Canadian Military History in Perspective

On inland lakes and on the coasts, Royal Canadian Air Force watercraft performed a myriad of odd, but vital jobs. Near Patricia Bay, B.C., they retrieved floating practice torpedoes that had been dropped by No. 32 Operational Training Unit. Range boats patrolled bombing and gunnery ranges, prepared to rescue crews of crashed aircraft, warning civilians and fishermen away from danger areas and towing hydrofoil targets. General Utility boats of roughly 10 to 14 metres transported local station supplies and laid down flare paths during night-flying operations, and refuelling tenders, loaded with 27,240 litres of gasoline, serviced flying boats. Bombing rafts, built of heavy timber, delivered depth charges to those same aircraft, and derrick scows lifted moorings and other heavy materials.

In 1939, the bulk of the pre-war Royal Canadian Navy—four of six destroyers—had been deployed on the Pacific coast in response to the very real threat of war with Japan. War with Germany soon stripped British Columbia of its naval forces, so that when war with Japan came there was little in place.

On the afternoon of July 11, 1944, Canadian Corps Headquarters once again became operational on the soil of France. Lieutenant-General Guy Granville Simonds assumed responsibility for 7,280 metres of front in the Caen sector of Normandy. There was little time or inclination to mark this event or link it with the memory of the vaunted Canadian Corps of First World War fame because there was too much to be done.

Air forces have long since relied on boats of one sort or another. They have been used to pluck downed aircrew from the sea, tow targets for air-gunner training and shuttle personnel, fuel, cargo and munitions to floatplanes and flying boats.

The expansion of the war in 1942 pulled Canada’s small ship navy in several directions simultaneously, stretching it thin and leading—ultimately—to the greatest crisis in Canadian naval history. The navy’s senior officers were sharply criticized for the way in which they handled these challenges and the Chief of Naval Staff, Admiral Percy Nelles, was dismissed in January 1944.

Operation Charnwood, the July 8-9, 1944, attack on Caen, Normandy, by I British Corps, was a multi-phase advance. The first part, intended to collapse the city’s outer defensive perimeter, required Canada’s 9th (Highland) Infantry Brigade to capture Buron, Gruchy, and Authie, three villages that the 12th SS had fortified during the month-long pause in the Caen sector.

On July 19, 1909, Hubert Latham took off from Calais, France, in an Antoinette monoplane, attempting to be the first man to fly across the English Channel. Soon afterwards, his engine failed and he came down in the Channel where he was rescued by a French warship. Latham failed in his venture, but achieved another distinction: he was the first pilot saved following an aerial mishap at sea.

Events off the American eastern seaboard in early 1942 typically capture the attention of historians when it comes to examining this phase of the Atlantic war. But for the Royal Canadian Navy’s escorts on the North Atlantic Run, early 1942 transatlantic escort of convoys remained a perilous and critical task. Winter weather was vile and the U-boats—many of them by then in transit to warmer hunting ground off the United States—required constant vigilance. Evidence of that danger was made plain in February with the tragic loss of the corvette Spikenard while escorting slow convoy SC 67 south of Iceland.

On July 5, 1944, the millionth Allied soldier landed in France. The lodgement phase of Operation Overlord—codenamed Neptune—was over. The port of Cherbourg was secure and to everyone’s surprise the supply system, using the remaining Mulberry (artificial) Harbour and the open beaches, was working smoothly. No operation can succeed without solid logistical support and the Allies were bringing manpower and materiel to Normandy more quickly than the enemy.

The Royal Canadian Air Force’s overseas experience with torpedo bombers differed greatly from the sporadic and often ineffective operations on the home front. Although the RCAF carried only one torpedo bomber squadron in its overseas Order of Battle, many Canadians flew with British squadrons in this role.