If Derelicts Could Speak: HMCS Cape Breton, Matane and Coaticook

HMCS Cape Breton (K350), Faroe Islands, October 12, 1944.

 

by T. W. Paterson

Canada’s fighting ladies of the Second World War: where are they now? What has become of these warriors in gray, many of whom were born in British Columbia shipyards or served on this coast, during the past quarter-century of “peace?”

For some, the final paying-off ceremony has meant new life and useful service as a civilian. For others, the end of hostilities and a decommissioning has meant lingering death in an up-Island break­water, the ignominious tow to a foreign scrap yard or, for a few, dramatic death on the high seas.

Probably the single exception—and, as far as her service record goes, sole survivor—is HMCS Cape Breton. The old fleet maintenance vessel has, in fact, served two nations during her 27-year career; first with the Royal Navy, in 1945, joining the RCN as a floating training ship in 1953. Trans­ferred from Halifax to Esquimalt five years after, Cape Breton served as den mother to the west coast fleet until placed in reserve in 1964.

Although she never again will put to sea, the dowager yet enjoys a worthwhile role. Her engines removed, she is permanently berthed in Dockyard. At first this duty, after three years’ idleness, had involved acting as floating hotel to men from ships undergoing refit, her complete workshops aiding in the repairs. However, even these lighter tasks have been reduced and, today, only the 10,000-ton Cape Breton’s mess facilities are used steadily.

It may seem a somewhat undignified end to those who are fascinated by ships and the sea. But the aging lady in Esquimalt can take comfort in the fact that she has outlived most of her wartime sisters—if not her namesake. For the original HMCS Cape Breton, frigate, exists yet, although in considerably unhappier circumstances than her successor to this honorable title.

Few who view her remains today would link this rusting hulk and her forlorn comrades in the Kelsey Bay death watch with the historic battle of the North Atlantic. Yet if these breakwater derelicts could speak, they could tell of the dreaded U-boat, of convoy duty in a frigid sea. While guarding the precarious lifeline of war materials between America and Europe that spelled survival and eventual victory for the Allies.

HMCS Cape Breton’s wartime career began with her commissioning in late October 1943. Built in the Quebec City shipyard of Morton Engineering and Drydock Co., the new frigate immediately sailed for Sydney, Nova Scotia, in whose honor she had been named, to begin her new role as convoy escort.

Upon having final adjustments made to her gear in Halifax, she sailed in February 1944, as additional escort to Convoy HX-280, joining the Sixth Escort Group in Londonderry. Repairs to her Asdic dome, damaged during the North Atlantic passage, however, meant further delay in an Irish drydock before she finally took up her duties with EG-6 the following month. Then, after two uneventful patrols, EG-6 was assigned to the notorious Murmansk run.

Cape Breton’s luck “held” once more, the 21-ship anti-submarine escort having little to do on the outbound passage. But the return voyage, to quote the official record, was something else again, being “strongly opposed.”

“At 1803 on 30 April, when the convoy was steering westward 50 miles south of Bear Island, and just clear of the sea ice, the SS William S. Thayer, carrying Russian naval passengers, was torpedoed. Two minutes later, Cape Breton (four and a half miles ahead of the convoy’s starboard column) sighted a U-boat beyond some ice and twice attacked it with hedgehog. However, her movements were hindered by the ice and she lost the contact. At 0727 the next day she sighted another U-boat when she was out on the starboard beam of the convoy. She made Asdic contact, and attacked, but without visible result.”

But if Cape Breton and her sister frigates and accompanying destroyers were having little success, aircraft from the carrier HMS Diadem boasted no less than three kills in two days, sinking the U-277, U-674 and U-959. This triple victory apparently blunted the underwater onslaught, for the convoy continued unopposed, EG-6 entering Scapa Flow on 4 May.

EG-6’s next assignment promised to be even busier: D-Day. For the remainder of May, the flotilla prepared for the coming invasion. By the end of the month, they were ready to sail from Moelfre Bay, Anglesea, to take up their stations. With five other escort groups, and bolstered by two aircraft carriers, Operation “CA” saw the ships form an anti-submarine net across the entrance to the English Channel and in the Bay of Biscay.

So impregnable was this floating wall of steel that not a single U-boat succeeded in penetrating the channel—not for want of trying, although Operation CA came and passed without EG-6 seeing any action, and Normandy changed the course of history.

The dramatic and irreversible shift in the fortunes of war meant that the German un­terseeboote fleet had at long last to abandon its bases in the Biscay ports, which also meant that EG-6’s Channel operations and duties with the Portsmouth Command were ended. Thus, late in September 1944, the squadron sailed north for Scapa Flow, commencing its first patrol between the Orkneys and Faeroes immediately. This time the prey were the U-boats slipping into the Atlantic from German and Norwegian bases. Within two weeks, the group made its first kill, HMCS Annan claiming the inbound U-1006.

Five days later, EG-6 returned to Londonderry, where Cape Breton was reassigned as relief for HMCS Stonetown of C-8 Group, Halifax-bound in charge of Convoy ON‑261. This meant that, after handing over the Gulf section of the convoy to its St. Lawrence River escort, Cape Breton returned to Halifax after a hectic absence of eight months.

Ordered on to Shelburne to enter refit, the frigate remained in the hands of dockyard workers until 20 March 1945, clearing for Halifax the next day. Curiously, although the war in Europe had but seven weeks to go, Cape Breton’s last crack at the enemy occurred while en route to Halifax. To her company’s bitter disappointment, the engagement was short-lived, the RCN record stating tersely: “On passage to Halifax that day, Cape Breton made contact with a U-boat, but, being just out of refit, she did not have a full outfit of ammunition aboard, and her organization was not ‘worked up.’”

Consequently the enemy escaped unscathed. When finally the frigate was ready for sea, she was dispatched to Bermuda to work up when, after brief calls at Sydney and St. John’s, she proceeded to Londonderry, escorting Convoy HX-354 during the latter part of her voyage.

Then it was over. May 8, 1945—V‑E Day—brought a drastic change of orders: instead of joining EG-9, she was directed to Vancouver, via Bermuda and the Panama Canal, to undergo refit for tropical service in the Pacific, over half of her 150-man company having volunteered for this duty.

Three days out of Londonderry, in empty seas, the frigate’s crew raced to action stations when her Asdic operator reported an unidentified contact. It proved to be a false alarm, and HMCS Cape Breton’s last wartime alert. Upon arrival in Vancouver, she entered Burrard Drydock for refit, all work on the weary warrior being halted when the nuclear holocausts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki signaled the end of hostilities in the Pacific. At Esquimalt she landed her stores and, three months after, in January of 1946, she was sold to Wagner, Steine and Greene Co. (Capital Iron and Metals Ltd.).

At least three other wartime sisters, and an old coastal freighter, stand watch with Cape Breton. The faded insignia K-670 and K-678 identify the frigates Fort Erie and Runnymede. From our vantage point on the terminal parking lot, two summers ago, we had been unable to discern the number of the remaining frigate. Alas, the official record is tragically scant also. Of HMCS Fort Erie and Runnymede, Ottawa replied: “We regret that information material … (is) not available and it is not at present possible to undertake their com­pilation.” Local sources yielded little more. So soon we forget!

Fate has been no kinder over the past quarter-century to other Second World War veterans who continue in this ignoble, if practical, capacity. Besides Kelsey Bay, there is the better-known breakwater of Royston, also a graveyard of broken ships, several of which date back to the romantic age of sail. Here also are the bones of the wartime River class frigates Prince Rupert, Dunver and Eastview; also the destroyer HMCS Gatineau.

Yet another veteran to survive a quarter-century as a breakwater derelict is HMCS Matane, now abandoned at Oyster Bay. Daily, hundreds of passersby on the Island Highway view her forlorn hulk in the shallow depths several hundred yards from shore. If only she could speak! For this old frigate, ravaged by time and man, escaped total destruction by the hair-breadth of a miracle, thirty years ago.

Although, today, she retains little of the graceful, sturdy lines which once identified her as a fighting unit of the Royal Canadian Navy, old K-444 saw considerable action in her brief but busy career. Her day of glory—so spectacularly short of being her day of reckoning—occurred 20 July 1944, when, stationed in the Bay of Biscay, she was attacked by enemy aircraft.

Already the warrior had earned her North Atlantic battle ribbon. In just nine months since her completion by Canadian Vickers of Montreal, as senior ship of EG-9, Matane had seen her share of action against U-boats. The previous spring EG-9 accounted for the U-845 and the U-448, Matane and company then taking their positions in the steel ring securing the Normandy invasion flank from attack by sea.

But this day had been different. On station in the Bay of Biscay, under Comdr. A.F.C. Layard, Matane and sister ships were attacked by Dornier bombers. Immediately upon sighting them, the warships set up a blistering fire.

Unaccountably, three aircraft remained just out of range, almost leisurely skirting the action zone at 10,000 feet. Suddenly those aboard Matane saw three large cigar-shaped missiles leap ahead of the planes, pause, then hurtle seaward. Split seconds later, one careened into the port side of the frigate’s gundeck. Miraculously, the horrifying new weapon, called a glider bomb, or “Chase-me-­Charley,” did not explode upon contact, instead veering off into the sea where it erupted alongside with volcanic force.

“If its line of flight had been six inches to the right,” states the official record, “it would have gone down the open ammunition hoist into the magazine, and Matane would simply have disappeared from the face of the sea!”

As it was, the frigate’s thin shell was fractured, her engine room opened to the sea. Bursting pipes filled the compartment with clouds of steam which poured through the wound in her side and scalded seamen frantically attempting to stop the flooding.

As HMCS Swansea urgently radioed for fighter support, HMCS Meon crept in through the billowing mist with HMCS Stormont to throw lines aboard their stricken sister. Taking turns, they towed Matane to Plymouth, the ruptured frigate sur­viving a second threat in the form of a strong gale that night and the next day.

Besides her injured, Matane’s casualty list stood at two men dead and two missing.

Happily, Matane lived to fight another day. Repaired, she rejoined EG-9 on 7 May 1945—the day before the end of hostilities in Europe. Joining a Murmansk-bound convoy the escort group encountered two U‑boats within forty-eight hours. But—this time—the engagement ended without so much as a depth charge being dropped, the submarines surrendering peacefully. Boarding parties swarmed over the lethal craft and ordered them to Loch Eriboll.

The brief surrender ceremony proved to be a dress rehearsal for, on 17 May, off the Norwegian coast, HMCS Matane received the submission of twenty German ships, including fifteen submarines. The five surface ships were sent to Trondheim, EG‑9 escorting the U-boats to Loch Eriboll and Kirkwall.

Then it was finally over, Matane and weary company returning to Londonderry for the last time, soon joining a Gibraltar convoy before em­barking homeward bound Canadian servicemen in mid-June. Passing through the Panama Canal, Matane dropped anchor in Esquimalt Harbor on 14 July 1945.

Then followed the by now customary release to Crown Assets and sale to the shipbreakers. Stripped of engines and equipment, the frigate, so recently revitalized after her near-fatal duel with the glider bomb half a world away, was razed to the deck and resold for service as a breakwater at Oyster Bay. She is there yet, although no longer providing protection from winter gales. Today, a rusting corpse on a quiet beach, recognized by few of the hundreds who drive by daily, she will long be remembered by those familiar with the vital and historic role she played in her country’s defense.

The final wartime veteran to end her career as a B.C. breakwater was the frigate HMCS Coaticook. Unlike her forgotten sisters at Royston, Kelsey Bay and Oyster Bay, however, Coaticook died dramatically, newspaper headlines noting that “200 pounds of high explosive spotted around the mud-caked hull achieved what enemy action in the North Atlantic and the pounding Pacific in postwar years had failed to do.”

For 12 years, K-410 had stood watch in Mac­Millan Bloedel’s Powell River breakwater until sold to Capital Iron Ltd. for scrapping in 1961. In tow of the Victoria tug Nitinat Chief, she began her final voyage to the cutting torches. However, stiff weather hammered her thin shell mercilessly and, too weak to continue, the old frigate was declared structurally unsound. On 14 Dec., off Race Rocks, Island Tug and Barge salvage expert Jack Daley gave the order to detonate the explosive charges rigged throughout her hulk. Seconds later, described Daley, “Mud and debris flew everywhere. The explosives blew the bottom completely out aft. Amidships, one side was out and there was a great gaping hole in the bow.”

Aboard the tug, crewmen watched silently as the once-proud HMCS Coaticook disintegrated, in black smoke and flying spray. Sinking rapidly by the stern, her rakish bow pointed to the sky, she paused, then slipped beneath the waves. “She died hard,” said Daley. “It’s a terrible thing to watch … kind of makes a lump in your throat.”

HMCS Gatineau, Prince Rupert, Cape Breton, Matane … and so many more: the honor role of Second World War fighting ladies which have ended their gallant careers in the inglorious role of a breakwater in B.C. harbors is long and, for those who are familiar with their records in the North Atlantic, exciting.

But not all have ended this way: Others were blessed with a more merciful death at the hands of shipbreakers, some have earned greater glory in peacetime. Yet others continue today, proudly fulfilling destinies never dreamed of by their wartime builders, a quarter-century ago.

River class frigate HMCS Matane, April 12, 1944.

HMCS Coaticook, K410.

HMCS Coaticook, K410.