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Gulf of St. Lawrence

The Second World War

Date

May to October 1942 and September to November 1944

Geographical parameters

The Gulf of St. Lawrence from Quebec City to Cabot Strait and the Strait of Belle Isle.

Context

Eligible to warships that participated in anti-submarine operations in the geographical area. An area battle honour formally entitled “Gulf of St. Lawrence” with year dates according to the service of the unit concerned Footnote 1.

Description

In July 1942 the German U-boats U165 and U 517 were dispatched from their base in Lorient, France to the east coast of Canada. The two boats entered the Gulf of St Lawrence where U 165, which was in the lead, encountered the eight-ship convoy QS 33 en route for Sydney, Nova Scotia from Quebec City. On 3 September 1942, near the town of Matane, Quebec, U 165 fired two torpedoes at the convoy, one of which passed in front of, and the other underneath, one of the convoy escorts, HMCS Raccoon. The Raccoon was an armed yacht taken into service in 1940 because of the great shortage of warships in the Royal Canadian Navy. It was now tasked to be the rear escort out of five that were shepherding QS 33 down-river. Raccoon reacted to the torpedo attack by following the tracks back towards their source and dropping depth charges but without finding anything.

A few days later, in the early hours of 7 September 1942, the ships of QS 33 heard explosions to their rear where Raccoon was normally stationed. Thinking it was Raccoon carrying out a depth charge attack they sailed on. Having no radio communications, the only method of passing information would be by light signal and that was not a simple means of communications. It was only with the coming of the dawn that the convoy realized that the armed yacht was missing. The subsequent search could not locate her and only some weeks later was the body of one of her officers washed ashore.

HMCS Raccoon had fallen victim to torpedoes fired from U 517. Four days after sinking the Canadian armed yacht U 517 encountered two more Canadian warships. HMCS Charlottetown, a corvette, and the minesweeper HMCS Clayoquot, were returning to their base at Gaspé, Quebec after having escorted convoy SQ 35 to Quebec City. Near the mouth of the River Saguenay the German submarine put two torpedoes into Charlottetown’s starboard side. The ship sank in about four minutes giving most of the surviving crew time to launch one life boat and some Carley floats. As the ship sank stern-first one of her own depth charges went off killing men in the water. The fatal casualties were one officer, the captain, and nine ratings.

In 1944 a new HMCS Charlottetown was launched, this ship being a frigate. It too would serve in the Gulf of St Lawrence but would survive the war.

Awarded to:

Ships in commission Footnote 2

Ships not currently in commission

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