Corvettes Canada: Convoy Veterans of World War II Tell Their True Stories加拿大轻巡洋舰：二次大战护航老兵讲的真实故事

作者： Mac Johnston著

出 版 社：

出版时间： 2008-6-1字数：版次： 1页数： 243印刷时间： 2008/06/01开本： 24开印次： 1纸张： 胶版纸I S B N ： 9780470154298包装： 精装编辑推荐

作者简介

Mac Johnston has recently retired from his post as Editor and General Manager of Legion Magazine. He has travelled extensively to Canadian battle sites, war cemeteries and memorials around the world. Mac is well regarded and well connected in the universe of the Canadian military. He is a former parliamentary reporter and past member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery. He resides in Ottawa.

内容简介

The Canadian escort group C 2 was comprised of the RCN destroyers Gatineau and Chaudiere, the frigate St. Catharines, the Corvettes Chilliwack and Fennel, and the RN destroyer Icarus. these six and the RN corvette Kenilworth castle combined to sing U-744 in the North Atlantic in a prolonged drama on March 5 and 6, 1944. At 32 hours, this the second-longest successful hunt of the war.

Chilliwack able seaman Ralph Chartrand recalls the action:

When the sub started to surface, everything that could shoot went into action and we fired all we could. While the crew of U-744 was jumping out of the conning tower, St. Catharines was closing in, but our captain outmanoeuvred Chilliwack in front to make sure that this was our sub. He gave the order "Prepare to ram," but soon the sub was empty, so we didn't ram. We lowered a lifeboat with a boarding party and they proceeded to U-744. While the lifeboat was tied to the sub, some members boarded the sub. then a big wave hit our lifeboat and flipped the crew into the water with the German Sailors. We took 17 prisoners on board.

It was almost a major coup. Three lifeboats reached the Type VII C boat. German code books and the cypher machine were seized, but all three seaboats capsized in the rough sea and only one book was saved. All the Canadians were picked up. So, too, were 40 Germans. Icarus then dispatched the unsalable U-744 with a torpedo. Eleven Germans died, including the captain.

目录

Introduction.

Map of Atlantic Ocean Convoy Routes.

Acknowledgments.

Chapter 1. "They didn't even have uniforms for Us"/The race to Build escorts.

Chapter 2. "There was nothing like an echo to shake you up"/Corvette and U-boat Capabilities.

Chapter 3. "Engine stopped and lights glaring, but you had no time to think of death"/The Iceland Run, 1941.

Chapter 4. "Blood brothers to a cork when it came to riding out a rough sea"/Bad weather and the first corvette losses.

Chapter 5. "I do remember him telling me it was so cold on the North Atlantic, so cold..."/The sinking of HMCS Spikenard.

Chapter 6. "I met my husband at the Staten Island USO"/The main convoy routes,1942.

Chapter 7. "You can imagine what a smelly, dirty-looking crew we were after a few days at sea"/Living conditions aboard corvettes.

Chapter 8. "If you want real tough, take life aboard a corvette while seasick"/Seasickness.

Chapter 9. "One dollar per day per man at sea"/Food and cooks.

Chapter 10. "Wartime at sea in the Atlantic was certainly a far cry from the relatively quiet time in the Pacific"/New theatres, 1942.

Chapter 11. "From the bridge above came the captain's command--Abandon Ship!'"/The Mediterranean, 1942-43.

Chapter 12. "The winter, the sea -- these were the enemy"/From rough to ready,1943.

Chapter 13. "It's morale that's important"/Corvette life and characters.

Chapter 14. "There was no flash -- just a huge wall of water into the sky"/The Slogging continues, 1944.

Chapter 15. "A few days later we learned that we had been searching for Glenn Miller...No wreckage was ever found"/The English channel, 1944-45.

Chapter 16. "The war is Over! Splice the main brace"/war's end to present.

Bibliography.

Index.