Commanding Canadians: The Second World War Diaries of AFC Layard

J.L. Granatstein, Distinguished Research Professor of History Emeritus,
York University, served as Director of the Canadian War Museum from 1998
to 2000. His latest works are Who Killed Canadian History?, Who Killed
the Canadian Military, and Hell’s Cor

The struggles of the Royal Canadian Navy in winning the naval war in the
Atlantic have been well documented in official histories, popular
accounts, and memoirs. This volume, ably edited by Michael Whitby, one
of the Department of National Defence’s naval historians, adds some
new material. Commander A.F.C. Layard was a Royal Navy officer who, much
to his distress, was assigned—at Canadian request—to lead a Royal
Canadian Navy support group being formed at the beginning of 1944 to
battle U-boats in European waters. Layard did the job through to the end
of the war against Germany, and his diaries of this time offer a new
perspective on Canadian ships, officers, and crews. The RN and the RCN
shared a common cause, but sometimes it seemed they shared little else,
and professional British officers like Layard had a hard time dealing
with the relative amateurs who made up the RCN. Experts on the RCN will
not want to miss this book. The diaries—and Whitby’s fine
commentary—also make clear just how difficult the struggle was, how
nerve-wracking each day was. The latest in the fine series of volumes
produced by the Canadian War Museum and UBC Press, this is a very good
book.