada's naval power that much more. Same with HMCS Magnificant & HMCS Warrior. HMCS Uganda was sent to the pacific, as was HMCS Ontario. Canada received their new bigger toys a bit too late to the party. Nice documentary though. Very informative that I'm happy to have heard of the three AMC Prince ships.
Hello I'm finding it hard to get info on Canadian submarines in ww2! My great grandfather said he was a cook on one but all I can find on line is 2 captured u boats that were used then destroyed! But I cant find a crew list so I can see what u-boat my grandpa was serving in for Canada in ww2.
"The Americans were also prepared to pay for warship construction in Canada for the British, and the Canadian government-itself strapped for U.S. dollars-committed its ‘surplus’ productive capacity to meet the need." "By December 1941, HMCS Arrowhead, Bittersweet, Eyebright, Mayflower and Snowberry were in American yards having their forecastles extended and modern radar installed." Legion magazine the-sheep-dog-navy-navy-part-39 on line
By the summer of 1942, 35 per cent of merchant ship convoy escorts operating between Newfoundland and Great Britain were RCN. During the last six months of that year the full weight of German U-boat wolf-pack operations fell on them. In November and December alone 80 per cent of ships hit by torpedoes in transatlantic convoys were under Canadian escort. At the end of 1942 the British formally requested that Canadian escort groups with the Mid-Ocean Escort Force (MOEF) be withdrawn from the North Atlantic Run for re-equipping and retraining. Legion Magazine Trying To Stay Ahead Of The Pack page
Yes, in terms of numbers of ships in service. In perspective, with the removal of Axis naval powers, who else was there? One number I have heard or read of is that approximately 100,000 sailors were in the RCN at the end of the war, at a time when Canada had a population of approximately 14 million. That's over 0.7%. That doesn't seem huge, but it is. Most people knew of somebody who served in the RCN.
@@rpm1796 Screw You. We built the ships, manned them and took the fight to the enemy, dying as we did it. We weren't attacked and we weren't drafted. We didn't join a war, we were there from the start. Who are you to belittle my country's, my father's bravery?
@Bob Watters How can you say that securing shipping lines, the lifeblood of the entire war effort, was not a decisive naval battle? Our "inflated" view of the RCN comes from the widows and mothers whose loved ones lie at the bottom of the ocean. Men who volunteered long before the Allies could report a single battlefield victory, Men who volunteered when defeat and death seemed more likely than even containing the Nazi juggernaut. It's America who has an inflated view of their part in WWII. By New Year's Day 1942, Rommels foothold in North Africa was untenable, the Soviets had learned how to defeat the blitzkrieg, the RAF had defeated the Luftwaffe, and the Canadians were in charge of the Atlantic between Maine and Iceland, but America had only been shedding blood for three weeks. America's military might was indeed overwhelming, but the war in Europe had already been won before any bombs fell at Pearl Harbor.
my dad has lots of respect for the Canadian Corvettes that escorted his liberty ship accross the Atlantic. He is alive because those Corvettes protected US Merchant Marine ships
my dad has lots of respect for the Canadian Corvettes that escorted his liberty ship accross the Atlantic. He is alive because those Corvettes protected US Merchant Marine ships
Bud Morse You couldn't be more wrong. The Canucks are highly regarded and respected in the UK as fighting men and their contribution to the Allied cause. It is true that they often got the shitty end of the stick.The sacrifice made at Dieppe is but one example. Canadian army units formed part of the left flank of the invading forces during Operation Overlord where the major German forces were positioned, having been wrong footed into believing that we would land in the Calais area. It is worth noting that the Canucks made a timely conjunction with the UK and Commonwealth forces unlike a neighbour of theirs who have been late in arriving to participate in two World Wars. Maybe Canada has nor received the plaudits and recognition that they deserved because unlike others they, and we, do not take our film industry to war and very little footage was shot and that that was not made open to the public view.
Anyone who knows anything about the battle of the Atlantic knows the pivotal role the canucks played in keeping England alive! We would of lost the war without those vital convoys!
Man that other guy is rude. Anyway the navy sank 29 u-boats and captured 2. My great grandfather was a cook one of Canadians captured or bought subs. He never talked about it, he just said he cooked on a submarine.
On Christmas eve, 1944, my father's ship, a corvette, which was really an armed coastal trawler, chased a U-boat after it attacked their convoy. They hunted it, alone, throughout Christmas day and at dusk on Boxing day, forced it to the surface and sunk it with their forward deck gun. They rescued 18 sailors from the North Atlantic and shared Christmas Dinner with them. One of them, "a young boy", my father said, sang Christmas carols for them all in German. He also sang 'Lille Marlene'. We had a 78 rpm record of it, and sometimes, at Christmas, when we were alone, he would ask me to play it. He would look deep into his memories and cry while Marlena Dietrich did her magic. Find somebody to thank for your freedom, today. haha, my ass.
