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Warship Wednesday 16 September 2026: The Submarine Altered across my Bows and I Rammed her

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Here at LSOZI, we take a break every Wednesday to explore the old steam/diesel navies from 1833 to 1954, profiling a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger.

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Warship Wednesday 16 September 2026: The Submarine Altered Across My Bows and I Rammed Her

Department of National Defense / National Archives of Canada, PA-105829.

Above we see the mighty Flower (Trillium) class corvette HMCS Moose Jaw (K 164) steaming with a bone in her teeth off Halifax, Nova Scotia, in June 1942. The 205-foot brawler, along with her sister HMCS Chambly, sank the German Type IXC U-501 via ramming and depth charges off Greenland some 85 years ago this week.

The U-boat was the first of 30 German subs busted by the RCN during WWII.

The Flowers

A handy little sub-buster that could be cranked out in record time but was still very capable of escorting slow-moving merchantmen from the Americas to Europe during the Battle of the Atlantic, the Admiralty would order more than 300 Gladiolus/Flower-class corvettes from 1939 onward.

Essentially a stretched version of the Smith’s Dock’s 582 GRT, 160-foot steam-powered whaler design built in 1936 for the Southern Whaling & Sealing Co. Ltd (SWSC), they were single-screw vessels powered by a pair of cylindrical Scotch marine boilers feeding a single VTE engine that could, when turning at maximum RPMs, generate a theoretical 2,750 h.p., enough to push the little tub 16 ish knots while an economical load of 230 tons of fuel oil would get them 3,500nm at 12 knots, enough to make it across the Atlantic on the 2,700-mile Halifax to Liverpool route with some fuel left for maneuvering.

The Flowers were based on the SWSC’s Southern Pride, shown here in her pre-war whaler service. The vessel would be requisitioned by the RN (K 249) in 1940 and lost in 1944 off Freetown. 

Using the simpler boiler pattern and including enough space for a crew of 80 officers and men (later to swell to as much as 110), the dimensions shifted from a 160-foot whaler to a 205-foot corvette. With a correspondingly wide 33-foot beam, they had a stubby 1:6 length-beam ratio.

Armament was slight: a single 4″/45 BL Mk IX forward, a 40mm/39 2pdr QF Mk VIII pom-pom on a “bandstand” platform aft, a couple of depth charge throwers and two depth charge racks over the stern, with provision for up to 40 ash cans. They also had a perfectly adequate Type 123 or Type 128 sonar and (eventually) a Type 271 or Type 286 radar.

Of course, there were extensive modifications to this and tweaks across the massive production line, but you get the idea. Late-war fits included as many as 70 depth charges, a Hedgehog ASW device, and a half-dozen 20mm Oerlikons.

Drawing of a Flower Class Corvette showing the ship’s layout by John W. McKay – 1992. Source: “Corvettes of the Royal Canadian Navy 1939-1945” by Ken MacPherson and Marc Milner

Flower-class HMCS Timmins (K 223) plans

Built to merchant (Lloyds) standards rather than to those of the Admiralty, they could be churned out rapidly at about any small coastwise commercial shipyard, and several dozen shipyards participated in the program in the UK and Canada.

Some 13 Canadian yards alone (Burrard, Canadian Vickers, Collingwood, Davie & Sons, Davie SB, Kingston SB, Marine Industries, Midland SY, Morton Eng. & D.D. Co, Port Arthur SB, Victoria Machinery, and Yarrows Esquimalt) made a whopping 122 Flowers during the conflict.

The average construction time was 6-8 months, a process often sped up by the fact that the armament and sensors would be installed post-delivery at a nearby naval yard, sometimes in stages, a problem that meant some Flowers had to deploy for months before they received all their gear.

No less than 111 Flowers were assigned to the RCN at one point or another, of which seven were canceled while still under construction, 80 were built from the start for the Canadians, and 24 RN corvettes (many of which were built in Canadian yards) were transferred on loan.

RCN corvette in drydock. Library and Archives Canada Photo, MIKAN No. 4950910

Three Flower-class corvettes tied up at St. John’s.

This all brings us to…

Meet Moose Jaw

Our subject is the only Canadian warship named for the town of Moose Jaw in Saskatchewan, which has the nickname of “Canada’s Most Notorious City” due to its Prohibition-era rum-running history.

Moose Jaw, Sask. Circa 1909, by Sidney Turk. Library and Archives Canada, 3315697

The future HMCS Moose Jaw (K 164) was one of 28 corvettes (19 Flowers/modified Flowers and nine Castles) ordered from the Great Lakes firm of Collingwood Shipyards Ltd, in Collingwood, Ontario.

Laid down 12 August 1940 as Yard No. 94, she was constructed directly alongside her sisters HMCS Galt (K 163) and Battleford (K 165).

Moose Jaw side-launched into Lake Ontario on 9 April 1941, the first anniversary of the invasion of Norway and Denmark. She was christened by Miss Jane Cory, daughter of Lt.Col. Robert Young Cory, V.D., 48th Highlanders of Canada.

Shipyard workers drive in wedges preparatory to the launch of HMCS Moose Jaw at Collingwood Shipyards, Ltd., Collingwood, Ontario. (NAC, PA 204282)

The launch of HMCS Moose Jaw at Collingwood Shipyards Ltd., Collingwood, Ontario – 9 April 1941.

Moose Jaw in the water, 9 April 1941. (NAC, PA 204283)

She was commissioned on 19 June 1941 at Montreal.

Moose Jaw’s first skipper was LT Frederick Ernest Grubb, RCN, a regular who shipped out on the monitor HMS Erebus as a cadet in 1927, followed by tours on the battleships HMS Revenge and Warspite. His first RCN ship was the destroyer HMCS Vancouver in 1934 as a sub-lou, before serving as a full lou on HMCS Skeena and St Laurent, the latter of which had badly damaged the German submarine U-52 on a three-hour pursuit and depth charging while defending the Halifax-to-UK Convoy HX 60 in August 1940– almost the first Canadian sub kill of the war.

Her namesake city passed the hat and sent a box of radios to be installed for the morale of the crew, as noted by the May 1941 Moose Jaw Times Herald: “The radios, one each for the forward and after crews and the officers, have been shipped to Halifax with the compliments and good wishes of the city of Moose Jaw.”

Part of the RCN’s 72 1939-40 Programme Flowers, Moose Jaw had the earlier fit of armament for the class: a single shielded 4″/45 BL Mk IX forward, two twin Vickers .50 cals, two twin .303-caliber Vickers machine guns, two depth charge throwers, and two depth charge racks with total capacity of 40 “ash cans.”

The only image I can find of her during the war that shows her foremast has the RCN’s REL-made, manually rotated 1.5m SW1C (Surface Warning, 1st Canadian) radar array installed, which was likely added at Saint John, NB, in June 1942.

War!

Arriving at Halifax in late June 1941, Moose Jaw spent six weeks working up in the waters off Nova Scotia, then tagged along with Flower-class sisters HMCS Prescott and Kenogami on Convoy HX 146 for three days out of Halifax to transfer to the Newfoundland Escort Force at St. John’s.

Once there, under CDR “Chummy” Prentice’s local control as Senior Officer, Canadian Corvettes, Moose Jaw and sisters had a hill to climb in training and meeting Chummy’s exercise program.

As noted by No Higher Purpose: The Official Operational History of the Royal Canadian Navy in the Second World War:

Although Moose Jaw was one of the very few corvettes commanded by a regular force officer, Lieutenant F.E. Grubb, RCN, most of his inexperienced crew, missing several key specialist personnel, “was seasick for the first four days at sea, some of them being quite incapable of carrying out their duties.”

Then came an emergency call to go to the rescue of the struggling Convoy SC 42, which had left Sydney, Nova Scotia on 30 August with 64 slow (7-knot convoy speed) merchant ships bound for Liverpool under the protection of four escorts. The lumbering flotilla was discovered by the 14 U-boats of Wolfpack Gruppe Markgraf off Southeast Greenland on 9 September, with U-81 sinking the straggling Empire Springbuck (5,591 GRT) that morning. While depth-charge-carrying PBY Catalina flying boats from Iceland kept the wolves away during the day, night proved a horror story. By the end of the 10th, the Markgraf wolves claimed another eight steamers.

The slaughter led C-in-C Western Approaches to sortie reinforcements from Iceland (36 hours away) and even strip escorts from the safely steaming HX 147 and ON 13 Convoys to sail to SC 42’s aid.

From off St. John, Chummy was ordered to rush his proven HMCS Chambly (K 116) and his new Moose Jaw, which were at sea on exercises, at best possible speed to the battle. Arriving just 24 hours after they left Newfoundland, the two Flowers saw the signal rockets shooting up from the struggling merchant vessels under attack around 2100 on the 10th in the Denmark Strait south of Angmagsalik, Greenland.

Soon, Chambly had an ASDIC contact 700 yards off and was turning to drop charges, which had an immediate effect.

As detailed in the RN interrogation report of U-501’s crew:

“U 501” was at a depth of 40 meters (131 ft), and the explosion of the depth charges caused considerable damage inside the U-Boat, a number of instruments being smashed and the after hydroplane being put out of action; both the ordinary and the emergency lighting systems ceased to function.

Prisoners claim to have heard two more crashes in the control room, followed by a smell of gas given off by the action of water on potassium cartridges. The valves of the U-Boat were said to have been damaged, and the depth gauge was put out of action.

While Chambly turned to make another depth-charge attack, the damaged U-boat, U-501 (KrvKpt. Hugo Forster), surfaced near Moose Jaw. The banged-up submarine attempted a hasty withdrawal, and Moose Jaw opened fire, but an overexcited sailor in the 4-inch gun’s crew jammed its mechanism.

Then came something really special.

As described by Grubb in his report from Moose Jaw:

The next few minutes was spent in chase … At one time four of the submarine’s crew made a determined move to the after gun. As our own gun was still jammed, no action could be taken except to increase speed and try to ram before they could fire. This I did, although the chance was small; fortunately, someone on the conning tower ordered them back. The .5-inch machine guns were bearing at the time, but when the trigger was pressed, they failed to fire. A subsequent check showed no defects, so I assume that in the excitement the crew failed to cock them.

I managed to go alongside the submarine, starboard side to, and called on her to surrender. To my surprise, I saw a man make a magnificent leap from the submarine’s deck into our waist [the mid-part of the corvette], and the remainder of her crew move to do likewise. Not being prepared to repel boarders at that moment, I sheered off. The submarine altered across my bows and I rammed her [a glancing blow that, fortunately, did not seriously damage the corvette] …

After the impact she moved across my bows at reduced speed. The gun being cleared by that time, I opened fire again. The crew jumped into the sea as soon as the first round went, and I ordered fire to be stopped. I subsequently learned that the shell had passed low enough over the conning tower to knock down the men who were standing thereon.

The man who I had seen jump on board turned out to be the submarine’s commanding officer. He was badly shaken, and when he was brought to me on the bridge appeared to be worried at the amount of light we were showing in order to pick up survivors.

While Chambly put a nine-man boarding team aboard U-501 under Lt. Ted Simmons looking for code books, it was reported by the boarding party that a large hole was seen, about four feet in diameter, where the U-Boat’s casing joined the hull on the port quarter. It appeared that the U-Boat’s port after hydroplane had been shorn off.

The boat sank before they could get very far, losing a man in the process, Stoker William Irvin Brown, RCNVR, while Simmons, sucked out of the conning tower, almost perished.

In all, U-501 lost 10 men.

On both the skipper’s and the boat’s first patrol, U-501’s commander had only one vessel to their credit, a 2,000-ton Norwegian steamer which required six torpedoes and 40 shells from the boat’s deck gun, before being sent to the bottom by Moose Jaw and Chambly 35 days after leaving Trondheim. A regular who had joined the Reichsmarine in 1923 and served aboard surface ships– he was on the cruiser Blücher when she was sunk in a cold Norwegian fjord in 1941– Förster was nonetheless a very green 37-year-old submarine commander.

From the RN crew interrogation:

He was transferred fairly recently to U-Boats and took a shortened U-Boat course. He refused to go into any details of his recent career, but it was established that the first and last cruise of “U 501” was also his first and last cruise as Captain of a U-Boat, although he may have been on a war cruise in another U-Boat under instruction as a prospective Captain. His lack of experience, his cowardice, and other defects were bitterly criticized by his officers and men, some of whom went so far as to threaten to take vengeance into their own hands should Förster not be adequately punished by Court Martial after the war. According to his crew, Förster not only surrendered without a fight, but subsequently thought solely of his own skin, and not of the fate of his ship, nor of the lives of his men, eleven of whom were drowned.  He was the first to desert his U-Boat and the only man to jump from her to the British corvette [Moose Jaw] without even getting wet, let alone having to swim for some time before being rescued. Later, when visiting his men, he offered his hand to his Chief Quartermaster, a man of fourteen years’ service in the German Navy, who refused to shake hands with him.

The captain of “U 501” explained his precipitate leap from his U-Boat by stating that he felt impelled to get aboard “Moosejaw” at once in order to insist on the British rescuing his men; otherwise, he added, the German crew might have been left to drown.  His explanation, while failing to convince the British, succeeded in infuriating his own men into a state of high blood pressure.

Moose Jaw and Chambly, having completed the rescue of U-501’s survivors, joined the convoy at 2315, with the former soon stopping to pick up survivors from the lost British steamer Berury. Moose Jaw and sister HMCS Kenogami (K 125) rescued Berury’s master, 36 crew members and four gunners, only losing one to the sea. Berury’s captain informed Grubb that he had been unable to remove the confidential books from the bridge of his ship and, with seas too high to board the vessel, Moose Jaw riddled the hull with 66 shells from her 4-inch gun (33 HE, 33 SAP) to help speed the sinking along.

The two Flowers would spend the next week riding shotgun towards the British Isles. SC 42 made it to Liverpool on 20 September, after losing 16 ships totaling 68,259 GRT.

Besides U-501, U-207 was sent to the bottom with all hands by the destroyers HMS Leamington and Veteran of the 2nd Escort Group out of Iceland, while HMCS Skeena and Kenogami had severely damaged U-85.

Moose Jaw had 29 prisoners (three commissioned officers, two midshipmen, and 24 ratings) along with 35 merchant seamen from torpedoed ships on board when she made port.

In the aftermath of the SC 42 convoy fight, the Admiralty’s Anti-Submarine Warfare Division classed the defense of SC 42 as “valiant” and praised the destruction of U-501 by Chambly and Moose Jaw. Chummy Prentice and Ted Simmons earned a DSO and DSC, respectively, while our LT Grubb was Mentioned in Dispatches.

With her ASDIC and bow busted because of ramming U-501, she was put in for 10 days of patchwork at Greenock for repairs.

The corvette operated on ASW patrols between St. John’s and Iceland for the rest of 1941 and into 1942, operating with sisters HMCS Chicoutimi, Sherbrooke, Berne, Brandon, Rosthern, and Morden. During this time, she clocked in briefly on other eastbound SC convoys, including SC 58 and SC 64, as well as westbound Liverpool-to-Halifax Convoys ON 29, ON 36, ON 48, and ON 60.

On 9 February 1942, while escorting convoy ON-60, the Free French Flower-class sister FS Alysse (K 100) was torpedoed by the German submarine U-654 and eventually sank. The Moose Jaw and HMCS Hepatica took 34 men as survivors, including the wounded skipper, LdV Jacques Pépin Lehalleur, while 36 men were lost to the sea.

Free French Corvette Alysse (K-100), torpedoed in the North Atlantic by U-654, 9 February 1942. HMCS Hepatica visible in the distance. Photo taken from HMCS Moose Jaw by L/S Ian Butters, RCNVR.

Moose Jaw then ran aground on the south entrance to St. John’s harbor on 19 February while en route to join convoy HX.176, and required repairs to fix busted seams at Saint John, New Brunswick until 25 June. This resulted in the reassignment of her skipper at the time, T/Lt. Henry Drummond Campsie, RCNR, who had taken over from Grubb the previous December.

Her third skipper, arriving on Valentine’s Day 1942, was T/Lt. Lewis Dennis Quick, RCNR, who would remain in command into early 1944.

The ship’s company of Moose Jaw in Saint John, New Brunswick, 19 March 1942, likely with skipper T/Lt. Lewis Dennis Quick, RCNR, forward. (NAC, PA 204274)

Dispatched to join the Western Local Escort Force, Moose Jaw was once again on North Atlantic Convoy duty, clocking in on westbound ON 109, ON 116, ON 123, ON 129, and ON 133, as well as eastbound SC 93, SC 97, SC 100, SC 103, and SC 107.

On 3 November 1942, while escorting Convoy SC 107, sisters Moose Jaw and Algoma (K 127) engaged the marauding U-704 and U-89 of Wolfpack Gruppe Veilchen with star shells and depth charges, forcing both sharks to break contact. Still, SC 107 was a rough convoy fight, losing 15 of 42 merchant ships to Donitz’s raiders, some 82,817 tons of shipping, while the Germans only lost two subs, both to RCAF patrol bombers.

Then came the Torch landings in North Africa, with Moose Jaw joining sisters Algoma and Regina, actively escorting convoys to and from England to Gibraltar and Tunisia between November 1942 and March 1943. These included Med-bound KMS 5G, KMS 6G, KMS 8G, and UGS 5 as well as Liverpool-bound MKS 4 and MKS 9. Regina bagged the Italian coastal submarine Avorio north-west of Philippeville, Algeria during this period.

After this, Moose Jaw was sent back home to join Quebec Force/Gaspe Force for escort duties in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

During a December 1943 to March 1944 refit at Liverpool, NS, she was modernized, and her forecastle was extended along with a sheet of over 30 modifications and additions, including increased accommodations, watertight lockers for the fighting equipment, and additional voice pipes and electric buzzers for communication within the ship.

By this stage of the war, Moose Jaw carried her 4-incher, a 40mm 2-pounder QF Mk VIII, four 20mm Oerlikons, a 24-rocket Hedgehog ASW spigot mortar system, and room for as many as 72 depth charges. She also sported a more advanced Type 271 radar and a Type 123 sonar.

A Hedgehog ASWRL on board HMCS Moose Jaw, Halifax, May 1st, 1944. While 294 Flowers were completed, the Hedgehog was far from standard kit across the class. Department of National Defense / National Archives of Canada, PA-112918.

Two ratings in front of Moose Jaw’s 4inch gun. FPS MJW0004

Moose Jaw had legendary gun shield art

By May 1944, Moose Jaw was sent to the British Isles as part of the buildup for the Normandy invasion, one of 62 documented RCN warships involved in D-Day.

Assigned to the escort force as one of the 70-odd corvettes under Western Forces Command out of Milford Haven and Portsmouth, Moose Jaw was soon running small convoys from Barry on the Bristol Channel across the English Channel to the Seine Bay in France, a sector still very hot with German S-boots, U-boats, human torpedoes, and aircraft.

These EBC/FBC convoys were small and lightly escorted, for instance, with EBC 43 seeing Moose Jaw depart Barry with 19 merchants on 17 July 1944 with only the old (circa 1916) destroyer HMS Walker to help shepherd the group. They were short, 200-mile/three-day runs, but they were always a pucker factor. By September, Moose Jaw had run 10 convoys across the Channel in such fashion and lived to tell the tale.

Shifting to Escort Group 41 out of Plymouth in December 1944, Moose Jaw escorted coastal BTC (Milford Haven – Southend/Thames Estuary) and TBC (Southend/Thames Estuary – Milford Haven) convoys until the end of the war, logging 15 of each. These coastwise four-day/450nm milk runs were very small indeed, typically just a few merchant vessels hugging the 10-fathom line with Moose Jaw seaward as the sole escort.

Don’t think this work was low risk, as even in this late stage of the war, “Jerry” was still about. On 28 February 1945, Moose Jaw rescued six survivors from the British merchant ship Norfolk Coast, which had been torpedoed and sunk by U-1302 south-west of Strumble Head.

By the end of the war, the little corvette had logged no less than 66 convoys of all sorts. She earned battle honors for Atlantic 1941-1943, Normandy 1944, and English Channel 1944-1945.

Not all her sisters were that fortunate. No less than seven were lost during the war, including Levis, Charlottetown, and Shawinigan to U-boats; Albernie, Weyburn, and Regina to mines; and Louisburg to air attack.

Moose Jaw was paid off from the RCN on 8 July 1945 at Sorel, Quebec, then sold for scrapping in September 1949 and broken up at Hamilton, Ontario.

Epilogue

A For Posterity’s Sake page exists to carry forward the memory of the lost corvette.

Moose Jaw’s plank owner skipper, who commanded her during the U-501 attack, went on to command the HMCS Charny (Z 26) through November 1942 and ended the war at the Toronto shore establishment HMCS York, a site that trained 14,000 RCN members during the conflict. Post-war, he shifted to the HMCS Naden shore establishment at Esquimalt, BC, and went on to pen several scholarly works, including Naval Customs and Social Practices. He retired as a captain in 1954 and passed in 1985 at Victoria, aged 74.

Grubb, looking very much like Brendan Fraser’s uncle

Captain James Douglas “Chummy” Prentice, RCN, DSO, DSC, was on the scene for the sinking of at least three more U-boats and retired in 1946 as ADC to the Governor General of Canada. He passed in Saanichton, BC, in 1979.

As for the man who jumped from his U-boat to Moose Jaw’s deck during the fight for Convoy SC-42, KvtKpn. Hugo Förster of U-501 spent the following three years in Canadian POW camps, then was repatriated in January 1945 in poor health as part of a prisoner exchange. He committed suicide just weeks after returning to war-ravaged Germany.

Of Moose Jaw’s classmates, the last of her Collingwood-built sisters, HMCS Barrie (K 138), survived until 1972, serving with the Argentine Navy as the survey ship Capitan Canepa.

The final Canadian Flower afloat, HMCS Sackville, remained in service first as a controlled minelayer, then as a survey ship with the RCN into the 1980s, and is a fixture on the Halifax waterfront, complete in WWII livery.

Sackville via Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, please, if you are ever in Halifax, pay her a visit.

Thanks for reading!

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

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Beachcombing in East Greenland

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The Danes are currently hosting 400 soldiers from 11 NATO countries in a large ground force exercise in Greenland, and just wrapped up a rare joint exercise with SNMG1 and SNMCMG1 off Iceland for Operation Reassurance, along with Op Nanook Tuugaalik with the Canadian and U.S. naval forces, with the latter including the Freedom-variant littoral combat ship USS Wichita (LCS 13), surged to the far north from sunny 102-degree Mayport.

Dutch Korps Mariniers in Greenland, finding out just how cold RIB ops can be!

Some more Dutch Korps Mariniers, with a sinking feeling their camo might not be working

Finnish special forces are in Greenland having a blast…

Meanwhile, the current batch of Greenlandic territorials, the Arktisk Basisuddannelses, are probably not loving their training. Note the new Colt Canada C8s, though…

HMCS Robert Hampton Gray performs maneuvers with HDMS Thetis and CCGS George R. Pearkes during Operation Nanook-Tuugaalik on August 21, 2026. Photo: Corporal Paquette, Canadian Armed Forces Photo

ORP Mewa and HMCS Moncton conduct a mine-screening exercise alongside FS Auvergne while sailing astern of HMCS Ville De Québec during Operation Reassurance in the North Atlantic Ocean on 16 August 2026. Corporal Gregory Cole, Canadian Armed Forces Photo

With all of this naval and coast guard ship movement, it is of interest that a shore party of tourists from a passing cruise ship (!) came upon an old Soviet naval mine in Carlsberg Fjord (Kangerterajitta Itterterilaq), north of Ittoqqortoormiit in East Greenland.

Nope. Don’t like that on your beach walk…

For reference, the closest town to where the mine was found is Scoresbysund (Ittoqqortoormiit), a 300-person hamlet just 20 miles away as the crow flies, but is about 500 miles NW by air of Reykjavík and 900 miles from Nuuk, the capital of Greenland on the opposite side of the frozen subcontinent.

A det from the Royal Danish Navy UDT group (Søværnets Dykkertjeneste) helicoptered in and zapped said mine.

As to the mine’s origin, it likely floated at least 1,200 miles across the Barents and Greenland Sea from the Northern Norwegian coast (e.g., Kirkenes) or the Kola Peninsula and could very well have been laid during WWII.

Tundra Merlin? Don’t mind if I do

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Last week, the Canadian-led Operation Latitude and the U.S. Coast Guard-led Operation Frontier Sentinel overlapped in what was termed Operation Tundra Merlin in the Bering Sea.

It saw the U.S. Coast Guard Cutters Storis (WAGB 21), Fir (WLB 213), and Munro (WMSL 755) team up with the Royal Canadian Navy’s HMCS Max Bernays (AOPV 432) for a steaming evolution and photo ex conducted by an HC-130J out of Kodiak.

For reference, the red-hulled 13,000-ton Storis (formerly the polar tug Aiviq) is the country’s newest icebreaker, the black-hulled Fir is a 225-foot Juniper-class ocean-going buoy tender, and the white-hulled Munro is a 418-foot National Security Cutter. Meanwhile, Bernays is a 6,600-ton Harry DeWolf-class Arctic OPV.

The event was a five-day, 800-mile combined sail through the Bering Sea and Bering Strait to strengthen Arctic security, Jul. 20-24.

This came as the USCG monitored the Chinese research ship Xue Long, which transited north through the U.S. exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and over the U.S. extended continental shelf in the Bering Sea with a declared destination of the Arctic, and the Xue Long 2, another China-flagged research vessel transiting to the Arctic.

(U.S. Coast Guard photos by Petty Officer 3rd Class Cameron Snell)

As noted by the USCG PAO:

The combined transit demonstrated seamless binational defense in the Arctic. This collaborative effort under Operation Tundra Merlin strengthened tactical integration and validated the collective ability to secure maritime approaches within the Alaskan theater of operations.

It’s all positional

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How about this great series of photos of T/5 Walter Barnett of Oklahoma City, captured in July 1943 at Fort Pepperrell, Newfoundland, showing the correct form for riflery in sitting, prone, and standing positions with an M1 Garand. Note the M1941 “Daisy Mae” Army boonie hat, HBT dungarees, and M1938 leggings.

Photographer: Cpl. Howard Warner, 21st Sig. Serv. Co., Photo Source: U.S. National Archives. Digitized by Signal Corps Archive. SC 364548

Photographer: Cpl. Howard Warner, 21st Sig. Serv. Co., Photo Source: U.S. National Archives. Digitized by Signal Corps Archive. SC 364546

Photographer: Cpl. Howard Warner, 21st Sig. Serv. Co., Photo Source: U.S. National Archives. Digitized by Signal Corps Archive. SC 364549

All the above are great for training on a flat range, but often went out the window in more kinetic situations when the targets moved and returned fire.

For those curious, Fort Pepperrell was one of the British bases in the “Destroyers for Bases” deal between FDR and Churchill in 1940.

The first American troops, the “Old Guard” Regulars of the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment, arrived the following May, and by late 1942 some 5,500 yanks of all stripes were in attendance, ranging from Coastal Artillery and Army AAA units to Navy stevedores, civilian contractors, the USAAF’s 6604th Air Base Wing, and ground defense battalions. It was used primarily as a stepping stone to ship men and material across the Atlantic to Europe.

Following the post-war drawdown, the base transferred to the newly established USAF as Pepperrell AFB in 1947. Its runways and 208 buildings were handed over to the RCAF in 1961, well short of the original “99-year” lease.

A small portion of the old base is retained by the Canadian Forces as Garrison St. John’s under RCN control, with some 450 full-time military and civilian personnel, 1,500 reservists, and 5,000 cadets. Other sections are preserved as parks and have been developed for commercial use.

As to T/5 Burnett, I believe him to be Walter Loe Barnett, who graduated from Central High School, Oklahoma City, and served in the U. S. Army during WWII. He was 27 in the above photos (note the wedding ring). Post-war, he returned to the Sooner State, worked for Southwestern Bell for 42 years, and passed in 1997, aged 81. He left behind his wife, Peggy, and a host of family.

Can we give it up for the Air Demonstration Teams?

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Sure, the whole thing smacked a bit of “bread and circuses,” but you have to admit the Super Delta last weekend coming over the White House was stirring.

Who doesn’t love seeing the Blues and the Birds in one 12-plane formation?

Plus, it really shows how much larger the F-18E/F is over the F-16C/D.

Via White House.

The Navy’s Blue Angels and Air Force’s Thunderbirds fly in a 12-plane Super Delta formation over the Ellipse in Washington, June 14, 2026, ahead of the UFC Freedom 250 fights at the White House. Army Sgt. 1st Class Brittany Primavera

Similarly, the RAF’s No. 1 Group Red Arrows, tooling around in little Hawk T1As, made their appearance the same weekend over St. James during the Trooping of the Colors in London.

Pictured: His Majesty the King’s Birthday flypast over Buckingham Palace. Nine Hawk jets from the Red Arrows. The King’s Birthday Parade, also known as Trooping the Colour, is a celebration of the monarch’s official birthday in the United Kingdom.  

The Arrows have been active since 1964, making them much newer than the Blues (formed in 1946, flying F6F Hellcats) or the Birds (1953).

Speaking of demonstration teams, the Italian Frecce Tricolori (313° Gruppo Addestramento Acrobatico), which are three years older than the Arrows (they flew F-86 Sabres when formed), were recently in action over Rome with their Aermacchi MB-339-A/PAN trainers to celebrate the Festa della Repubblica.

I had just stayed in an Airbnb at the Argentina ruins, watching cats sunbathe, while in Italy visiting Benelli (more to come on that very soon!), and was sad I missed them.

Meanwhile, the Hawk Mk 132-borne Suryakiran Aerobatic Team of the Indian Air Force’s No. 52 Squadron just celebrated its 30th, and they look great.

Sadly, the RCAF’s Snowbirds, officially known as the 431 Air Demonstration Squadron, are hanging it up after 55 years as they retire their Cold War-vintage CT-114 Tutors in November.

They are supposed to be back in some form, possibly in 2030, with new Pilatus PC21s, but you know how the Labor government is with Defense spending, so don’t hold your breath.

They have like 20 more shows this season, including some in California, New York, and Ohio. After that, it will be the end of an era either way.

Pour one out for the Snows, fellas, and try to catch an airshow near you this summer. Take a kid or grandkid or three. They’ll love it.

Impressive for Yukon part timers

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The Yellowknife-based 1st Canadian Ranger Patrol Group (1 CRPG/GPRC) has wrapped up its stirring snowmobile-borne High Arctic sovereignty patrol.

Op Nanook-Nunalivut, supported by RCAF No. 440 Squadron and the Joint Task Force North, trekked over 3,200 miles across Canada’s “roof” showing the flag and visiting isolated communities that rarely see the military closer than a 30,000-foot flyover. Further, they were able to hold operations with other far-flung 1 CRPG patrols in the process.

Some stats from the accomplishment:

Now, explain to me why we aren’t doing this in Alaska?

Canucks Finally Ditch the S&W Wondernine

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I love a third-gen Smith & Wesson Wondernine. I mean, have you ever seen one? They look great and shoot like they look.

Thus:

My circa 1993 S&W 5906. A functional work of art

Canada’s federal law enforcement agencies, the famed Mounties of the RCMP/GRC and the fish cops of Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), have used the S&W 5946 since the early 1990s, adopting it to replace the older K-frame .38 revolvers (such as the S&W Model 10) that had been in use since 1952.

The DAO RCMP S&W 5946 has the silhouette of a horse-mounted Mountie lancer on the slide. Would be great if these made it to the surplus market

Going even further back, they carried the Colt New Service from 1905, which replaced assorted Adams and Enfield wheel guns used in the North West Mounted Police days as far back as 1873.

With the 5946 out of production since 1999 and generally not supported for the past 15 years, Ottawa has been looking to get something newer.

That search has cumulated with a $28,457,482.08 ($38,976,365.69 CAD) contract awarded to Canadian distributor Rampart Corporation to supply Canadian federal police with a new duty pistol system.

The new system includes the Glock 45 MOS 7 pistol with Ameriglo suppressor-height night sights, a 725-lumen Streamlight TLR-7X white light, an Aimpoint Acro P-2 enclosed red dot sight, a NANUK 910 storage case, and a Safariland 6360RDS duty holster. The contract also included blue training guns, spare parts, at least three mags per pistol, lanyards, etc.

The choice came as zero surprise to me.

I wrote a series of articles for the Glock Annual between 2020 and 2024, primarily profiles of LE agencies that recently went Glock, and by far the most popular combo for the departments I interviewed was the G45 with an ACRO.

It has quickly become the gold standard for LE use.

So much so that Glock released a G45 MOS with a factory-direct mounted Aimpoint Acro P-2 already installed to the consumer market in February 2024.

Further, while I like a 650-lumen/66,000 candela Surefire X300T for heavy lifting with a duty pistol, the TLR-7 series flush fits on G19/45s and makes an easy and flush-nosed holster fit, and its 725-lumen/9,500 candela throw is surely better than nothing.

Retail per outfitted gun is around $1,800, not counting spare parts and training guns, with wholesale closer to $1,400, so you can imagine between 15,000-20,000 equipped pistols will be acquired. This tracks as the RCMP has 19,000 sworn officers while the FO/DFO has about 600.

The Canadians made a good choice.

Would be nice to see those old 5946s on the surplus market, however.

Stirring news from the Great North!

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Updates from Ice Camp, 1 CRPG, and the Marines in Norway.

So much great content has been coming from Ice Camp 26 (Boarfish), which is running for three weeks in the Beufort Sea with the surfaced USS Delaware (SSN 791) and Santa Fe (SSN 763)— marking the 100th American ice surfacings, along with personeel from U.S. Marine Corps, Air National Guard, Royal Australian Navy, Royal Canadian Navy, Royal Canadian Air Force, French Navy, Royal United Kingdom Navy, Norwegian Defence Research Institute, and the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology.

Beaufort Sea, Arctic Circle – Operation ICE CAMP 2026 participants from Arctic Submarine Lab, Naval Facilities Engineering and Expeditionary Warfare Center Detachment San Diego, Underwater Construction Team (UCT) TWO, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Ukpeaġvik Iñupiat Corporation Science, and various U.S. Navy commands pose for a photo at ICE CAMP Boarfish 2026, Mar. 17. (U.S. Navy Photo by Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Jacob D. Bergh)

Add to this the stuff coming from the 2,800-mile snowmobile-borne High Arctic sovereignty patrol of the Yellowknife-based 1st Canadian Ranger Patrol Group (1 CRPG/GPRC), which is visiting 17 remote communities across the country’s arctic regions. The patrol has reached Naujaat and Hudson Bay, and is finally turning South.

1 CRPG GPRC Canadian Rangers Long Range patrol at Kugaaruk radar station

1 CRPG/GPRC Canadian Rangers Long Range patrol at the long abandoned circa 1903 NWMP barracks, on Hudson Bay’s Cape Fullerton

Finally, check out this great U.S. Marine Corps video by Sgt. Noah Masog highlighting Exercise Cold Response 26 in Norway.

Godspeed, Artemis (which is filled with Hornet drivers)

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NASA/Bill Ingalls

It looks like we are closer than ever to NASA’s 322-foot-tall Artemis II Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft to lift off from Launch Complex 39B at Kennedy Space Center.

Commander (Navy Capt.) Reid Wiseman, Pilot (Navy Capt.) Victor Glover, and Mission Specialist Christina Koch from NASA, along with Mission Specialist (RCAF Capt) Jeremy Hansen from the Canadian Space Agency, are set for a 10-day mission around the Moon and back.

Interestingly, three of the four (all but Koch) are F-18 pilots, with both Glover and Wiseman being Naval Aviators who logged combat hours with VFAs from carriers. Meanwhile, Hansen stood QRA with the RCAF’s now-disbanded 441st TFS on NORAD tasking out of Cold Lake. Of note, the RCAF motto is Sic Itur Ad Astra (“Such is the pathway to the stars”), which tracks.

Two with Wings of Gold! Official crew portrait for Artemis II, from left: NASA astronauts Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Wiseman, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen. Josh Valcarcel/NASA

They have a heady task ahead.

It will be the first time Artemis and Orion are on a manned mission.

It will be the largest moon mission in terms of crew, with the Apollo trips having three members.

Although they are just sling-shotting around it and not landing, it will be the first time a spacefaring crew has gone to the moon since Apollo 17 in 1972– back when analog technology and slide rules were standard.

NASA expects that on 6 April, Artemis II will break Apollo 13’s record of 248,655 miles from Earth, making its four humans the furthest-traveled in known history.

Finally, when they come back home, they will reenter the atmosphere in excess of 25,000 mph, the fastest humans have done such a feat. Now that last tidbit is the pucker factor in an expedition filled with pucker factors.

You can watch the launch live on NASA’s YouTube channel with a targeted launch time of 6:24 p.m. EST on Wednesday.

Warship Wednesday (on a Tuesday) 31 March 2026: Good Luck Sometimes Runs Thin

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Here at LSOZI, we take a break every Wednesday to explore the old steam/diesel navies from 1833 to 1954, profiling a different ship each week. These ships have a life, a tale all their own, which sometimes takes them to the strangest places.- Christopher Eger

If you enjoy my always ad-free Warship Wednesday content, you can support it by buying me a cup of joe at https://buymeacoffee.com/lsozi As Henk says: “Warship Coffee – no sugar, just a pinch of salt!”

Warship Wednesday (on a Tuesday) 31 March 2026: Good Luck Sometimes Runs Thin

Admiralty photo by LT Sidney James Beadell, Royal Naval Voluntary Reserve (Sp), Imperial War Museum catalog A 1725

Above we see the twin 5.25″/50 QF Mark II DP gun turrets A, B, and Q forward of the very open bridge of the Royal Navy’s Dido-class light cruiser HMS Bonaventure (31), circa 1940. Note the compass platform and the canvas-covered rangefinder in the foreground.

Often credited with helping to spoil the attack of the much larger German super heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper on Convoy WS 5A– firing 438 rounds from the above three forward turrets in the space of only 24 minutes– Bonaventure gave her last full measure some 85 years ago today, just a short ten months after she was rushed into service.

The Didos

The Didos were very light cruisers indeed, designed in 1936 to weigh just 5,600 tons standard displacement, though this would later swell during wartime service to nearly 8,000 tons. Some 512 feet long, they were smaller than a modern destroyer, but, on a powerplant of four Admiralty 3-drum boilers and four Parsons steam turbines, each with its own dedicated shaft, they could break 32.5 knots on 62,000 shp.

They were intended to be armed with 10 5.25″/50 (13.4 cm) QF Mark II DP guns in five twin mounts, three forward and two over the stern, although most of the class failed to carry this layout.

Bow 5.25″/50 turrets on HMS Hermione as she enters Malta Harbor in September 1941. The muzzles of her third forward “Q” turret can just be seen above the crane at the upper left. She, along with Euryalus, Naiad, and Sirius, was the only Dido that completed with the full battery of five twin 5.25-inch mounts, largely due to a shortage of such guns. IWM A 5772.

The Dido class had provision for up to 360 rounds for “A”, “B” and “Q” turrets, 320 rounds for “X” turret and 300 rounds for “Y” turret and a properly trained crew could rattle them off at 7-8 shots per minute per gun out to a range of 23,400 yards or a ceiling of 46,500 feet when used in the AAA role. The fact that one of these cruisers could burp 70-80 shells within a 60-second mad minute gave them a lot of potential if used properly. However, this didn’t play out in reality, at least when it came to swatting incoming aircraft.

Gunnery booklet laying out the general plan of a Dido-class cruiser

As noted by Richard Worth in his Fleets of World War II, “Often referred to as AA cruisers, the 16 Dido-type ships shot down a total of 15 enemy planes. The entirety of British cruiser-dom accounted for only 97 planes, while enemy planes accounted for 11 British cruisers.”

Nonetheless, these vessels carried a decent (for the era) secondary AAA batteries as well.

Originally fitted with two quad .50-caliber Vickers guns, these were augmented with five single 20mm Oerlikons, whose numbers were further expanded until the ship carried over a dozen in twin mounts by the end of the war.

She was also equipped with a variety of quadruple 2 pdr 40mm MK VIII pom-pom guns on Mk.VII mountings.

WRNS visit Dido-class cruiser Euryalus of the Mediterranean Fleet, 3 May 1942, Alexandria. A Wren with her bearded Supply Petty Officer escort on the pom-pom platform. IWM A 8830 http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205142750

Meet Bonaventure

Our subject is at least the 10th RN warship to carry the Latin term for “good fortune” since 1489, giving her nine battle honors carried forward (Lowestoft 1665, Four Days’ Battle 1666, Orfordness 1666, Solebay 1672, Schooneveldt 1673, Texel 1673, Beachy Head 1690, Barfleur 1693, and China 1900).

The immediately preceding ninth Bonaventure was an Astraea-class second-class cruiser commissioned in 1894 and used mostly as a submarine depot ship until broken up in 1920.

“HMS Bonaventure and submarines” circa 1911 by William Lionel Wyllie. RMG PW2083. Inscribed, as title, and signed by the artist, lower right. The ‘Bonaventure’ (1892) was a second-class protected cruiser converted to a submarine depot ship in 1907. This finished watercolor shows the ship in her 1911-14 condition. Both the ‘Bonaventure’ and the trawler tender on the left are flying large red flags, advising other vessels to keep clear of a submarine operating area. 

Ordered from Scotts of Greenock on 21 March 1937 under the 1937 Programme, our future Dido-class Bonaventure was laid down on 30 August the same year as Yard No. 575 and launched on 19 April 1939, officially having a peacetime hull.

Bonaventure shared the same armament fit as class leader Dido and sister Phoebe, with her four twin 5.25″/40s (as opposed to five mounts as seen on Naiad, Euryalus, Hermione, Sirius, Cleopatra, and Argonaut), a single 4″/45 QF Mk V starshell gun in the position of her “X” turret (only ever seen on these three cruisers and Charybdis due to a shortage in the supply of the new 5.25s), two quad Vickers 40/39 2pdr QF Mk VIII pom poms, two quad Vickers 50 cals (guns just seen on the first six Didos, replaced on the latter vessels by Oerlikons) and the univesal torpedo tube fit of two triple 21-inch tubes.

On 24 May 1940, amid the evacuation from Dunkirk, Bonaventure was commissioned for Contractor’s Trials and accepted on 19 June, just days before the Fall of France.

Her plankowner skipper was Henry Jack Egerton, a 48-year-old Mountfield-born Englishman listed in the peerage (grandson of 1st Earl Brassey) who started “taking the king’s shilling” as a Mid in 1909. Serving as a junior officer during the Great War, he shipped aboard the battleship HMS Agincourt, the cruiser Caledon, and the battlecruiser Repulse. Interwar, he passed out of the Senior Officers’ War Course at Greenwich and the Imperial Defence Course before moving into the captain’s cabin of the destroyer Bridgewater, his first command, in 1936. When WWII began, he was commanding officer of the Emerald-class light cruiser Enterprise with the 4th CS on Atlantic escort duties.

War photographer LT Sidney James Beadell, RNVR, captured a series of images of “Britain’s latest light cruiser” and her skipper and XO, CDR Edward Francis Disbrowe, RN.

IWM A 1733

IWM A 1732

IWM A 1739

IWM A 1731

Note her two H-aerial (separate transmitting and receiving antennas) 70kW Type 279 A-band radar atop her mainmast, good for a theoretical 60nm for high altitude targets and about 2-6nm for surface targets. IWM A 1730

Note her missing “turret. IWM A 1734

Left: Captain E J Egerton, RN, and (Right) Commander E F Disbrowe, RN. Disbrowe, 39, had joined up in 1919 and had previously commanded the Acacia-class sweeping sloop HMS Laburnum out of Singapore. IWM (A 1735)

War! (Already in progress)

After just a couple weeks of trials and exercises in the Clyde followed by a short yard period to address defects, Bonaventure sailed out on 5 July to escort the liners Monarch of Bermuda, Batory, and Sobieski for Halifax– all loaded with £25 million in gold from the Bank of England, sent abroad for safekeeping in Canada should Mr. Hitler cross the Channel as part of Operation Fish. The little convoy was joined at sea by the battleship HMS Revenge and three destroyers.

On her return from the Canada run, Bonaventure was assigned to the 15th Cruiser Squadron, Home Fleet at Scapa Flow, and she shipped out with HMS Naiad to patrol the Faeroes for German blockade runners in late August.

HMS Bonaventure as seen from the destroyer HMS Javelin, August 1940, in the Firth of Forth. Note her four-turret arrangement. Photo by Reginald George Guy Coote, IWM (A 443).

By 6 September, she was part of Operation DF, a carrier raid built around HMS Furious on German shipping in the occupied Trondheim area.

The next month saw Operations DN 2/DNU which aimed to bag a group of 20 German fishing vessels and a patrol ship that were reported off Egersund. Only the 300-ton weather ship WBS 5 (ex-Adolf Vinnen) was found and sunk north of Iceland, sent to the bottom by detached destroyers.

November saw Bonaventure scrabbled to join the unsuccessful hunt (alongside Hood and Repulse) for the German pocket battleship Admiral Scheer after the latter attacked convoy HX 84, with our new cruiser sustaining weather damage to her foc’sle in the rough North Atlantic.

Nominated for duty in the Mediterranean Fleet with the rest of the 15th CS, Bonaventure put in for repair at Rosyth and was then assigned to escort the slow Middle East military Convoy WS (Winston Special) 5A, its 18 transports packed with 40,000 troops, from UK ports to the Suez. WS5A started leaving on 18/19 December and by Christmas Eve was some 700 miles West of Spain’s Cape Finisterre, where they stumbled across the bruising 18,000-ton German heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper on her Operation Nordseetour raid.

Not what you want to see chasing you if you are a British light cruiser.

While the convoy had two carriers attached (Furious and Argus), they only had a bare handful of two Swordfish of 825 NAS and three Skuas of 801 NAS available for ASW duties; the rest of their hangars and decks were packed with aircraft being ferried to Takoradi in Ghana.

That left the primary line of defense against Hipper in the hands of the County-class heavy cruiser HMS Berwick, our Bonaventure, and the old 4,000-ton Danae-class light cruiser Dunedin. While Berwick carried eight 8″/50s and went some 13,000 tons, her armor was thin. Likewise, Dunedin carried slow 6″/45 Mk XIIs, which had been all but replaced in RN service.

Hipper had made contact with the convoy with her DeTe radar at some 23km out late on Christmas Eve. Closing to 6,600 meters unseen, she attempted an unsuccessful three-fish long-range night torpedo attack at 0153 on Christmas, then closed for a gun action at 0639 in a heavy gale with whitecaps. Over the next 36 minutes, Berwick and Bonaventure fought Hipper at long range, with Dunedin laying smoke and the convoy dispersed, the weather dropping visibility to less than a mile. The Brits used Hipper’s gun flashes as an aiming point, with the German boogeyman turning to retire.

Berwick got the worst of the encounter, hit by at least four of Hipper’s 8-inch AP shells (which, for the most part, passed right through the ship), knocking out her X turret, killing four of her crew, and sending her to the yard for seven months. Hipper also landed an 8-inch shell on the liner/transport Empire Trooper (ex-German Cap Norte, 13,994 GRT), having fired 174 shells in the encounter, and a 4.1-inch DP shell hit on the freighter Arabistan (5,874 GRT). Hipper made Brest on 27 December.

For Bonaventure’s part, she fired a “prodigious amount of 5.25in shell,” some 438 rounds, from her forward six guns in 24 minutes at Hipper, who came away with no damage. I mean, that is probably understandable for the low visibility and heavy seas of the encounter, and her performance was mirrored by sisters Cleopatra and Euryalus, who fired 868 and 421 5.25-inch shells at the Battle of Second Sirte in 1942 and hit as many Italian ships as Bonaventure did Germans on Christmas ’40.

Sent to look for the damaged Empire Trooper-– which she located– Bonaventure got something of a consolation prize by encountering the 8,300-ton German blockade runner Baden on Boxing Day, sending the HAPAG freighter to the bottom via torpedo– as the weather conditions did not allow boarding– about 325 nautical miles northeast of Ponta Delgada in the Azores. All 39 crew members were rescued and taken to Gibraltar, with their skipper, Capt. Max Schaefer, reporting on the three-day ride on the cruiser: “The accommodation on board was very primitive, but the food was plentiful and good.”

The HAPAG steamer Baden was sent to the bottom by Bonaventure while coming from Tenerife and bound for occupied France.

January 1941 saw Bonaventure outbound from Gibraltar and involved in the periphery of Operation Ration, the interdiction of a four-ship Vichy convoy off Oran. Then came convoy ops in the Med to Malta (Operations Excess and Operation MC 4) with our cruiser generally credited with shooting down at least one (and up to three) attacking Italian Savoia bombers on the 9th.

By February, she was operating from Suda Bay with other cruisers of CS15 and took part in Operation Abstention, the failed commando raid on the Italian island of Casteloriso (Castelelorizo).

Dido-class cruiser HMS Bonaventure steaming at high speed in the Med, early 1941

March saw her with Force C, supporting Convoy MW 6 to Malta, where she survived a near miss from a German bomber, just narrowly missing the Battle of Cape Matapan.

Returning to Alexandria, Bonaventure joined Force A at sea on the 29th to escort another convoy, GA 8, from Piraeus, Greece. The convoy heading from Greece to Alexandria with the transports HMS Breconshire and Cameronia, along with the destroyers HMAS Stuart, HMS Griffin, and HMS Hereward, was soon being bird-dogged by Italian submarines.

Bonaventure came away from a night attack mounted by the Italian Adua-class submarine Dagabur (TV Domenico Romano) at 2037 on 30 March, with both of the sub’s fired torpedoes missing at 3,000 meters.

Our cruiser was not as lucky, just six hours later, when the Italian Perla-class coastal submarine Ambra (TV Mario Arillo) came across her while about 100 nm south-south-east of Crete.

Via Uboat.net:

At 0237 hours, Ambra was proceeding on the surface when, from the bridge, S.T.V. Ignazio Spinale observed a shadow in the mist at a distance of 2,000 meters, followed by another at about 1,000 meters.

At 0244 hours, three torpedoes were fired from bow tubes at 4-second intervals. After a lapse of time, T.V. Arillo thought the torpedoes had missed. He was about to order the firing of more torpedoes when a double explosion was observed. He immediately gave orders to crash-dive. ASDIC pings (described as “Hastings” in the Italian report) were heard, and many depth charges followed, but the submarine escaped.

Bonaventure sank in six minutes, taking 139 souls with her, including her XO, CDR Disbrowe. Stuart and Hereward heaved to and picked up 310 survivors. She was the third of HM’s cruisers taken out of action in the last week of March in the region.

The cruiser is often billed as the largest warship sunk by Italian submarines in WWII.

She was in the first batch of a staggering 206 Allied vessels lost in the Eastern Med during the Greek/Crete campaign and its follow-on evacuation between 28 March and 1 June.

Bonaventure’s slayer: the 600-ton. 197-foot Italian Perla-class coastal submarine Ambra. She was knocked out of service by RAF Wellingtons in 1943 and sent to the bottom for good by USAAF B-17s the following year

Of Bonaventure’s sisters, Charybdis, Hermione, Spartan, and Naiad were all lost during the conflict. Classmate HMS Scylla was badly damaged by a mine in June 1944 and was never repaired.

Epilogue

Our ship and her lost men are remembered by The Wartime Memories Project in the UK and For Posterity’s Sake in Canada, as at least two of her final complement hailed from the RCN/RCNVR.

Bonaventure’s only skipper, Jack Egerton, survived his ship. He continued in the cruiser trade, going on to command the familiar Berwick from Admiral Hipper fame while escorting convoys to North Russia, was named an ADC to the King, and ended the war as Senior British Officer in Russia then later became Captain in Charge, Singapore/Malaya with a CB on his chest before moving to the Retired List in 1948, capping 39 years in uniform. VADM Henry Jack Egerton, C.B., RN, passed in Coxwold in 1972, aged 80, and is buried in St Helen and the Holy Cross Churchyard in North Yorkshire with his wife. His eldest son. LT Edward Gervase Egerton, RN, was killed in action at Dieppe in 1942, aged 22. His younger son, Col. Christopher Charles “Kit” Egerton, M.C., passed in 1970, a former commander of the 15th/19th Hussars.

Captain E J Egerton, RN, as seen aboard Bonaventure, May 1940. By Beadle, IWM (A 1737).

The final Bonaventure (F139), the command and depot ship for the newly formed X/XE-craft of the 14th Submarine Flotilla, entered service in 1943 and, by extension, went on to be the most decorated ship in the fleet, her submariners earning no less than 4 VCs, 3 CBEs, 11 DSOs, a OBE, 10 MBEs, 17 DSCs, 6 CGMs, 12 BSMs, 4 BEMs, and over 100 MiDs from her deck during WWII. She returned to commercial service in 1948 and was scrapped in 1963.

HMS Bonaventure, Xcraft mothership, IWM 30564

Somehow, the RN has not seen fit to recycle the name.

Thanks for reading!

Meminisse est ad Vivificandum – To Remember is to Keep Alive

***

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