Transcript Canada and World War II

Canada and World War II
Battle of the Atlantic
Duration
• Began September 3, 1939 with the sinking of the
Montréal-bound passenger ship SS Athenia by a
German submarine west of Ireland.
• Of the 1,400 passengers and crew, 118, including 4
Canadians, were killed.
• Considered to have been won by the Allies in 1943,
although lasted the duration of the Second World
War, which in Europe ended May 8, 1945.
• Training, air cover, special intelligence plus more and
better equipment turned the tide in favour of the Allies in
mid-1943.
Royal Canadian Navy
• Began the war with 13 vessels:
• 6 destroyers
• 3,500 personnel
• At the end of the war the RCN was the third largest navy in the
world.
• 373 fighting ships
• over 110,000 members, all of whom were volunteers
• including 6,500 women who served in the Women's Royal Canadian Naval
Services.
• The main responsibility of the RCN was to escort of merchant ship
convoys.
• The first convoy sailed from Halifax on September 16, 1939, escorted by the
Canadian destroyer St. Laurent.
• By mid-1942, the RCN, with support from the RCAF, was providing nearly
half the convoy escorts, and afterwards carried out the lion's share of escort
duty.
• Approximately 2,000 members of the RCN died during the war, and
24 RCN vessels were sunk.
• Canadian aircraft and ships, alone or in consort with other ships or
aircraft, sank 50 U-boats.
Depth charges being dropped by HMCS Saguenay (PA 116840)
A Consolidated
VLR Liberator
provides aircover for a
transatlantic
convoy. (PA
107907)
Merchant Marine
• On August 26, 1939 all Canadian merchant ships
passed from the control of their owners to the
control of the RCN. No Canadian-registered ship or
merchant ship in a Canadian port could sail without
the RCN's authority and direction.
• When the war began Canada had 38 ocean going
merchant vessels of 1,000 tons or more. 410
merchant ships were built in Canada during the war.
• More than 25,000 merchant ship voyages were
made.
U-Boats (Unterseebooten)
• German submarines were the main threat to merchant and
other surface vessels.
• Capable of remaining away from port for three months and more.
• When submerged they operated on batteries which had to be recharged by their diesel engines at surface level.
• U-boats were improved in 1943, with acoustic torpedoes and schnorkels,
which drew air inside sub and expelled exhaust fumes, allowing vessel to
recharge its batteries while beneath the surface.
• Carried up to 21 torpedoes and also laid mines.
• Could dive below the surface in roughly 30 seconds.
• In one month — June 1941 — over 500,000 tons of Allied
shipping were lost to U-boats.
• By March 1945, 463 U-boats were on patrol, compared to
27 in 1939.
Allied tanker torpedoed in Atlantic Ocean by German
submarine. Ship crumbling amidship under heat of fire, settles
toward bottom of ocean, 1942 (NARA photo NWDNS-80-G-43376)