Posts Tagged ‘U-boat War’

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 [...]

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 [...]