The Battle of the Atlantic

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ANTI-SUBMARINE GRENADE LAUNCHED INTO THE AIRBY THE CORVETTE HMCS PICTOU DURINGSUBMARINE ATTACK, MARCH 1942. (LAC PA-116838)escorted much ofthe transatlanticshipping from NewYork north. Thiswas the TriangleRun, in which theCanadian escortgroups shuttledconvoys betweenNew York orBoston, Halifax,and the eastern partof Newfoundland,where the Canadianand Britishmid-ocean escortgroups took overthe run to theBritish Isles. Other Canadian warships assisted the British andAmericans in protecting the valuable tanker traffic from theCaribbean.While the RCN and RCAF had been able to limit losses off NovaScotia and Newfoundland during the first half of 1942, there wasstill a very large vulnerable area: the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The hugecommitments on the ocean shipping routes, moreover, left very fewaircraft and almost no warships to defend this inland sea. On thenight of May 11, the freighters SS Nicoya and SS Leto weretorpedoed off the Gaspé Peninsula. The war was suddenly right athome and in sight of shore.Once again, the navy organized convoys and the air force kept asmany aircraft overhead as they could. These efforts made the greatThe Battle of the Atlantic 14
strain on the forces nearly unbearable but the U-boats continued totake a toll. The constricted shipping routes, the many deep-waterhiding places, and the virtual blindness of underwater detectionequipment in the complex waters of the Gulf and river seemed tomake tested defence methods ineffective. By early October, sevenU-boats had sunk two naval escorts and 19 merchant vessels in thegulf and river. Then, on October 14, the ferry Caribou was sunkjust 64 kilometres short of her Newfoundland destination.Of 237 passengers, 136 men, women and children perished.15 The Battle of the Atlantic
Page 1 and 2: Remembrance Series
Page 4 and 5: The Battle of the AtlanticGeneratio
Page 6 and 7: CONVOY ASSEMBLED IN THE BEDFORD BAS
Page 8 and 9: important and vulnerable routes was
Page 10 and 11: In September of 1940, for the first
Page 12 and 13: for a crew of some 60 sailors were
Page 14 and 15: western Atlantic. However, when the
Page 18 and 19: A CONSOLIDATED VLR LIBERATOR PROVID
Page 20 and 21: DEPTH CHARGES BEING DROPPED BY HMCS
Page 22 and 23: PAINTING BY JACK NICHOLS. TAKING SU
Page 24 and 25: Canada’s Merchant Navy Veterans b
Page 26 and 27: about 290,000 tonnes and manned by
Page 28: Halifax MemorialThis memorial in No

The Battle of the Atlantic

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