Thursday, January 13. 2005A Look at Canada's NavyFrom A Look at Canada's Navy (part one of three), by Bob Orrick:
"It has been said that Canada has not had a war on its territory since the War of 1812 in which a combined force of British, Canadian/Canadien and [Native] Indians turned back an American attempt to take over Canada and make it part of the Unites States of America. That would be an incorrect statement; Canada has had a war on its shores as recently as World War Two. At the forefront in defence of the homeland was Canada's navy. The Canadian Navy fought diligently against odds that favoured the German Navy's U-boat fleet in the approaches to the St. Lawrence River and, indeed, as far inland as near Bic Island, just off Rimouski, Quebec. Twenty-three merchant ships and five warships were sunk or severally damaged from attacks by 16 U-boats. Additionally, spies were landed on Canadian soil. One spy, codenamed 'Langbein, landed from U-boat 213 in May 1942 and on 09 November 1942 U-boat 518 landed spies at a point near New Carlisle, Quebec. Moreover, U-boat 537 landed a party that set up a weather station in Labrador. Neither the spies nor the weather station amounted to much. The spies did not act as directed by German headquarters and the weather station suffered the ignominy of being jammed by a German radio station each time it attempted to broadcast weather reports. In that sense, Canada was spared; however, the hundreds of merchant seamen and Canadian sailors who died at the hands of the Germans paid a high price for their country... "Rear Admiral Leonard W. Murray, C.B., C.B.E., RCN [1896-1971] was the only Canadian to command a theatre of operations during World War Two; his theatre was the Western Atlantic from mid-Atlantic to the North American coast, or as it is sometimes written, Commander in Chief, Canadian Northwest Atlantic." Trackbacks
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