In Great Waters: The Epic Story of the Battle of the Atlantic, 1939-45

J.L. Granatstein, distinguished research professor emeritus of history
at York University, is the author of Who Killed Canadian History? and
co-author of The Canadian 100: The 100 Most Influential Canadians of the
20th Century and Prime Ministers: Ranking

Spencer Dunmore is an accomplished popular historian, the author of
three good books of air force history and several novels. This is his
first excursion into naval history, and he brings the same strengths to
this subject that he has demonstrated so well before. A good writer with
an eye for the telling detail, a competent researcher who can milk the
published sources and supplement them with interviews, Dunmore gives
good story.

His canvas here encompasses the whole Battle of the Atlantic, covering
the Allies (especially the Royal Canadian Navy) and the Germans (whose
surface raiders and U-boats almost cut the lifeline of supplies from
North America to Britain). This was a war of codes and technology, chess
move countered by chess move—but above all, it was a war of men. To be
depth-charged successfully in a U-boat meant certain death; to be
torpedoed in the North Atlantic for much of the year meant equal doom.
The stakes were high, the courage immense.

For the RCN, the war was a terrible struggle to create a fleet and
crews out of nothing. Technology on the Canadian corvettes lagged behind
the Royal Navy’s, and the skippers, a few professional soldiers,
former masters of merchantmen, and yachtsmen, had to struggle against
the odds. For a time there was only failure and the shame of being
removed from the battle at its peak. But better training, better ships,
and a fairer share of the high-tech weaponry helped the RCN master its
desperate craft. By the end of the war, the Royal Canadian Navy was the
third largest, an amazing expansion in a few years. It was also a very
good navy, and Dunmore tells its story in context.