Corvettes Canada: Convoy Veterans of WWII Tell Their True Stories

Sidney Allinson is a Victoria-based communications consultant, Canadian
news correspondent for Britain’s The Army Quarterly and Defence, and
the author of Military Archives: International Directory of Military
Publications and The Bantams: The Untold St

Personal recollections by men who “were there” can always tell more
about what war was really like than any number of academic studies
written long after the event. Mac Johnston has collected and edited an
authentic sailor’s-eye view of the battle of the North Atlantic, which
lasted from the very beginning of World War II right to the bitter end.
The Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) played a vital role throughout, protecting
the supply ships carrying food, weaponry, oil, and raw materials vital
to the survival of Britain and the prosecution of the war against Nazi
tyranny. The price was high: the deaths of 2000 RCN and 1200 Canadian
Merchant Navy sailors.

When war broke out in 1939, Canada had a tiny navy of only 1819 men and
13 ships, but six years later, there were 100,000 sailors, manning what
had become the fourth-largest Allied fleet. The brunt of convoying
merchant vessels was done by corvettes, which Prime Minister Winston
Churchill dubbed the “cheap and nasties.” Why crews serving aboard
them ruefully agreed is movingly told in this collection.

As editor of Legion Magazine (a publication for veterans), Johnston was
able to interview 250 ex-sailors and tap their memories of what it was
like to fight two pitiless enemies at once—German U-boats and the
savage sea itself. The old sailors talk lucidly, modestly, and at times
with notable humor. Their tales are of icy decks, bad food, constantly
wet clothes, cramped living quarters, continual seasickness, powerful
comradeship, shared heroism, and the tension of having to stay
permanently on the alert.

Naval recruits came from every corner of the Dominion, forming a cross
section of Canadian society, and their attitudes and outlooks form an
additional subtext. One would have expected to see more photographs of
some of the many individuals who speak through these pages; however,
some good photos of ships and crews are included, which help set the
scene.