Canadian Military History Volume 19 Issue 1 Article 2 2010 “For God’s Sake send help” HMCS Galiano, Pacific Navigation and life in the West Coast Reserve fleet, 1913-1918 Richard O. Mayne Follow this and additional works at: https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh Part of the Military History Commons Recommended Citation Richard O. Mayne "“For God’s Sake send help” HMCS Galiano, Pacific Navigation and life in the West Coast Reserve fleet, 1913-1918." Canadian Military History 19, 1 (2010) This Article 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]. : HMCS Galiano, Pacific Navigation and life in the West Coast Reserve fleet, 1913-1918 “For God’s Sake send help” HMCS Galiano, Pacific Navigation and life in the West Coast Reserve fleet, 1913-1918 Richard O. Mayne n 30 October 1918, Arthur for all activities related to Canada’s Ashdown Green, a wireless Abstract: HMCS Galiano is remembered oceans and inland waters including O mainly for being the Royal Canadian operator on Triangle Island, British Navy’s only loss during the First World the maintenance of navigation Columbia, received a bone-chilling War. However, a close examination aids, enforcement of regulations signal from a foundering ship. of this ship’s history not only reveals and the upkeep of hydrographical “Hold’s full of water,” Michael John important insights into the origins and requirements. Protecting Canadian identity of the West Coast’s seagoing Neary, the ship’s wireless operator sovereignty and fisheries was also naval reserve, but also the hazards and desperately transmitted, “For God’s navigational challenges that confronted one of the department’s key roles, Sake send help.” Nothing further the men who served in these waters. and thanks to American poaching in was heard, suggesting that the ship The aim of this article, therefore, is to the second half of the 19th century had already slipped below the cold determine how particular navigation it was a task that represented a challenges affected Galiano’s and storm-tossed surface. One can constant problem for the young commanding officer to the point where only speculate what horrible images they contributed to the ship’s sinking. Dominion. As the department’s haunted Green at that moment, It also proposes that the waters of maritime vanguard, the Fisheries the more so since he and his fellow British Columbia were witness to a Protection Service, which had operators had a heart-wrenching remarkable evolution that effectively undergone a significant expansion gave birth to a proto sea-going reserve decision to make. W.C. Neary, one from one to nine ships in 1886, was fleet on the West Coast well before of their colleagues at the station, the establishment of the modern naval the key organization responsible for was asleep in the next room. After reserves in 1923. containing these encroachments. By a short discussion they came to the 1904 the Fisheries Protection Service conclusion that they would wait until that the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) had grown even further to a total morning to tell Neary that his brother faced on the West Coast in an era eight armed “cruisers,” and the rest – along with 30 eight other shipmates before radar, modern navigation aids of the government fleet included six from the Canadian warship HMCS and forecasting equipment. Yet there icebreakers, and 18 other vessels. Galiano (as well as one civilian) - had are other aspects of Galiano’s history Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier saw likely fallen victim to a particularly that deserve closer scrutiny. Little a need for Canada to have its own vicious Pacific storm.1 has been written on Canadian Pacific national navy and logically it should Galiano was an unlucky ship. coastal operations between 1914 and be developed from those civilian Aside from the unfortunate distinction 1918 (most likely since that presence vessels.2 of being the only Canadian warship was so small), and as a result a study Increasing tensions in Europe, lost during the First World War, she of Galiano is critical because her particularly from an upstart Germany also struck a rock off the appropriately evolution from a Fisheries Protection and its growing naval ambitions, had named Disappointment Inlet and Ship into a naval vessel gives new forced the Royal Navy (RN) to turn its grounded twice – all within the span insights into the life, origins, and attention to home waters and abandon of three years. A portion of this article, roots of Canada’s West Coast reserve many of its imperial commitments. therefore, will argue that there was navy. Fleet units and personnel were actually a correlation between these For the first 43 years of its subsequently reassigned from the RN incidents and Galiano’s sinking. It will existence Canada did not have a navy bases in Halifax and Esquimalt, and also show how these incidents were of its own. Instead it relied on the that fact – along with Laurier’s desire reflective of the navigation challenges Department of Marine and Fisheries to promote nationalism through the Published© Canadian by Scholars Military Commons History @, Laurier,Volume 2010 19, Number 1, Winter 2010, pp.5-20. 5 1 Mayne - Galiano.indd 5 4/15/2010 3:40:11 PM Canadian Military History, Vol. 19 [2010], Iss. 1, Art. 2 “The Navy Plan, 1909. For Canada and the Empire.” A political cartoon by Fergus Kyle published in the Toronto Globe showing Wilfrid Laurier on the bridge of a ship. Director of the Naval Service (DNS) in addition to his continuing command of the Fisheries Protection Service. Library and Archives Canada (LAC) C-150798 Canada (LAC) Library and Archives As a result, the fate and organization of the navy and Fisheries Protection Service were closely linked and Kingsmill certainly had his work cut out for him. Ambitious plans to acquire a sizable naval fleet were sadly reduced to the purchase of the two aged RN cruisers, HMCS Rainbow creation of truly Canadian institutions were hard to dismiss. In fact, some and Niobe, while the militarization of – was forcing the young country argued that this not only resulted in the Fisheries Protection Service not to develop the means to protect its crews of questionable quality, but only occurred at a slow pace but its own interests. As a result, Laurier, also led to an exodus of men who future acquisition program was also along with the minister of marine would take their Canadian training limited to a handful of new ships. and fisheries, Raymond Préfontaine, and use it to make a better future for As small as that expansion may revitalized an earlier plan that called themselves in the United States Navy. have been, Robert Mayes Pope for the Fisheries Protection Service More severe criticisms, however, was nonetheless excited when he slowly to be converted into a fighting were heaped upon the department discovered in early 1913 that the force. This would not only provide itself, which British officials decried Fisheries Protection Service was the core organization for a naval as “one of the worst-run ministries in acquiring two new ships to augment service, but it would also create a a country they described as one not its small West Coast fleet. And since base from which a future naval militia noted for efficient, principled public the RCN was responsible for the could be trained. 3 To achieve these administration.”5 administration of this organization aims Préfontaine would champion The findings of the 1908 royal and the direction of its vessels he the Naval Militia Bill of 1904, while commission on public administration contacted Kingsmill, asking that he the Fisheries Protection Service spurred Laurier and Préfontaine’s be considered for command. Nor did acquired two new cruisers that were successor, L.P. Brodeur, to clean he stop there. Having learned that to be “run like crisply disciplined shop at the Department of Marine Kingsmill was coming to the West navy ships.”4 and Fisheries. Commander O.G.V. Coast in May, Pope made a point The failure of Préfontaine’s bill, Spain, an ex-RN officer who had of calling upon the DNS in effort to which, had it become law would have commanded the Fisheries Protection plead his case in person. Kingsmill laid the foundation for a Canadian Service as the Director of Marine liked what he heard. In fact, Pope was naval reserve, was a serious setback Services since 1893, was one of so eager that he told the DNS: for the nation’s maritime ambitions. the first to go. His replacement, a More bad news followed as the Canadian-born retired RN officer, … he [Pope] is prepared to pay department was rocked by scandalous Rear Admiral Charles Kingsmill, his passage to England, if he is charges suggesting that its senior was a well-connected and capable favourably considered, and to bring managers were incompetent and its man who, along with the new deputy out one of these [new] ships, waiving sailors demoralized. Whether the minister, G.J. Desbarats, would get all claim on the Agents for return latter allegations were accurate was the department running smoothly. passage to England. I think that this hard to determine, but stories about So much so, in fact, that when the matter might easily be arranged with low wages and unfair patronage Canadian navy came into existence the Builders, and it would be of great appointments where politicians had on 4 May 1910 there was no doubt advantage to us to have the Captain the final say on the hiring of personnel that Kingsmill would become the in the Ship from the start.6 https://scholars.wlu.ca/cmh/vol19/iss1/26 2 Mayne - Galiano.indd 6 4/15/2010 3:40:11 PM : HMCS Galiano, Pacific Navigation and life in the West Coast Reserve fleet, 1913-1918 Kingsmill was equally impressed nevertheless proved exceedingly being a member in my Constituency with Pope’s sea-going career which difficult, particularly since Kingsmill I have pleasure in backing up his dated back to 1884.