Canadian Military History

Volume 21 Issue 1 Article 7

2015

Adventures in Government History The Origins of War in the St. Lawrence: The Forgotten U-Boat Battles on Canada’s Shores

Roger Sarty

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Recommended Citation Roger Sarty "Adventures in Government History The Origins of War in the St. Lawrence: The Forgotten U- Boat Battles on Canada’s Shores." Canadian Military History 21, 1 (2015)

This Feature is brought to you for free and open access by Scholars Commons @ Laurier. It has been accepted for inclusion in Canadian Military History by an authorized editor of Scholars Commons @ Laurier. For more information, please contact [email protected]. : Adventures in Government History The Origins of War in the St. Lawrence: The Forgotten U-Boat Battles on Canada’s Shores Reprinted with permission – Torstar Syndication Services. with permission – Torstar Reprinted

The front page story in The Canadian Magazine by Peter Moon in February 1972 that did much to stimulate renewed interest in the St. Lawrence battle.

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Roger Sarty

ost books are to some extent navy’s ”Activities on Shore” covering Mautobiographical. They trace Abstract: This memoir relates the such topics as shipbuilding, base an author’s intellectual journey. author’s formative professional development, and the recruitment experience during the early 1980s War in the St. Lawrence: The Forgotten when he researched the role of the and training of personnel, and the U-Boat Battles on Canada’s Shores1 Royal Canadian Air Force in the naval control of merchant shipping. is more autobiographical than defence of the Gulf of St. Lawrence Tucker refused to rush ahead with many. The journey unfolded over a against German submarines during a planned volume on operations at period of forty years, although with the Second World War. He undertook sea, because his team did not yet this work at the Directorate of History numerous and sometimes prolonged at National Defence Headquarters have access to such essential sources interruptions. in Ottawa as a junior member of the as high level intelligence files and I first became aware of the battle team that assisted W.A.B. Douglas in the captured records of the German with the U-boats in the St. Lawrence the production of The Creation of a navy. Tucker, in fact, resigned. The in 1972 when the investigative National Air Force, the second volume naval staff commissioned Joseph of the official history of the RCAF. The journalist Peter Moon published memoir explains the challenges of Schull, a well known popular writer “The Second World War Battle this pioneering research on the role who was serving as a uniformed We Lost At Home” in the Toronto of aircraft in anti-submarine warfare. public relations officer, to produce Star’s Canadian Magazine.2 The piece That work provided the basis for a book as quickly as possible on the further research on anti-submarine was built on interviews with Rear- basis of Canadian operational reports warfare for the directorate’s new Paul Hartwig, of West official history of the Royal Canadian that had been gathered by the team Germany’s navy. As a young officer Navy, and inspired the author’s own during the war. This was the genesis he had commanded U-517, far and recent book War in the St. Lawrence. of Schull’s The Far Distant Ships: An away the most successful of the 15 Official Account of Canadian Naval German submarines that operated in when I joined official histories unit Operations in the Second World War. the St. Lawrence during the Second in the Department of National The air force, by contrast, World War. His U-boat destroyed Defence, did I learn that the navy abandoned its planned volumes nine of the 23 ships sunk by enemy histories were incomplete. Still more on the air force’s vast wartime action in the St. Lawrence. Hartwig’s incomplete – almost non-existent organization in Canada, including skill and boldness did much to – were accounts of the maritime Eastern Air Command. The latter, convince an alarmed Canadian public squadrons of the Royal Canadian Air with its headquarters in Halifax, and discouraged Canadian military Force that had played a critical role in was the counterpart of the navy’s commanders that their country’s supporting the navy, not least in the Atlantic Coast command, and maritime forces had been decisively St. Lawrence. was responsible for air operations defeated. Only the Canadian Army’s in eastern Quebec, the Maritime When I began to study naval Second World War historical Provinces and Newfoundland and as history later in the 1970s, I discovered program survived deep cuts in the far out into the Atlantic as its patrol that the Canadian navy’s own official defence budget in 1947-1948.4 By that bombers could reach. histories, published in 1950 and time Dr. Gilbert N. Tucker, the naval In 1965 the Department of 1952, also classed the St. Lawrence historian, and his team had produced National Defence combined the Army operations as a defeat.3 Only later, a fully researched volume on the Historical Section with the small navy https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol21/iss1/7© Canadian Military History, Volume 21, Number 1, Winter 2012, pp.64-78. 65 2 : Adventures in Government History The Origins of War in the St. Lawrence: The Forgotten U-Boat Battles on Canada’s Shores

from one generation to another.5 The last of the military officers with potential for senior positions whom Stacey had mentored as historians during the war and the 1950s had retired or were about to. Stacey recognized the central qualification for the job was historical expertise, and for that reason urged that future directors should be academics with administrative experience, engaged as civil servants. In the system established by Stacey in the Army Historical Section and still in place in a somewhat modified form today, the historical team was coordinated and mentored by the ”senior historian.” That person and air force historical units to create was responsible for the preparation of German bombing attacks on London. the Directorate of History (since drafts for the director’s revision or his He returned to Canada, permanently 1998, the Directorate of History and approval if another of the historians as it turned out, shortly after the war Heritage). The department lured was to be the author of record. when his widowed mother married Colonel Charles P. Stacey, historian Wise, in those days when a chaplain in the Canadian Army of the overseas army in 1941-1945 and academically trained military overseas. Douglas paid his way head of the Army Historical Section historians were very rare birds indeed, through an undergraduate degree until 1959, back from his new teaching recruited as his senior historian a still at the University of Toronto by career at the University of Toronto to rarer bird – a military officer with joining the University Naval Training set up the new organization. Stacey academic history qualifications. Divisions, and then became a regular quickly established the production of W.A.B. Douglas, who was born in force officer. During a dull posting a full scale history of the air force, the 1929 in Southern Rhodesia (now in Halifax, he enrolled at Dalhousie service whose program has suffered Zimbabwe) and raised in England, University to do an MA in history the greatest setbacks in the cuts of had first come to Canada during in his own time. His thesis was on 1947-8, as the directorate’s priority the war as a child evacuee from the the and Nova Scotia task. in the eighteenth century. During Stacey, who found the 1960s Lieutenant-Colonel C.P. Stacey during a subsequent posting in Kingston, version of the government his Second World War appointment he began a PhD, an expansion of as historian of the Canadian Army bureaucracy even more frustrating Overseas. his MA naval topic, under Wise’s than his exasperating experiences in direction at Queen’s. When Wise left the 1950s, persuaded Sydney F. Wise the directorate for a professorship at to replace him as director of history in Carleton University in 1973, Douglas 1966. Wise, a professor of Canadian retired from the armed forces to history at Queen’s University, had co- become director of history. By pure authored one of the most successful coincidence, the leadership of the textbooks of military history, and directorate had thus passed from served in the RCAF during the war. a former army officer to a former He had started his academic career air force officer and then to a naval by using his veteran benefits to do officer who had just got out of a BA in history at the University of uniform. Toronto after he was demobilized Douglas, while working full from wartime service; he had then time on the air force history, also

done graduate work at Queen’s. The 501024 Canada PA Library and Archives pushed deeply into the history of changeover from Stacey, who had the Canadian navy in the Second been born in 1906, to Wise, born in World War. The two were in fact 1924, marked a passing of the baton complimentary. Douglas took on as

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that has never, ever been cut short in anything approaching army style, is every inch the naval officer. And through the 1970s he promoted the cause of Canadian naval history – then virtually a non subject in the universities and popular literature, and a low priority in the defence

Canadian Forces PMR 84-1029 Canadian Forces department. He gave papers at academic conferences, spoke to naval veterans’ groups, assisted interested university professors and students, and urged the defence department to approve a fresh operational history of the navy in the Second World War. I was hired as a civil service historian Flying Officer S.F. Wise, at RCAF Station W.A.B. Douglas, who has remained active Summerside, PEI, 1944. by the directorate in May 1981 in the in naval history since his retirement as first position that was to be assigned director of history in 1994, shown here to the new naval project. while lecturing in 2011. lead author the volume of the air force history that dealt with the hitherto offices were around the outer walls virtually unknown organizations Ogilvy Annex behind wooden partitions that went and operations in Canada, 1919-1945. only two-thirds of the way to the A central part of the story was the irst-time visitors to the Directorate ceiling and had smoked glass for the history of Eastern Air Command, Fof History in the early 1980s top two or three feet. The vast central especially its support to the navy in were often wide-eyed or laughing. space, some thousands of square feet, escorting convoys and hunting for The wide-eyed - those suspicious was filled with bank after bank of tall enemy submarines in the western and of the secret workings of the olive-drab file cabinets. central north Atlantic. (One grumpy defence establishment - wondered As the new kid, I got the old word staff historian grumbled that the early at what was ”really” going on processing technology, a high-bodied drafts of the Eastern Air Command that had to be disguised by the 1920s typewriter. The more senior chapters read like a naval history, incongruous facilities. Those who hands got 1950s era typewriters, with with the occasional aircraft buzzing laughed sometimes referred to the a special feature that set the margins into the picture and then just as opening sequence of the television automatically. Only the secretaries – quickly buzzing out.) This work, in comedy ”Get Smart,” in which and the director himself – had state- which German U-boat records and agent Maxwell Smart goes into an of-the-art technology, IBM ”Selectric” high level intelligence information apparently innocuous phone booth, typewriters, with built-in correction – including new releases by Great dials, and drops through a trap door tape. Some said the people were Britain of ”Ultra Top Secret” files to ”CONTROL” headquarters, or also a quirky mix. I always think of of decrypted German naval signals the series ”Man from UNCLE” in Captain Dick Morrison, a – proved of vital importance, and which the international intelligence pilot with an aviator’s handlebar revealed the limitations of The Far agency’s offices were hidden above moustache and a love of English Distant Ships. a tailor shop. The directorate, from literature. McGill University turned If the sturdily built, deep voiced the mid 1960s to the mid 1980s, down his proposal to do a PhD Charles Stacey, with his square hands was located on the third and fourth thesis on scatology in Shakespeare’s and clipped moustache, seemed the floors of the Ogilvy’s department English. He was philosophical about stereotypical army colonel, then the store annex on the south-east corner the rejection – ”Shitty subject,” he tall, athletic, swaggering Syd Wise of Besserer and Nicholas Streets in concluded. Then there was Dave was the embodiment of an air force Ottawa. One entered the building Kealy, who had been a regular pilot. Alec Douglas, as tall as Syd but through the large appliances and officer in the Royal Navy from the slighter in build, courtly in manner home wares departments and then age of 13 in the early 30s, and had with an accent Canadians call British got off the elevator on a floor that had served in destroyers all through the and the British call mid-Atlantic, the appearance of a movie set for a Second World War before retiring and a carefully swept thatch of hair Second World War spy drama. The and immigrating to Canada where https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol21/iss1/7 67 4 : Adventures in Government History The Origins of War in the St. Lawrence: The Forgotten U-Boat Battles on Canada’s Shores Map drawn by Mike Bechthold ©2012 Mike by Map drawn

he ultimately joined the Naval hiked across Afghanistan before of Charles Stacey’s at the University Historical Section. He always had permanently emigrating from of Toronto. He had in fact done his his watch set for Greenwich Mean England. His plan had been to go MA research, on Sir Robert Borden’s Time, Royal Navy style. At my job to New Zealand, but he fetched naval policy, under Stacey’s direction. interview there had a bit of upset up in Ottawa. Carleton University Norman, an historian of international when Norman Hillmer, the current welcomed him as a student, and relations, downplayed this and senior historian, objected to Brereton he discovered his gift for historical his other notable achievements (”Ben”) Greenhous, the former senior research and writing.6 Norman in military scholarship. During historian, clipping his finger nails Hillmer, by contrast, hailed from a staff seminar to review a draft while we talked. Alec Douglas, who North Toronto. His father had been chapter of the air force history, the chaired the interview, gave me a long a senior official in the Toronto Board question came up whether some suffering look and sighed. of Education, and Norman had material would be accessible to The incident was revealing of embarked on a teaching career in the someone with no specialized military Ben and Norman. Ben, big and burly, public school system before he did his knowledge. Spontaneously we all was a native of Shropshire in the PhD at Cambridge. He prided himself turned to Norman – who beamed at west of England, an area he liked on his athletic physique and in the acknowledgement, and allowed, to remind us whose location on the summer often appeared at the office yes he understood the draft perfectly once violent Welsh borderlands had in tennis shorts and a suitably trendy well. Norman and Ben, both masters given its people a fighting (some polo shirt. When he announced that of English style, ran something like said, thinking of Ben, cantankerous) he had bought a Toyota Camry – then a continuous writing seminar for the spirit. Ben, who was a few years too a little known new model – someone more junior staff, patiently annotating young to have served in the Second wondered aloud ”But what car do draft after draft – and suggesting yet World War, had done his compulsory Yuppies drive?” Alec immediately another draft might finally achieve national military service during the replied, ”Well now it’s a Camry.” something approaching clarity and late 1940s as a non-commissioned Norman took perverse delight in precision. officer in intelligence. his unmilitary background – so Although I was hired for the He had then served as an officer in much so that I only later came fully future naval history, the volume the Malayan police and seen combat to appreciate the extent to which on the air force in Canada, 1919-45, during the communist insurgency his historical career had blossomed had priority. As part of my training during the 1950s. Subsequently he when, in the 1960s, he was a student Alec asked me to look at the role

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of Eastern Air Command in the U-boats first attacked in the gulf, it reorganized its effort in response to battle of the St. Lawrence. It seemed became a leading commitment for the initial run of success by U-517 a good way to get my feet wet Eastern Air Command, absorbing 40 and its consort, U-165, in late August without drowning. Alec and Dave percent and more of the command’s and early September 1942. U-165, Kealy had spent considerable time flying effort despite its primary tasks having exhausted its complement building analytical accounts7 from the in the protection of Atlantic convoys. of torpedoes, headed for home on extremely preliminary chronological Developments in the gulf confronted 16 September – and warned U-boat ”narrative” on the history of Eastern both the air force and navy leadership headquarters about the effective air Air Command that had been prepared with the need more fully to integrate cover.10 U-517, by contrast, was only by the original air force historical their services’ efforts, and the St. half way through its six-week mission, team during and immediately after Lawrence became something of a but was unable, despite repeated the war.8 Alec and Dave had their laboratory for the development of and aggressive efforts, to make any hands more than full with the largest more effective cooperation between further successful attacks. More and most important story: the role of warships and aircraft in anti- than that, Eastern Air Command’s Eastern Air Command in the main submarine warfare. new methods were instrumental in theatre of the , In retrospect it is easy to say greatly limiting the success of three the sea routes between the major ”we should have known” about the other submarines that immediately US and Canadian east coast ports scale and importance of the air effort followed Hartwig into the gulf to and Great Britain. The material they in the gulf. Peter Moon’s account the destruction of a total of only had encountered on the air force’s of Paul Hartwig’s 1942 mission in three ships, and persuaded a fourth role in the gulf suggested that the The Canadian Magazine recounted U-boat not even to attempt to enter. air force, like the navy, had given Hartwig’s memories – since fully Tragically, one of the three ships the gulf a distant second priority confirmed by German documents lost was the Newfoundland Railway after the defence of the transatlantic – about how his U-boat had been ferry Caribou, destroyed by U-69 convoys that sustained Britain and relentlessly hunted by RCAF on the night of 13-14 October 1942, built up the resources needed for bombers, and very nearly destroyed. while the passenger ship was making the liberation of Europe in 1943-5. In Moon’s emphasis on Hartwig’s its regular crossing of the Cabot fact, the role of the air force in the St. success tended to downplay the air Strait between North Sydney, Cape Lawrence seemed so limited that my force’s response, however. Writers Breton Island and Port-aux-Basques, assignment was to produce a research and readers in the 1970s were by Newfoundland. This disaster, in paper of no more than 30 double- no means alone in this emphasis. which 136 people perished, many of spaced typed pages; I was to give In the 1980s I found the report of them women and children, confirmed the project half time for about three Hartwig’s interrogation by British for the public, the military and the months. This was the beginning of an intelligence officers when he was government that the defence of the ever growing enterprise that would captured following the destruction of St. Lawrence was a failure. German continue for some five years, and in his submarine by British forces in the records, however, added a vital the later stages, as we prepared the eastern Atlantic in November 1942. additional element. U-69 had in fact air force volume for press, become The reaction of Canadian staff officers been driven from the St. Lawrence by something more than a full-time when they received this report early Eastern Air Command’s effective air commitment. in 1943 was a sense of frustration and patrols, and was lurking in the Cabot Almost immediately the subject failure because the numerous attacks Strait so she could quickly escape into took on a life of its own. It was indeed on Hartwig’s boat had not destroyed the safety of the open ocean. true that the air force had played a it, or even broken the fighting spirit More generally, it was not until supporting role to the navy in the of the crew.9 Canadian and other researchers St. Lawrence. The navy, however, What was missing in the 1970s, began to re-examine the whole relied upon aircraft as the principal and of course in 1942-3, was context history of maritime air power in the means for reinforcing the thinly- that could only come from German Second World War in the late 1970s stretched warship escorts for gulf records and close co-relation of and 1980s that two crucial elements shipping, and more particularly for the information they contained of broader context became apparent. searching out the submarines and with the most detailed reports The first was the enormous technical striking back at them while the few available on Canadian air and naval difficulties encountered by Britain, warships available ”held the goal operations. The salient point that then the leading maritime air power, posts” close around the merchant emerged from that analysis was that and the United States air forces in ship convoys. During 1942, when Eastern Air Command reinforced and aerial anti-submarine operations. https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol21/iss1/7 69 6 : Adventures in Government History The Origins of War in the St. Lawrence: The Forgotten U-Boat Battles on Canada’s Shores Library and Archives Canada e010859223 Library and Archives

An RCAF Consolidated Canso or Catalina flying boat from the after deck of a Fairmile motor launch showing its armament, at Gaspé, June 1943. Fairmiles and Cansos/Catalinas based at Gaspé supported St. Lawrence convoys in the dangerous middle part of their passage where the narrow waters of the estuary allowed U-boats most readily to locate and attack shipping.

No air force was dependably able chopping block in the late 1940s, provided only a line on the weather to destroy submarines until the the only reasonably full account of conditions, and a bare-bones listing latter part of 1942, and Eastern Air Eastern Air Command was a very of the aircraft that flew. Others, Command did as well as the larger preliminary chronology assembled who took the job more seriously, Allied air forces. Second, it was only by a member of the wartime historical included notes on personnel posted this fresh analysis of the larger Allied section to provide a basic reference or departing, training programs, effort that established the special for the authors of the official history digests of intelligence received on difficulties that Eastern Air Command volumes that were never written. enemy operations, information on faced. It was well behind the other The chronology, some 900 pages of the purpose and results of each Allied air forces in both modern legal-sized typescript pages in length, aircraft mission, and sometimes equipment and trained personnel, the organizes each of the wartime years annexed copies of important orders result of the Canadian air force – and into four chapters, each covering a and reports. the Canadian government – giving three-month period. The quarterly The greatest challenge in grasping absolute priority to the recruitment chapters in turn comprise sections the main threads from the diffuse and training of tens of thousands of on each of the command’s bases and chronological history derives from personnel for the ’s the squadrons at those bases. Most the very nature of air operations, combat commands in Britain. of the material is a ”scissors and and, in particular, air operations on Still, how could Canada’s large paste” compilation of extracts from Canada’s east coast. The navy rather air effort in the gulf, one of the big the daily diaries kept by these units. than the air force determined the stories of the war on Canada’s shores, These diaries vary widely in content shape of the maritime air campaign. slip into such obscurity? One reason and quality, depending entirely It was the navy that controlled the is that no one looked. When the RCAF upon how the officer assigned the merchant shipping that the enemy official history program went on the task chose to fill in the forms. Some was endeavouring to attack. It was

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the navy that gathered and analyzed the larger bases could within hours R.A.F. in Maritime War,” for the intelligence about enemy threats. fly to another station closer to the internal use of the military staffs and On that basis, it was the navy that scene for detached operations that as a supporting study for Captain planned and controlled operations. might continue for days or weeks, Roskill’s published official history. The navy’s fundamental defence depending on enemy activity. In More fortunately still, ”The R.A.F. measure for friendly shipping was other words, a single air squadron, in Maritime War” had been released to collect vessels together into in contrast to army units and naval to the archives in the 1970s. This convoys. Merchant ships sailing escort groups, was seldom assigned massive, fully referenced study singly provided a string of vulnerable to carry out a complete operation of became one of the models for the targets to the enemy. Submarines several days’ or weeks’ duration. It Eastern Air Command chapters could hunt one ship and then another is often necessary to sift through the of the new RCAF official history. without fear of retribution. Even records of many squadrons with an Significantly in light of the fact if the victim managed to radio for eagle eye in order to discover among that the British, the pioneers in help, aircraft and warships usually the scores or even hundreds of flights maritime aviation, had discovered could not reach the scene for at least recorded (often in incomplete form) that maritime air forces could only be an hour or more, ample time for the air missions that supported a effective if they operated under naval the submarine quickly to run from particular . Moreover, to make control, the author was Captain D.V. the area, dive and wait till the coast any real sense of the air missions – Peyton Ward, RN, the naval liaison was clear, once again free to seek why they were ordered and what officer to the RAF Coastal Command out another target. If those same they were expected to accomplish – it during the war.11 merchant ships were sailed together is necessary to track down the full Peyton Ward’s work confirmed in a convoy, then escort warships naval records of that convoy. what the Canadian official historians and aircraft could be concentrated There were, as it turned out, had already discovered in writing around that convoy. In order to special opportunities, but equally the first volume of the RCAF official sink merchant ships in convoy, frustrating obstacles, in carrying history in the late 1960s and 1970s, the enemy submarines had to face out this kind of research in the early on the role of Canadian airmen in those defending forces. The primary 1980s. Incredible as it may seem, there the British flying services during defence of a convoy was the group was no published model of what the the First World War.12 (Syd Wise of warships that provided the ”close history of an air command engaged was the senior author, and Alec escort.” These vessels remained in the Battle of the Atlantic might Douglas undertook the work on constantly with the convoy, day and look like. The British official history, maritime aviation.) Squadron and night and in all weathers. The most The War at Sea, four fat volumes base records of the sort used for the senior warship commander, the produced by Captain S.W. Roskill Eastern Air Command narrative ”senior officer of the escort” directed in 1954-61, told the stories of all the were useful mainly for specific all defence operations, including armed services engaged. As a result detail. The information that would missions by aircraft dispatched by the treatment of the RAF's Coastal tell a coherent story could only be headquarters on shore to assist the Command is merged in with the more obtained in the records of major convoy. extensive account of the Royal Navy’s regional commands, and the national One of the greatest virtues predominant role. The American armed services ministries. These of aircraft, their rapid mobility, published histories similarly do not senior headquarters set policy and also makes historical analysis of give a focussed, detailed account coordinated action for everything operations difficult. In the early but for different reasons. There was from the recruitment and training 1940s a single squadron of ten or no separate American air force. The of personnel, to the acquisition of 15 aircraft could simultaneously army and navy each had their own aircraft and other equipment, to the undertake different missions in aviation branches, and maritime air construction of base facilities, and widely separated areas hundreds operations receive brief treatment development of tactical methods. of miles from the squadron’s home in the service histories. The Army Some may imagine government base. A single convoy, or a particular Air Forces did produce their own records management in terms of area where intelligence suggested a six-volume official history, but, in lavish facilities that embody the submarine might be lurking, might the fall of 1942, the army turned commitment to preserve the saga receive coverage by aircraft from its responsibility for shore-based of the nation. While it is true that two or more squadrons from two maritime aviation over to the navy. governments devote more effort or more bases on a single day. If Fortunately, the British did to records management than by need be, aircraft from squadrons at produce a typescript history, ”The almost any other agency, the effort https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol21/iss1/7 71 8 : Adventures in Government History The Origins of War in the St. Lawrence: The Forgotten U-Boat Battles on Canada’s Shores

is never equal to the challenge, and The Eastern Air Command greatly varying degrees of accuracy, impressive only in comparison to the files that survived were all at the and it was therefore essential to err neglect of records in most places at Directorate of History, in the banks on the side of caution by calling up most times. People are far too busy of olive drab cabinets. These files any item whose title suggested the with the consuming pressures of are excellent, but selective and faintest link with the research subject. day to day life to give much thought incomplete. The members of the There were significant gaps in to records; all too often at work, as original air force team that had coverage by the files at the archives. at home, we tend to stuff old letters arranged for their retention in the Some of the missing items turned or invoices that have been paid into 1940s apparently chose only the up in the Federal Records Centre, a drawers or boxes in no particular most obviously significant items, warehouse at the Tunney’s Pasture order, and then chuck things out attempting in the interest of economy complex of federal government when the drawers begin to jam or the to avoid excessive duplication by buildings in the west end of Ottawa attic is chock-a-block. Much historical relying upon the files of Air Force where files that might still have research, especially into areas that Headquarters (AFHQ) in Ottawa as information required for ongoing have been little studied – the research the primary record. Most the AFHQ issues were stored under the that is the most fun – bears a closer files had been accessioned by the physical charge of the archives, resemblance to the annual panic Public Archives (now Library and while remaining the property of to find income tax receipts amidst Archives Canada), meaning that they the department that created them. the detritus at the bottom of the could be ordered from the archives Still others finally came to light in briefcase and in various kitchen reading room on Wellington Street, the file storage of the department drawers than to the caricature of the and delivered there within a matter under new numbers. Their subjects, tweedy academic calmly perusing of hours. The finding aids, excellent such as a key file on the overall air well ordered tomes. The neat thing for the early 1980s, consisted of type- defence of Canada, had a continuing about the Directorate of History in written or handwritten lists, arranged relevance for policy, and therefore the early 1980s was that its row on according to the original numbering they had been renumbered according row of musty cabinets created the of the files, and giving the title of to recent filing systems. The files still atmosphere of a mystery-filled attic the file. The lists run to hundreds of under the department’s control, at in a 1940s film-noir, while it truly did pages, and the only search engine the Federal Record Centre and in represent – and does so today with its was ”by finger” – going through the the department’s own storage, often updated archival shelving and acid- lists page by page, entry by entry, and proved the most difficult to find. free documents boxes – management manually noting those of potential There were no inventory lists, like of paper records that is about as good interest. As in any file system, the those created by the Public Archives as it gets. file titles capture the contents with for the records it accessioned, and the only finding aids were the original index cards used by the contemporary records managers. Many of the cards consisted of scribbled notations used by clerks in filing incoming correspondence, and there were only one or two older members of the records management staff whose experience reached back far enough for them to be able, with considerable effort, to correlate the information on the cards to file storage locations. In the case of the main AFHQ subject Canadian Forces Photo PMR 77-385 Photo Canadian Forces file on the defence of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, we were able to track

U-517 crash dives as seen from Flying Officer Maurice Belanger’s during its attack run on 29 September 1942. The Gaspé coast is in the background.

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U-165 under attack on 9 September 1942 by a Lockheed Hudson of 113 Squadron, piloted by Pilot Officer Robert S. Keetley.

down the original file control card, only to discover that the file had been reported missing sometime in the 1950s. It never did surface. Because the maritime air Canada e010859221 Library and Archives operations supported the navy, and the navy’s published operational history was based on research that was incomplete, there had to be extensive work in navy records as well. The extended chronological narrative on the Battle of the Atlantic that wartime naval historical officers had written, and Joseph Schull had used for The Far Distant Ships, has some of the and these in the early 1980s were Air Command’s operations in the same strengths and weaknesses as in the midst of transfer from DND Gulf of St. Lawrence was to prevent the Eastern Air Command narrative. and the Federal Records Centre to the U-boats from attacking shipping. It is less discursive than the air force the archives. Even more than in the The key task, therefore, was to chronology because of the navy’s case of the Air Force Headquarters find out precisely what impact the directing role in maritime operations records, a good deal of time was command’s operations had on the that made salient events stand out required to discover which files enemy, and thus the essential first more clearly. The historical officers still existed and what their general source was the German records. were thus able to trim a good deal of contents were. This approach focussed the seven detail about administrative matters Alec had three special interests month campaign in 1942, from May and routine operations, the sort for the Eastern Air Command through November, to 22 events: the of bits and pieces that even while chapters. What was the German side 12 occasions on which the submarines obscuring the main elements of the of the story, and in particular how had successfully attacked shipping, Eastern Air Command story provide effective or ineffective were Canadian and the ten occasions on which insight into daily life and work-a-day operations from the German aircraft had made attacks in which problems at the command’s bases. perspective? What intelligence was there was good reason to conclude The records of commanding available to the Canadian forces and the target had been a U-boat, and not officer Atlantic Coast (COAC), the how did this information influence one of the many – countless – false regional navy command at Halifax operations? Finally, what advanced contacts resulting from the large that corresponded to Eastern Air technology did the Canadian forces amounts of flotsam on the surface of Command, are voluminous. They possess, especially aircraft mounted the water in the gulf, and the frequent had been saved in a nick of time by anti-submarine radar in the case of fogs and mists. These 22 events were the Naval Historical Section in the Eastern Air Command, and how did a much more manageable research mid-1960s when cutbacks that closed it contribute to Canadian operations? agenda than the hundreds of often down the warehouses where they These were the main elements poorly recorded flights Canadian were stored had initially brought a missing from The Far Distant Ships, aircraft had made in the gulf in program of wholesale destruction. and for some years had been the basis support of over a hundred merchant In 1981 these files were just being of Alec’s own research. ship convoys, whose records were accessioned by the archives and Faced with a subject I knew little also incomplete in many instances. their structure and contents were about, and a mass of records that By the early 1980s we knew the largely unknown. Very large blocks were entirely new to me, I searched identity of most of the U-boats that of wartime files from Naval Service for some sort of point of entry, some had operated in the gulf (those other Headquarters (NSHQ) had been kept method of identifying what was than the famous U-517) and when open and in use to the early 1960s, important. The objective of Eastern they had operated there through https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol21/iss1/7 73 10 : Adventures in Government History The Origins of War in the St. Lawrence: The Forgotten U-Boat Battles on Canada’s Shores

work by Professor-Doctor Jürgen naval and air forces to the submarine emergency conditions following a Rohwer, director of the Library of attack? What reinforcements came, U-boat attack explained why the Contemporary History in Stuttgart, from what bases and with what story of Eastern Air Command’s Germany. Rohwer was a junior orders? In the case of air attacks on role had for so long remained so officer in the German navy during U-boats, the questions were similar, obscure. There exists no consolidated the war. He served in minesweepers, but with additional ones about how source recording missions in the and as Allied ground forces closed the aircraft had located the U-boat. gulf and detachments to temporary in on his ship’s base in the spring of Did the aircraft have intelligence bases in the gulf. Certainly there are 1945 he joined a group of seamen who that a U-boat was in the area? What valuable passages in the Eastern Air organized themselves as an infantry was the source of that intelligence? Command narrative history, and in unit and took to the countryside to Was the aircraft equipped with the base and squadron diaries upon fight the invaders. He had never radar, and did this help in making which the narrative was largely surrendered to the enemy, bearing contact with the submarine? The based, but these are buried in other arms until the government of Hitler’s great challenge was in building up material covering the whole range of successor, Admiral Karl Dönitz, as full a picture as possible of air the command’s activities. Even these capitulated. In his subsequent operations on the days of the crucial passages are not necessarily complete academic career he became one of events, and, to give essential context or fully accurate. the first non-government scholars about the command’s procedures and Without realizing it, I was getting to analyze the large body of U-boat capabilities, on the days immediately a particularly clear lesson about records that survived the war. One of preceding and following those events. one of the basic rules of research his projects was to correlate U-boat It quickly became apparent that into military operations. The most attack records with Allied shipping in 1942 Eastern Air Command was dependable sources are signals records to determine precisely which still in the early stages of expansion. exchanged by radio, or, in the case ships had been under attack, which When the first U-boat struck in the of headquarters by telegraph or attacks had been effective, and those gulf in May 1942, the command teletype, by participants during the that had missed.13 Rohwer was in had only four fully organized anti- event. In the Canadian air force and correspondence with the Canadian submarine squadrons equipped navy these messages were typed by Naval Historical Section in the early with modern aircraft; additional communications staff at the various 1960s for assistance with his work on aircraft and aircrew were just arriving headquarters onto pink forms some U-boat attacks in Canadian waters, to re-equip a fifth squadron, and six to eight inches in length and eight and on transatlantic convoys that had organize additional units. Even inches wide with the originator and been under Canadian escort. At the with the hastening of these efforts (a recipients at the top. Right after the same time, he assisted the Canadian direct response to the appearance of text was the precise time (to the historians by helping to identify the submarines in the gulf as it turned minute) and date the originator sent U-boats that had been the target of out), the command was woefully the message, which served as its attacks by Canadian forces. short of aircraft and trained aircrew. reference number. At the bottom of Taking these 22 instances of For this reason, much of the flying the form were one or two time-date confirmed contact with U-boats, I in the gulf was done by aircraft groups which indicated when the was able to push into the Canadian sent for single missions from the addressee received the message, air and naval records with a series main Atlantic coast bases, or special and, if it was in cypher, when it of questions. In the case of U-boat detachments of two or three bombing was decyphered. The advantage of attacks on shipping, had there aircraft sent for a period of days or the messages as a source is that by been an aircraft in the vicinity? If weeks to training airfields within definition they record precisely what so, aircraft from which squadron, the gulf or on the St. Lawrence River. was known by participants during from what base, and what was the Often the aircraft on detachment the course of the events. A squadron aircraft’s mission? If the aircraft were rotated back to their home or base war diary might well have was operating on detached duty base for maintenance, and replaced been written up days after the event at a base within the gulf, when by other aircraft, sometimes from by an officer who may not have been had that special detachment been the same squadron, sometimes from privy to all the details; even if he had established and why? If no aircraft another unit. been, his account would inevitably was present why was that the case? This constant shuffle of be coloured by his knowledge about Had air protection been ordered, and individual aircraft or small how things turned out, and by the if so why had it not been provided? detachments from many bases and practical need to select and condense What was the response of Canadian squadrons in what were frequently material for the written account. The

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principles of research into military the flight, particularly an actual or Norman. The whole team, with Alec operations are thus virtually identical possible sighting of a U-boat. in the chair, met in seminar to review to those of police investigations or Naval records, the essential newly completed reports, and Alec legal proceedings: the best evidence context for the air missions, also had and Norman closely consulted the is that directly from participants to be stitched together from many authors of reports about how their gathered as close to the event as places. Naval Service Headquarters work was being trimmed and shaped possible. maintained master files of convoy for the final chapters. The first important breakthrough reports, but as a space saving measure Far from telling me to wrap in the project was the discovery that these were microfilmed in the early things up, Alec and Norman asked Eastern Air Command (EAC) sent 1950s and the originals destroyed. me to pursue leads. In the end, my a daily signal of several pages in Few of the files are complete. There report on Eastern Air Command in length to the in Britain were many series of coastal convoys the St. Lawrence in 1942 took over a and AFHQ, listing all missions in Canadian waters, on the Atlantic year of part-time work to complete, flown that day, missions ordered coast as well as in the gulf, most and filled 117 typescript pages. Nor that had been cancelled or curtailed of which were established as an was that the end of it. The final by weather or equipment defects, emergency response to U-boat attacks section of the report detailed how and, a list of missions ordered so arrangements, including record the dramatic sinking of ships close for the following day. The latter keeping, were necessarily improvised to Canadian soil had created such was of particular importance for and informal. Many of the signals alarm among the population, and it gave a fair indication where the were barely legible file copies, and consternation for the military and the command suspected U-boats were are unreadable on the microfilm. government, that the development operating, and thus what intelligence Fortunately, the Naval Historical of more effective defences for the was available. No single complete Section saved two filing cabinets of gulf became a top priority for the collection of these signals exists, but signals held by the Trade Division 1943 shipping season. There was a reasonably full run can be pieced of NSHQ, the office of the naval staff little German activity in Canadian together from various dockets that that oversaw the organization of all waters that year, and indeed the survive in the AFHQ records at the convoys. Again, the quality of the main story was how Eastern Air archives and in EAC records at the file copies is poor, but most can be Command extended its operations far Directorate of History. Some dockets, deciphered. At the archives some into the central and eastern Atlantic however, report areas patrolled in a reports missing from the microfilms successfully to engage U-boats in letter code for which a key no longer turned up in scattered files in the some of the most important convoy exists, making it impossible to discern COAC collection. battles of the war. During 1944, which flights were in the gulf. In these The greatest pleasure of the however, the U-boats returned in cases, the better squadron diaries work, aside from the excitement of strength to Canadian waters. They and weekly and monthly reports new discoveries, was the collegial achieved far fewer sinkings than in helped fill in the information. In all atmosphere. A group of six or seven 1942, but they continued to destroy cases, the signals reported flights by historians would gather for coffee warships and merchant ships right squadron, not mission, so there was breaks and brown-bag lunches to up until the last weeks of the war. no alterative but to go through each share findings and frustrations. Two of the most dramatic submarine page, line by line, to identify missions Regular participants who mentored attacks were again in the gulf: severe over the gulf. my efforts included M.V. ”Vince” damage to the frigate HMCS Magog The main work for my initial Bezeau (who was working on by U-1223 on 14 October 1944, and gulf report was to build a list of all Western Air Command), Carl Christie the destruction of the corvette HMCS missions in the gulf, for the periods in (Ferry Command, and operations Shawinigan with the loss of all 91 which there were confirmed contacts from Newfoundland), Owen Cooke members of her crew by U-1228 on with the U-boats. For each mission (archivist), Ben Greenhous (British the night of 23-24 November 1944. listed, I endeavoured to identify the Commonwealth Air Training Plan), Alec asked me to carry on with aircraft, its squadron, the base it was and Steve Harris (air force policy).14 the gulf story in 1943-5. It did not operating from, the time it took off, The spirit of collaboration also came look like a promising subject. During the time it landed, and geographical from the bosses, Norman Hillmer the period August to December area the patrol covered, and, course, who supervised the research and 1944 when the U-boats renewed the as much information as I could find was the overall editor of the volume, offensive in the St. Lawrence, aircraft on any special occurrence during and Alec Douglas, the senior author, did not make a single confirmed who received our edited reports from sighting of a submarine, let alone an https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol21/iss1/7 75 12 : Adventures in Government History The Origins of War in the St. Lawrence: The Forgotten U-Boat Battles on Canada’s Shores

day. On a few occasions special Otter signals went out at other times of the day with an urgent amendment to one of the estimated U-boat positions dispatched the previous evening. On checking the German sources I found that on several of these occasions U-boat headquarters had sent new instructions to U-boats already on patrol in North American waters. The timing of these signals was only hours before a corresponding HMCS Magog under tow after the frigate was hit by a torpedo from U-1223 on 14 special Otter signal. Alec, who in October 1944. The explosion demolished the 20-metre-long after section of the hull. joint projects with Jürgen Rohwer Note the buckled remnants of the upper deck of the stern part of the ship, folded over top of the surviving superstructure. had undertaken some of the first detailed academic work on the role of Ultra intelligence in the battle of attack. Yet, aircraft were extremely summer of 1943 the newly expanded the Atlantic, knew the British sources active in the gulf. In an effort to Operational Intelligence Centre at thoroughly. Fortunately, decrypts relate this flying effort to the U-boat Naval Service Headquarters began of U-boat signals for the latter part patrols, I plotted the areas covered to issue to the east coast commands of the war had just been released by the aircraft each day against the a high classified daily signal code- to the archives. Alec took the list tracks of the submarines. Work in named ”Otter.” It listed U-boats of the special Otter signals to the the German records to produce these operating in the western Atlantic, UK archives, and discovered that plots soon showed why the aircraft and the areas where each might be in each case the British had indeed made no contacts. So great was the patrolling for the next 24 hours. The promptly decrypted the U-boat threat from land-based aviation that daily operations reports signals from headquarters tasking signals we had submarines ran almost continuously Eastern Air Command showed that located in the German records. These submerged when in North American the missions ordered for air patrols discoveries left no doubt that Ottawa coastal waters during the latter part were to cover the areas identified in was immediately receiving the latest of 1944 and early 1945. Because of the Otter signals. Most strikingly, Ultra decrypts and quickly analyzing well-founded fears that Allied radio for many days the estimated U-boat them for the direction of Canadian direction-finding stations could positions given in the Otter signals operations. locate the source of transmissions corresponded to the estimated The basic research on 1943-5 and quickly home aircraft to the positions in the U-boat headquarters revealed that German operations in position, the Germans operated in diary. We knew from the early Canadian waters were on a larger radio silence. While U-boats were releases by the British archives of scale than had been previously still crossing the central ocean they material on Ultra intelligence that known. There were five U-boats who exchanged signals with headquarters after the blackout through much of patrolled in the Gulf of St. Lawrence to receive their orders for North 1942, the British had managed to in the late summer and fall of 1944, American coastal operations, and break into U-boat radio traffic once a scale of effort that matched the the submarines rarely signalled more, and, with American assistance, 1942 campaign. This was part of again until they had completed their were subsequently able to decrypt broader effort in Canadian and mission and withdrawn back out many signals within a matter of a Newfoundland waters that during into the central ocean. As a result few hours. Could it be that Naval the period October 1943 to May 1945 the actual daily positions in the Service Headquarters in Ottawa included extended patrols in coastal U-boat logs are in many cases quite was receiving Ultra intelligence, areas by more than 20 German different from the estimated positions and this was the basis of the Otter submarines. During these months shown in the diary kept at U-boat signals? There were a few instances shipping traffic from Canadian headquarters, which often had no in the Otter signals that provided ports, including the St. Lawrence, word of a submarine’s progress for more definite clues. Normally the was particularly heavy to support several weeks. Otter signals were dispatched in the the build up of troops, equipment In the Canadian records there evening to allow east coast staffs time and supplies in Great Britain for were two exciting finds. In the to plan and order missions for the next the Allied invasion of France at

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Normandy on 6 June 1944, and then the Royal Canadian Navy in the to sustain the advance by the Allied Battle of the Atlantic that drew on forces into Germany. Yet, in contrast the full archives opened in the 1970s to 1942, the U-boats sank or damaged in Canada, Britain and the United only three ships in the St. Lawrence. States. That was the basis of his first The discovery about the importance book, North Atlantic Run: The Royal of ”Otter” signals in the gulf – to keep Canadian Navy and the Battle for the aircraft on constant patrol over top Convoys, 1939-43, published in 1985. of the probable positions of U-boats Alec, Marc and I all were in revealed as we now suspected by regular touch with Michael Hadley, Ultra intelligence – provided a clue a professor of German literature about how the Canadian forces held at the University of Victoria and a the submarines at bay. captain in the naval reserve. Michael, Alec asked me in 1983 to work in the early 1980s, combined his up drafts for the whole of Eastern interests in a study of the U-boats Air Command during the last 18 that operated in Canadian waters months of the war using the Otter during the war. He was in contact signals and the Ultra signals released with several of the surviving U-boat by the British. The results were commanders, and shared stories with fascinating. During 1942, when no us of his encounters with the German Ultra intelligence had been available, veterans, together with copies of the the Canadian forces had been blind. the Allied intelligence staffs whose wartime documents they provided Most often the first firm intelligence U-boat plots were by that stage in the him. Michael’s U-Boats against Canada about the arrival of a new U-boat in war as good and in some cases better appeared in 1985, at the same time as Canadian waters, or the movement of than the Germans’ own. Marc’s book. They did a combined a boat from one zone to another was The work in feeding the new book-launch tour, but I think Marc the sudden destruction of merchant intelligence research and analysis was on his own in his native New ships. By contrast, starting in the fall into the Eastern Air Command Brunswick where he was the guest of 1943, the RCAF’s new ”very long chapters of the official history of the on a phone-in radio talk show. This range” Consolidated Liberator four- RCAF in 1983-5 was particularly should have been a moment of glory engine bombers, based at Gander, exciting because it figured directly for a down-homer who had done Newfoundland, began to overfly the in the ”renaissance” of Canadian good in Upper Canada – with the suspected U-boat tracks when the naval history. I now had a partner in University of Toronto Press, no less. submarines were still hundreds of the project, Marc Milner. Marc hails This is Marc’s account, as well as I miles out in the ocean, just beginning from Sackville, New Brunswick, can recall it after 24 years. Caller: ”So the approach towards Canadian and I knew we had a true maritimer you live up there in Ottawa now?” waters. Other aircraft from other on staff when he came in late one Marc: ”Yes.” Caller: ”So you know a bases took over as the U-boat entered morning and announced ”Bin to the lot of big people up there?” Marc: ”I, their area, the baton being passed dentist. He cleaned my teeth – and er...” Caller: ”Well I want you to give from base to base. When warships my wallet.” I’m told Marc and I have a message to that Brian Mulroney...” were available, or when, as rarely certain maritime traits in common: In 1986, the year after Marc happened, the U-boat revealed its barrel chest and a constitutional Milner’s and Michael Hadley’s books exact position by attacking or making inability to keep a shirt tucked in, a were published, Alec Douglas’s The a radio signal, the Canadian forces lot of hand gestures while talking, fly Creation of a National Air Force: The organized joint air-sea hunts. On away hair (still the case with Marc, Official History of the Royal Canadian every occasion in which the U-boats but mine has mostly departed during Air Force Volume II came out. It is managed to attack, it turned out that the intervening decades), and a way a hefty tome of 797 pages. About a efforts to keep air and sea patrols over of slurring words that isn’t quite quarter of the book, six chapters, tell the tracks of the submarines had gone the most beautiful Queen’s English. the story of Eastern Air Command. awry because of a failure in Ultra Alec not infrequently got us mixed The Gulf of St. Lawrence campaign of intelligence, or because the U-boat up, I think at one point to referring 1942 had been elevated to a chapter commander had not followed his to Roger Milner, but I can’t swear to of its own, and the operations in orders and deviated far from the plot that. Marc had recently completed 1944 got part of another chapter. It kept by U-boat headquarters – and his PhD thesis, the first account of was these chapters, informed by the https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol21/iss1/7 77 14 : Adventures in Government History The Origins of War in the St. Lawrence: The Forgotten U-Boat Battles on Canada’s Shores

work of Hadley, Milner, Rohwer and 5. W.A.B. Douglas, ”Sydney F. Wise, 1924- 2007: A Personal Recollection,” Canadian others, that provided the first account Military History 16, no.3 (Summer 2007), of the battle of the St. Lawrence to be pp.75-80. built from the full range of archival 6. Ron Csillag, ”Brereton Greenhous, Historian 1929-2005,” The Globe and Mail, records. The maritime chapters in 14 May 2005. the air force history, as intended, 7. For example, J.D.F. Kealy,”Coastal subsequently became the basis for Command Narrative,” 3 pts., May 1974-January 1976, Directorate of History the fuller account in the new official and Heritage [DHH]. Dave had been history of the navy, which got under promoted to senior inquiries officer way in 1987. In an uncanny repetition around the time of my arrival, and I, in effect, took over the remaining work on of history, deep cuts in the defence Eastern Air Command; he was a splendid budget stalled the naval project and kind mentor, among many at the during the last half of the 1990s, and directorate. 8. [Air Force Historical Section,] ”The delayed publication of the Second History of Eastern Air Command,” [1945], World War volumes until 2002 4 pts., DHH 74/2. and 2007.15 The chapters on the St. 9. Admiralty, Naval Intelligence Division, ”U-517, Interrogation of Crew,” BR 1907 Lawrence in those tomes reflect (55), DHH 80/520, pt. 16; Rear-Admiral considerable additional research, L.W. Murray, commander-in-chief, Canadian Northwest Atlantic, ”Defence and raised issues for further work. of the Gulf of St. Lawrence Appreciation,” Still, when I sat down in 2008 to 14 May 1943, Library and Archives begin War in the St. Lawrence, and Canada, Record Group 24, vol.11064, file 38-2-1A. dug through the boxes of files and 10. U-boat headquarters war diary, 16-17 note cards accumulated in fits and September 1942, DHH 79/446. starts over nearly three decades, I 11. Great Britain, Air Ministry, Air Historical Branch, ”The R.A.F. in Maritime War,” realized that it was the experience at DHH 79/599; Roskill, War at Sea, I, p.xxii. the directorate in the early eighties 12. S.F. Wise, Canadian Airmen and the First that laid the foundation and provided World War: The Official History of the Royal Canadian Air Force Volume I (Toronto: the inspiration for the new book. University of Toronto Press and the Time and again I felt once more the Department of National Defence, 1980). excitement of discovery of that early 13. Jürgen Rohwer, Axis Submarine Successes 1939-1945 (Annapolis, MD: Naval research. One of the main objectives Institute Press, 1983). in writing the new book was to try to 14. For a full list of the team that supported Alec Douglas in the production of The capture that excitement. Creation of a National Air Force see the volume’s preface. 15. W.A.B. Douglas, Roger Sarty, and Michael Whitby with Robert H. Caldwell, William Johnston and William G.P. Notes Rawling, The Official Operational History of the Royal Canadian Navy in the Second World War, Volume II, in two parts (St. 1. Roger Sarty, War in the St. Lawrence: The Catharines, ON: Vanwell Publishing Forgotten U-Boat Battles on Canada’s Shores and the Department of National Defence, (Toronto: Allen Lane, 2012). 2002-2007). 2. Peter Moon, ”The Second World War Battle We Lost At Home,” Toronto Star, Canadian Magazine, 26 February 1972, pp.2-7. Roger Sarty embarked on his career 3. Joseph Schull, The Far Distant Ships: in 1981, as a junior historian at the An Official Account of Canadian Naval Directorate of History. He moved to the Operations in the Second World War Canadian War Museum in 1998, where he (Ottawa, King’s Printer, 1950), pp.114-20; was head of the Exhibition Development Gilbert Norman Tucker, The Naval Service and Historical Research Division, of Canada: Its Official History. Volume II: and joined the History Department at Activities on Shore (Ottawa: King’s Printer, Wilfrid Laurier University in 2004. 1952), pp. 391-2. 4. C.P. Stacey, A Date With History: Memoirs of a Canadian Historian (Ottawa: Deneau, [1983]), chapter 14; Tim Cook, Clio’s Warriors: Canadian Historians and the Writing of the World Wars (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2006), chapters 4-5.

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