Canadian Coast Guard
<% else %>A History of the Canadian Coast Guard and Marine Services
by Thomas E. Appleton
Wartime Shipping
We have seen how, in the years following the first world war, the Canadian Government Merchant Marine had gradually ceased to operate and how the remainder of the fleet was sold in 1936. However, the charter had not been surrendered and, in 1940, authority was granted for the Company to take over enemy ships seized in prize, or condemned by a prize court, for service under the Government of Canada.
A few vessels were turned over for operation in this way, but the main contribution of Canada to allied wartime shipping lay in the building of ships for sale to Britain and the United States and in the building and operation of ships under the Canadian ensign. The total shipbuilding effort, conducted by all the major shipbuilding firms and co-ordinated by a government corporation known as Wartime Merchant Shipping Ltd., amounted to 456 merchant vessels, with a deadweight capacity of just under four million tons. In addition there was a purely naval programme amounting to some 300 ships.
After being sunk by enemy action in 1945 with the loss of nine lives, the survivors of the Point Pleasant Park were in the lifeboats for ten days. This photography was taken by Captain Paul W. Tooke of the Canadian Coast Guard who was then an officer in the Point Pleasant Park.
The first ships built to British account were known as the North Sands type, designed by J. L. Thomson & Sons of Sunderland, England, and were dry cargo ships of some 10,000 tons deadweight. There were various refinements of the class but all were named with the prefix Fort and a Canadian historical suffix. Of this Canadian production, some were purchased by the United States and transferred to Britain under the Lease-Lend arrangement.
Following this initial output, the Canadian Government made a major contribution on their own account to the movement of war materials on the worlds battle fronts. This was applied through the Park Steamship Company which was formed in 1942 as a crown company. Unlike the Canadian Government Merchant Marine, which actually operated and manned their own ships, the Park Steamship Company allocated ships to existing lines for operation along the routes of war transport. At the peak of its strength
The Company administered 176 ships representing a capital investment of some 270 million dollars. Each ship was named after a national, provincial or municipal park and the majority were of the 10,000 ton deadweight type, with a proportion of 4,700-tonners and a few tankers. The 10,000-tonners were of the same basic design as the original North Sands type, with variations known as the Victory and Canadian types. Some of the Park ships were later renamed as Forts.
CCGS C.P. Edwards
After the war, the fleet was gradually sold off by the War Assets Commission and, in 1948, the remainder of the Park Company was transferred to the care of the Canadian Maritime Commission. The last employees were released in 1950.
Towards the end of the war, when emphasis was shifting from Europe to the final struggle with Japan, orders for coasters, suitable for service in the Far East, were placed by Britain with Canadian yards. The war was over before all these ships were completed, but some were launched before disposal and acquired by Canadian interests. One of these ships became the lighthouse and buoy tender C. P. Edwards.
Of the total output of 456 ships of all kinds which went into service under various flags in all theatres of war, some 50 or 60 were lost by enemy action and a few more from disasters of the sea. Of the Park ships themselves, the enemy sank four and two were wrecked. If the cost was high in terms of individual disaster, the overall effort was a superb success and provided a pointer, if ever one was needed, towards the transition of Canada into a predominantly manufacturing economy. The shipbuilding industry employed a maximum of 57,000 people on merchant vessels and another 28,000 on naval construction. Of this enormous potential but little of it would be reaped in the post war field of shipbuilding and marine engineering.
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