Corvettes of the Royal Canadian Navy, 1939-1945

Dean F. Oliver teaches history at York University.

Milner and Macpherson have produced a rarity in the picture-book genre:
an illustrated reference work that is also well researched and deftly
written. Their introductory confession to having compiled a “concise,
popular account” is needlessly self-deprecating. True, Corvettes is
hardly a thorough treatment, but the amount of original research and the
handsome repackaging of the old make it a useful book indeed.

As a reference work, it is invaluable. The photographs that appear in
the book’s latter half are accompanied by the builder’s name, date
of launch, period in commission, service and modernization data, and the
ship’s eventual fate. There are notes on each building program,
detailed operational status charts, and a series of excellent line
drawings borrowed from John McKay and John Harland’s Anatomy of the
Ship. The first half of the book—the actual text—surveys the
corvette’s history from cradle to grave, starting with the origins of
a requirement for auxiliary naval vessels in 1939 and concluding with
the opening of HMCS Sackville as a public museum in 1985. The narrative
moves quickly despite occasional slippage into the mystical world of
military jargon.

In a brief survey focusing only on the ships themselves, the authors,
not surprisingly, steer clear of detailed assessments of some of the
naval war’s better-known controversies (Anglo-Canadian naval
relations, for example, or Canadian naval morale), yet are not reluctant
to offer judgment in several areas. The Naval Staff comes off poorly,
and the weaknesses in early corvette design and use are systematically
exposed. Such failings, however, are placed firmly in the context of
unpreparedness for war, limited supplies of modern equipment, lack of
dockyard facilities and skilled maintenance personnel, and continuous
demands from other theatres for the most advanced Canadian warships. The
authors begin and end the book by citing the assessment of Admiral Sir
Dudley Pound, First Sea Lord of the British Royal Navy, that Canada’s
corvettes—warts and all—solved the problem of the North Atlantic
convoys; and that, they argue correctly, was one of the most decisive
Allied victories.