Posts Tagged ‘Newfoundland Escort Force’

The fall of 1941 was perhaps the toughest period of the war for the Royal Canadian Navy. It is hard to think of a time when the gap between the capability of the fleet and the demands placed on it was so large. Indeed, the RCN would have been stretched to the limit to meet its new obligation to escort slow convoys between Newfoundland and Iceland even if the weather and the enemy had co-operated. Winter weather closed in on the northern convoy routes in the fall. With it came short days of thin, watery sunlight followed by long, bitterly [...]

The Newfoundland Escort Force’s baptism of fire in June 1941 marked the start of the Royal Canadian Navy’s formative experience. What became known as the North Atlantic Run quickly defined a role for Canada and its navy within the evolving system of western defence. However, in the early summer of 1941, the longevity of that role was not guaranteed. In fact, even as the NEF conducted its first operations, plans were afoot to draw the still-neutral United States into the northwest Atlantic, and hand over all naval operations to them. British and American staff talks in early 1941 produced the basic [...]

The establishment of the New­found­land Escort Force (NEF) in May 1941 marked the beginning of the modern Canadian navy. Previously, the Royal Canadian Navy had served either uniquely Canadian needs, or as part of the larger British imperial fleet. With the NEF, the RCN began to carve out distinct strategic, operational and tactical roles within an emerging western alliance dominated by the United States. To a very considerable extent, the ‘father’ of the NEF, and the man who—for better or for worse—would see the RCN through this formative period of trade escort and anti-submarine warfare in the North Atlantic was Leonard [...]

Until the spring of 1941, the Royal Canadian Navy had no clear indication that it would find its calling in the broad reaches of the North Atlantic. The process of defining that role culminated in May, when the British Admiralty called upon the RCN to form the Newfoundland Escort Force (NEF), and concentrate its resources there in the defence of transatlantic convoys. The establishment of the NEF not only brought together the main elements of the fleet that would fight—and win—the battle against the U-boats, it also brought together several key players who would lead the RCN’s escort and anti-submarine campaign [...]