Backgrounder

Role of the Canadian Merchant Navy During the Second World War

During the Second World War, some 20,000 Canadian and Newfoundland merchant seamen, members of the Canadian Merchant Navy, faced enemy action and the hostile environment of the sea to deliver soldiers and supplies to war zones around the world. One thousand six hundred and twenty-nine of them, including eight women, sacrificed their lives but in doing so they made a vital contribution to winning the war.

Canadian merchant seamen served around the world but most sailed the North Atlantic, taking supplies from Canadian ports, especially Halifax and Sydney, to Britain. Within hours of the declaration of war, Germany began submarine and surface attacks on vessels taking supplies to Britain. In 1942, the Battle of the Atlantic entered Canadian waters when U-boats sank ships in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

The Allies responded to German attacks by organizing convoys of merchant ships escorted by vessels of the Royal Canadian Navy and, so far as their flying range permitted, by Royal Canadian Air Force planes. Nevertheless, in the first years of the war, losses were daunting. For example, on 10 September 1941, a convoy of 62 merchant ships out of Sydney, escorted by a destroyer and three corvettes, was attacked by U-boats off Greenland. Within 48 hours, 15 ships had been sunk, 40,000 tons of supplies were destroyed and 160 merchant seamen were killed. Gradually, better and more equipment, more experienced crews, and better organization turned the tide in the Allies' favour and by mid-1943 Allied losses began to fall while German losses of U-boats increased.

At the beginning of the war, Canada had only a small deep sea merchant marine of 38 ships. It bolstered its sea-going fleet by transferring ships from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic and by building new ones. By the end of the war, Canada had built 171 seagoing ships. The first one launched was the Kootenay Park and all of the ships were named for Canadian parks.

The 20,000 sailors who served in the Merchant Navy faced a determined human foe, an implacable environment - the wintry North Atlantic among others - and deplorable working conditions. One in ten died on duty - a higher rate than in any other branch of the Canadian services. At the end of the war, Rear Admiral Leonard Murray, Commander-in-Chief, Canadian North Atlantic, credited "the courage, fortitude and determination of the British and Allied Merchant Navy" with winning the Battle of the Atlantic.