| Abstract |
"The years 2019 to 2025 mark the 80th anniversary of the longest battle of the Second World War. The Battle of the Atlantic also proved to be the war’s most critical and dramatic battles of attrition. For five and a half years, German surface warships and submarines attempted to destroy Allied trans-Atlantic convoys, mostly escorted by Royal Canadian destroyers and corvettes, as well as aircraft of Royal Canadian Air Force. Throwing deadly U-boat ‘wolf packs’ in the paths of the convoys, the German Kriegsmarine almost succeeded in cutting off this vital life line to a beleaguered Great Britain. In 1939, the Royal Canadian Navy went to war with exactly thirteen warships and about 3,500 regular servicemen and reservists. During the desperate days and nights of the Battle of the Atlantic, the RCN grew to 400 fighting ships and over 100,000 men and women in uniform. By V-E Day in 1945, it had become the fourth largest navy in the world. The Battle of the Atlantic lasted 2,074 days. It claimed more than 4,000 lives--men and women in the Royal Canadian Navy, the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Canadian Merchant Navy. It was Canada’s longest continuous military engagement of the Second World War. The story of Canada’s naval awakening from the dark, bloody winters of 1939-1942, to be ready-aye-ready to challenge the U-boats, indeed to drive them to defeat 1943-1945, is a Canadian wartime saga for the ages. While Canadians think of the Great War battle of Vimy Ridge as Canada’s coming of age, it was the Battle of the Atlantic that proved to be Canada’s gauntlet to victory and a nation-building milestone."-- Provided by publisher. |
