The Canadian Trick That Turned a Whaling Boat Into 123 U Boat Hunters

How did the Royal Canadian Navy turn a whale catcher into the Canadian corvette, the small U-boat hunter that carried the convoys through the Battle of the Atlantic? In September 1939 Canada had six destroyers, about 3,500 naval personnel, and no shipyard that had ever built a real warship. The answer came from Smiths Dock on the River Tees. William Reed took his whale catcher Southern Pride, stretched her from 160 feet to 205, and gave her a four-inch gun, depth charges and asdic. He kept the plain steam engine that any freighter yard could build. Early in 1940 Canada ordered 64 of them at a stroke and built them in commercial yards from the coasts to the Great Lakes, as far inland as Port Arthur on Lake Superior. This film follows the Flower-class corvette from the drawing board to the mid-ocean gap: the reservists of the Wavy Navy, Convoy SC 42 and the night Chambly and Moose Jaw sank U-501 on a training cruise, HMCS Oakville's boarding of U-94 off Haiti, and the winter of 1942, when the Canadian groups were pulled off the mid-ocean run to train and refit. It ends in Halifax with HMCS Sackville, the last corvette of her class. A note on the number: 123 is the count of corvettes that served in the Royal Canadian Navy, 111 Flower class and 12 British-built Castle class. It is not the number built in Canada, and it is not a count of U-boats sunk. CHAPTERS 0:00 A boat built to kill whales 0:48 The Athenia and the escort shortage 2:14 William Reed's whale catcher 4:25 Canada orders 64 corvettes 7:25 The Wavy Navy goes to sea 9:33 Convoy SC 42 and U-501 12:47 Oakville boards U-94 14:48 The crisis of 1942 16:27 What 123 corvettes did, and what it cost 18:16 Back to whaling, and HMCS Sackville Sources: 1. Canadian War Museum, The Royal Canadian Navy and the Battle of the Atlantic, 1939-1945: https://www.warmuseum.ca/articles/the... 2. Marc Milner, "The Rush To Expansion", Legion Magazine, 2008: https://legionmagazine.com/the-rush-t... 3. Government of Canada, Fighting the U-Boats (1939-1945): https://www.canada.ca/en/navy/service... 4. The Canadian Encyclopedia, HMCS Sackville: https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en... 5. James Brun, "The Sinking of U-501", Military History Now, 2022: https://militaryhistorynow.com/2022/1...