On the Triangle Run

L.J. Rouse was a freelance writer in Toronto.

Convoy escort life has been described as “hours of boredom interrupted by moments of sheer terror.” This second collection of wartime tales by James Lamb, author of The Corvette Navy, tells the all-too-little-known story of Canada’s wartime navy plying the waters of the Triangle Run, New York—Halifax—St. John’s, before turning over their charges at a predetermined point in the Atlantic.

Here are accounts of patient heroism, the most difficult kind of all, livened at moments by flashes of irrepressible fun, as in the exchange between HMCS Camrose and the signal station at Gibraltar: From Gibraltar: “WHAT SHIP?” From Camrose: “WHAT ROCK?”

But for any fugitive gleam of humor, there were days and weeks of monotony, and horrible patches of explosive nightmare followed by grim deaths in the icy Atlantic waters. These are described with terrifying reality, particularly in the account of the stalking and sinking of HMCS Valleyfield with the loss of most of her crew. This drama is more powerful than any fiction.

Canada’s navy was a proud service, and author Lamb is bitter about the destruction of its proud traditions by “Ottawa bureaucrats” in the gray era succeeding World War II. He sees a reawakening of interest in Canada’s naval affairs stirring, and with it the hope of a navy reborn, as he says, not a moment too soon. This is war history to stir the blood. It should be remembered; the uniquely Canadian Corvette Navy is deserving of all honour.