![]() There, on the 17th, he sank the Norwegian steamer SS Skottland while hunting 60 miles southwest of Yarmouth. ![]() After having missed an American ship in the approaches to Halifax harbour on the 9th, Vogel moved south of Cape Sable and in the early hours of May 10 sank the 4,031-ton Canada Steamships vessel SS Kitty’s Brook, bound from New York to Argentia, Nfld.Īfter returning to the Halifax area for several days and finding naval and air patrol too oppressive, Vogel returned to the Gulf of Maine in mid-May. It was also a focal area for Canadian traffic from Caribbean and American ports. These were waters plied routinely by Canadian shipping, including freighters routed from Saint John to Halifax for convoys, and the aging Greek tramps that carried coal from Cape Breton to the New Brunswick port to keep its bunkers supplied. In early May, U-588, commanded by Kapitänleutnant Viktor Vogel, was assigned to patrol between Halifax and Cape Sable situated on the southern tip of Nova Scotia. But the concentration of U-boats and sinkings off southern Nova Scotia from January to May 1942 put Canada’s winter shipping routes under direct attack, too.Īfter a hiatus in April, a series of U-boats penetrated into the Bay of Fundy and Gulf of Maine in May, and scored their first success two days before the attacks in the St. German submarine attacks in this area in early 1942 are generally portrayed as part of the campaign against Allied shipping or the assault on America. The danger of an attack in this area during the winter was precisely why Admiral Sir Charles Kingsmill recommended in 1910 that the Royal Canadian Navy have, in addition to the major dockyards at Esquimalt and Halifax, a naval station at Yarmouth. Secondly, U-boats plying the Great Circle route to the American coast sank ships in the offshore during their transits. Attacks along the Nova Scotia coast concentrated southwest of Halifax, between Yarmouth and Liverpool, where six vessels were sunk close inshore. First, the second wave of U-boats sent out for Operation Paunkenschlage-the assault on the North American coast in January and February-focused their efforts between the Grand Banks of Newfoundland and the Nova Scotia coast. This happened as a result of two factors. There was no “Battle of the Gulf of Maine” in 1942, but it was the first place where Canada’s economic arteries came under sustained U-boat attack. Although the volume of Canadian cargo handled in Portland was small compared to Saint John-just 38 ships in 1941-it remained a valuable conduit for Canadian trade in the winter. In addition, two of Portland’s seven berths were grain-loading facilities operated for the export of Canadian produce. This saved 2,000 miles of steaming for tankers operating to the Caribbean, and allowed the refineries of Montreal to receive some crude oil throughout the winter months. These were joined in November 1941 by the opening of the Portland to Montreal oil pipeline. And although its importance as a ‘Canadian’ winter port had diminished since the beginning of the 20th century, the direct and short rail links to Montreal remained vital. With considerably more alongside cargo handling capability (20 loading berths) than its Nova Scotia rival (12 in Halifax), Saint John cleared an average of 60 to 70 ocean-going ships per month during the winter. Between November and May each year Saint John was Canada’s premier Atlantic commercial port. Lawrence closed for the winter in November each year, Canadian east coast cargo handling, including the longshoremen who handled it, shifted to east coast ports, especially to Saint John, N.B., and Portland, Maine. There is no denying the impact on the collective Canadian psyche of this brazen incident in the main seasonal artery of Canadian trade, but Canada’s trade links had been under siege for months by then. For most historians the assault on Canada’s shipping began with the sinking of the steamers Nicoya and Leto in the mouth of the St. While residents of British Columbia waited for the war to reach their shores in the early months of 1942, submarines attacked along the east coast for the first time since 1918.
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