1941 – The War Intensifies

As the spring of 1941 approached, the enemy stepped up the scale of attack, and shipping losses reached grave proportions. In June alone, more than 454,000 tonnes dwt of shipping, and consequently many merchant seamen, were lost to U-boats.

To counteract this menace, new types of ships were constructed and scientists worked desperately to design new methods of locating and destroying submarines. Canada’s navy was augmented by several new types of vessels, of which the corvette was perhaps the most famous.

As enemy U-boats began to probe farther west, the British countered by establishing new bases for ships and aircraft in Iceland and Newfoundland. The Newfoundland bases were made a Canadian responsibility (even though Newfoundland was still a British colony and did not become part of Canada until 1949). By July, the Newfoundland Escort Force, under the command of Leonard Murray, RCN, was escorting convoys as far as 35 degrees west longitude, known as the “Mid-Ocean Meeting Points.”

Torpedo explosion damage to the hull of SS Fort Camosun. (NAC PA190186)

Royal Air Force Coastal Command and RCAF aircraft, flying from both sides of the Atlantic and from Iceland, provided protection for several hundred kilometres offshore. But the aircraft available at that stage of the war were still unable to cover a vast area in the middle, which became known as the “Black Pit.”

The fate of a slow convoy sailing from Sydney on August 31, 1941, shows us the dangers of the North Atlantic run. Convoy SC-42 was a large one: 62 merchant ships sailed from Cape Breton, and another five linked up from Newfoundland. In 12 columns of five or six ships each, the convoy covered an area of about 54 square kilometres. With a huge perimeter to protect, its escort – comprising only four warships, the Canadian destroyer Skeena and three corvettes — faced a seemingly impossible task. Then, just a few days out, it ran into a gale that raged for four days. It brought the convoy to all but a standstill, and forced three merchant ships to drop out.

HMCS Brantford covered with ice, February 1944. (NAC PA136146)

Late on September 7, as the storm eased, Skeena signalled that the convoy was three days behind schedule. Now came even worse news. SC-42 was heading into a concentration of U-boats that was moving westward toward southern Greenland. The British Admiralty, having picked up indications of the U-boat activity, routed most convoys to the south of the German search areas. But because of the long delay in the storm, SC-42 did not have the fuel for such a long detour. It was, therefore, ordered almost due north in an attempt to do an Arctic end run around the submarines. It almost worked, but not far off Cape Farewell, Greenland, it was spotted by a U-boat. The convoy was a prize target – big and slow moving, with only four escorts and no air cover – and Admiral Dönitz hurled the full force of his wolf pack (14 U-boats) against the convoy.

On September 10, at 46 minutes after midnight, SS Muneric, the fourth ship in the first column was torpedoed and sunk with all men on board. This was only the beginning. The outnumbered escort (although aided by the arrival of two more Canadian corvettes) was forced to divide its attention between the work of rescuing survivors and fighting off the U-boats. The vicious battle continued for two nights before the arrival of the British escort group.¹⁶

A total of 15 merchant ships, nearly a quarter of the convoy, were torpedoed in only 48 hours. Only one of them, the tanker Tahchee, was saved. The ships went down with 40,000 tonnes or more of cargo, including more than a thousand truckloads of wheat, an equally large quantity of explosives and the chemicals required to manufacture explosives, enough timber to build barracks for several thousand troops, and enough steel and high-grade iron ore to build several destroyers.

Merchant ship fitted with anti-torpedo nets, near Sydney, N.S. (NAC PA152034)

Worst of all was the loss of more than 160 merchant seamen, most of them in the iron-ore laden Muneric and the explosives-filled Empire Crossbill; the cargoes had doomed the entire crews of both vessels. Only two of the other ships suffered substantial loss of life, 10 men or more, thanks to the courageous rescue efforts of the other merchant ships and the corvettes.¹⁷

Important lessons were learned from what became known as the “Battle of Cape Farewell.” First, stronger escorts, particularly long-range aircraft, were required for North Atlantic convoys, because even though the escorts showed initiative and courage throughout, they were badly outnumbered and the crews became exhausted. Second, more emphasis had to be placed on group training and improved technology. Also, specially equipped rescue ships fitted for swift recovery of men from the water needed to be assigned to the convoys.