Trentonian and its crew enjoyed two days of resting, refuelling, and resupply. Shore leave was given each of the nights.
On November 30, ERA Robert Arkley from Victoria, British Columbia, was transferred to the RCN base at Niobe for gastric investigation.[49]
The next day, December 1, the crew of Trentonian celebrated the first year the ship had been in commission. Despite the anniversary, regular duties still had to be performed — after all, the war was still on and the men and their ship had a job to do. Later in the day, they departed Milford Haven; they anchored at Swansea the next morning at 0855 to await their next convoy. The convoy was formed and departed at 1130 on December 2 for Cherbourg. The two-day escort was uneventful and all arrived safely at Cherbourg on December 4 at 2248.[50]
After a night’s rest anchored off the French coast, Trentonian departed with convoy EBC 57 at 1100 on December 5.[51] The convoy consisted of twenty merchant ships ranging in age from the new liberty ships to others built as far back as 1911. The ships were a mixed batch, consisting of British, American, Dutch, Norwegian, Yugoslavian, and Polish registries. The convoy arrived safely at Milford Haven at 1340 on December 7, 1944.[52]
This was Trentonian’s last convoy to the French coast and the port of Cherbourg. The Allied armies had continued to advance and push the German army back.
13: The Army Moves Forward;
Au Revoir France, Hello 1945
It is with a certain amount of sadness that I write to you this time, because it is to inform you that I am leaving the old ship in a couple of days. I have been appointed to a frigate, HMCS JOLIETTE, and will be joining her shortly.
— Lt. W.E. Harrison, Commanding Officer, HMCS Trentonian
On November 26, 1944, the first Allied convoy reached the Belgium port of Antwerp.[1] The opening of this port dramatically changed the supply chain for the Allies; material and men could now be landed closer to the advancing Allied armies.
On December 8, 1944, the Channel convoys were once again reorganized. The departure area for Antwerp was the Thames Estuary. Convoys sailing from the Bristol Channel to the Thames Estuary were titled BTC and the returning convoys from the Thames Estuary to Bristol Channel were titled TBC.[2]
These changes were to facilitate the escort of merchant ships along the English coast. Unlike traditional convoys where the merchant ships were formed into a group and sailed from port A to port B by the most direct route, these convoys were designed to provide protection along the longer coastal routes. A convoy would leave the Bristol Channel and sail along the Cornish coast, round Land’s End, and then proceed along the south coast of England through the English Channel and the Strait of Dover to the final destination at the Thames Estuary.
The destinations of each merchant ship would vary. As the convoy proceeded, some ships would detach and head into the respective ports along the route, while others would come out of the coastal ports and join the convoy. This made the convoy’s organization very dynamic and their composition of merchant ships fluid. There would normally be ten to fifteen ships in the convoy at any one time. The small overall size of these convoys required only one escort for protection, usually a single corvette. If an attack did occur, there was always an attack group in the vicinity and other escorts could provide reinforcement.[3]
The Canadian corvettes were distributed along the coast in three primary ports. On the west coast at Milford Haven providing escort from the Bristol Channel to the Thames was the Forty-first Escort Group, consisting of Trentonian, Algoma, Kitchener, Louisburg (II), Lindsay, Ville de Quebec, and Moose Jaw.[4]
At Portsmouth on the south coast were Mayflower, Snowberry, and Port Arthur. These corvettes provided escort to convoys from Portsmouth to the French coast. On the east coast at Sheerness were Baddeck, Calgary, Drumheller, and Mimico, escorting the convoys from the Thames Estuary to Antwerp.[5]
Along with their regular escort duties, the corvettes were frequently called upon for anti-submarine patrols, searches for survivors of torpedoed ships or ditched aircraft, and escort of minelayers or other ships engaged in special duties.[6]
At this stage of the war, the threats to the convoys and escorts were still abundant. There was the ever-present danger of German submarines and midget submarines, whose detection was hindered by the difficult asdic conditions that resulted from the multitude of wrecks, rock pinnacles, strong currents, and temperature layers. All these things combined to give false echoes, providing a multitude of hiding places for the enemy. Added to this was the continued danger from E-boats, mines, and enemy aircraft.[7]
Under the new convoy system, Trentonian departed Milford Haven with its first Bristol Channel-to-the-Thames convoy at 0900 on December 8, 1944.[8] Convoy BTC 2 started with five merchant ships. By the time Trentonian arrived at the Thames Estuary on December 12, a total of twenty-nine merchants had joined or departed the convoy along the route. The escort job complete, Trentonian anchored at Sheerness at 1220.[9]
After twenty hours rest, Trentonian picked up its anchor and departed Sheerness at 1020 with convoy TBC 6 on December 13. The convoy totalled twenty-one ships over the course of its journey and arrived at Bristol Channel on December 16. Trentonian returned to Milford Haven at 0255.[10] The crew was given four days of rest. Trentonian remained at anchor, so the crew had to transit by boat to shore to enjoy leave.
Trentonian’s football team. Warrant Engineer Hindle was an avid football player and fan. He organized a team from the ship to take on the local team in Milford Haven.
Photo credit: A. Singleton, courtesy of the Family of Maurice Campbell.
While in Milford Haven, Trentonian received new safety equipment. From past experiences with ships that had been sunk, the navy had learned that the Carley Floats could not always be released, causing the life raft to sink with the ship and leaving the survivors without a means of self-rescue. A hydro-release system had been developed to release the Carley Floats automatically if the mechanism was submerged in water, allowing any unreleased floats to come to the surface.[11]
Several parcels arrived for the ship — including one very large crate — all addressed from Trenton, Ontario. The elusive washing machine had finally arrived.[12] The machine had undergone its own journey of historic proportions. Due to bureaucratic paperwork, the motor for the machine had not been requested in time for the washing machine to be installed in Kingston. By the time the paperwork was approved and an electric motor was available, Trentonian had not only sailed from Kingston, it was working in the United Kingdom. That meant the City of Trenton had to submit a request for oversees shipping of large, non-essential goods. Once approved and space was made available on a merchant ship, the washing machine made the voyage to England. It then spent many months travelling around the coast arriving at the various ports that Trentonian had worked from, each time just after the ship had been moved to the next area of operation.
Finally, after thirteen months and thousands of miles, the washing machine arrived just in time for Christmas. The machine was quickly installed and just as quickly put to use. The men would no longer have to wash their kit with wash boards and basins. Still, some of the stokers believed their jury-rigged milk can, filled with holes and dragged behind the ship, cleaned their clothes better.
The other parcels contained an assortment of gifts and Christmas cheer for the men from the citizens of Trenton. These included wallets, chocolates, and writing kits.[13]
With Christmas fast approaching, Lt. Harrison sent a telegram to the citizens of Trenton on December 20, “MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM THE SHIPS COMPANY.”[14]
That same day, a large parcel was received, marked “Red Cross Supplies.” These were the much appreciated Red Cross Parcels, one for each man in the ship.[15] The parcels consisted of an assortment food stuffs, including canned meat, fish, cheese, powdered milk, biscuits, sweets, and soap.
At 1655 on December 21, Trentonian took up its anchor and sailed for Swansea Bay to wait for its next convo
y.[16] As the passage to the Thames Estuary took three to four days, the crew reconciled themselves to spending Christmas as sea.
At 2125 that night Trentonian headed into the Bristol Channel with convoy BTC 15 bound for the Thames.[17] The convoy consisted of twenty-five ships in total, and assisting with the escort was RN corvette HMS Heather. The two escorts shepherded the convoy out of the Bristol Channel and south along the Cornish coast. By the morning of December 23, they had rounded Land’s End and were heading east on the south coast of England. Off Lizard Head they met convoy TBC 14 heading in the opposite direction.
Trentonian received a signal to detach from BTC 15, leaving Heather as its sole escort, and join the westbound convoy.[18] TBC 14 was under escort of their chummy ship, Moose Jaw, and consisted of thirty-four ships bound for the Bristol Channel. Very quickly some of the men started doing the math and word spread through the ship; if they maintained normal convoy speed, they would be in home port for Christmas after all.
Trentonian and Moose Jaw arrived in Milford Haven at 0445 on December 24.[19] The crew spent the day getting the ship ready for Christmas — anything they could find to give the ship a sense of Christmas spirit was used to decorate the messes.
Later that day, Harrison received orders to sail for another convoy. According to Trentonian’s crew, their skipper refused, stating that his men were going to get their Christmas. The authorities allowed his ship to remain in harbour.[20]
Not all Canadian sailors would be celebrating Christmas; Clayoquot, a Bangor-class minesweeper, was torpedoed and sunk just off Halifax on Christmas Eve. Eight crewmembers were killed.[21]
Christmas Day came with the usual traditions of the navy. The youngest man in the ship was promoted to skipper for the day. Customarily, his first order (and to the men, the most important), was for an extra issue of grog to be given to each man in honour of the day.
Harrison did not know, but he had in fact chosen the wrong man to be skipper for the day. Stoker Bill Shields of Oakville, Ontario, had turned eighteen on December 24, 1944. Shields had lied about his age in order to join the navy as a sixteen-year-old. He did not speak up that Christmas, out of fear that his true age at joining the navy would become known.[22]
The cooks spent the day preparing both the normal meals for the crew and a Christmas dinner with what resources they had on board. There wasn’t much, since they were supposed to have been at sea. When the feast was ready, hands were piped to dinner. Following another Christmas tradition, the food was served to the men by the officers.
Following supper the men turned to, to clean and wash the dishes in each mess. In one of the messes, two sailors who had enjoyed the additional “spirits” of the day set to work. The washer diligently scrubbed each dish absolutely clean and ceremonially passed the dish to the man next to him. He, in turn, dried and polished the dish to perfection before tossing each plate out the open porthole.[23]
The men settled in to their messes to enjoy an evening of cards, stories, and carols. However, the festivities were cut short. The shore authorities still remembered the previous evening’s orders and signalled Harrison to proceed to sea. Trentonian departed Milford Haven at 2340. Other escort ships had been in harbour since before Trentonian arrived. Angered that his ship was being put to work before the sleeping escorts, Harrison rang up “full speed” on the engine room telegraph and sailed out of harbour, tossing several of the other boats about and a few float planes as well.[24]
Trentonian arrived at Barry Roads at 0630 on December 26. By 0838, convoy BTC 19 consisting of nineteen merchant ships was formed up. Assisting with the escort was RN corvette HMS Armeria.[25]
The convoy arrived at Southend on the afternoon of December 29, at 1300.[26] Some good news was waiting from the war effort and was passed onto the crew. On December 27, St. Thomas, a Castle-class corvette, and Sea Cliff, a River-class frigate, attacked and sank the German submarine U-877 in the mid-Atlantic.
After twenty hours rest, Trentonian sailed from Southend escorting TBC 23 on December 30.[27] The convoy consisted of a total of thirty merchant ships. Three additional escorts were provided to assist; the SO was in HMS Anthony, an A-class destroyer, the Free French frigate Tonkinois, and Trentonian’s chummy ship, Louisburg.
Trentonian’s entire crew turned out in their number one uniforms for church parade in Milford Haven.
Photo credit: A. Singleton, courtesy of Bruce Keir.
The men celebrated New Year’s Eve and started 1945 at sea off the English coast. The usual custom of ringing sixteen bells for the New Year was disregarded as Trentonian was operating in hostile waters. Fortunately, there were no fireworks.
The men and their ship had experienced a difficult and, at times, unique year. Of the six officers that were present with the ship at commissioning, four had remained with Trentonian: her skipper, Lt. Harrison; the executive officer, Lt. Kinsman; anti-submarine control officer, Lt. Dodds, and the engineering officer, Warrant Engineer Hindle. Chief Petty Officer Roberts remained as coxswain.
Forty-four of the eighty-one original men were still with Trentonian by the end of the year. In most Canadian ships of the time, the crew was usually transferred and dispersed to new corvettes after a few escort duties. Even though the men may have had only have a few weeks at sea, that was considered more experience than the new sailors joining the new ships. This made it difficult to train a cohesive ship’s company with any amount of skill. Trentonian had been indeed fortunate to retain over 55 percent of her original crew.
During the preceding year, Trentonian had finished construction, travelled to Bermuda for work-ups, escorted convoys off the coast of Canada and Newfoundland, rescued a damaged RN submarine, crossed the Atlantic Ocean, taken part in the Normandy invasion, helped construct the Gooseberrys and Mulberry harbours off France, survived an attacked by the United States Navy, dodged German Buzz Bombs in the Strait of Dover, and escorted convoys around England and to France. During the previous twelve months, it had performed over fifty escort jobs, delivering hundreds of merchant ships safely to their respective destinations. A truly successful year!
With the close of 1944, Trentonian earned its third Battle Honour, English Channel 1944, for the ship’s operations escorting convoys in the United Kingdom.
The first day of 1945 found Trentonian and its crew in the waters of the United Kingdom escorting convoy TBC 23 from Southend on the Thames Estuary to the Bristol Channel off the coast of Wales. The men speculated that the war would be over sometime that year; the German army had been steadily pushed back by the Allies since June. The discussion focused on exactly when it would be over.
Trentonian arrived at Milford Haven on January 2 with her convoy after an uneventful voyage from Sheerness.
The ship was moved to the jetty for another boiler cleaning. Lieutenant Harrison once again took advantage of the extended time in port to give half the crew seven days leave ashore. Quickly the ship filled with workmen, making repairs to the various equipment and machinery in the ship.
Lieutenant Harrison had many qualities that made him an excellent commanding officer and endeared him to the men. He was an excellent sailor, fair with his men, willing to give leave when time allowed, but still ran a tight ship. One quality he did lack had to do with the administrative aspects of operating his command. On January 5, 1945, Harrison received the following letter from the secretary, Canadian Mission Oversees in London, “With reference to Returns of Days at Sea and in Harbour for the months of May to November, 1944, inclusive submitted by H.M.C.S. TRENTONIAN, the Commanding Officer, H.M.C.S. TRENTONIAN is to be instructed to render this report monthly, on the first of each month, for the month previous.”[28]
Harrison had not filed a monthly report since his ship had arrived in the United Kingdom. While his crew enjoyed their time ashore, he was in his cabin completing the missing seven months of paperwork.
On January 6, Harrison updated the City of Trenton with a letter to Miss Farley:
Have jus
t received a very large batch of letters and parcels. All kinds of gifts from Trenton included. There are a lot of things which you mention sending which haven’t arrived yet but doubtless will turn up in time. I will give you a list now of what we actually have received from all sources in Trenton. A very imposing list too — 80 wallets —80 boxes of chocolates — 32,000 cigarettes — 75 woolen socks — 15 mitts – Gramophone records – Washing machine – Writing kits. (I think there were 80 writing kits but as half the ship’s company are on leave I can’t check on it at the moment — all the people who handled the distribution are away.)
You can see that several shipments which you mention have not arrived yet (plum puddings, etc.). I also have a letter from Mrs. C.V. Wilkins telling me of a shipment of socks by the Red Cross. These are not turned up yet but I will let her know when they do. The washing machine arrived before Xmas and is now operating very successfully. By the way the Victrola that you sent the same time as the records is not here yet. I mailed a list of the ship’s company to you the other day so you should have it soon. Our numbers alternate around 104 men all told. There is a little variation sometimes we get down to a hundred when a couple go to hospital or are absent for some reason.
We distributed the personal gifts as follows. The 80 wallets arrived first and went to the 80 who had been in the ship the longest — the ones left out got a box of chocolates. The writing kits were drawn for, the losers getting chocolates again. The remaining chocolates were distributed to the messes. I think everybody appreciated the gifts as I’m sure they should, there being very few Canadian ships as well and as consistently looked after as well as we are. Some of the bigger cities which have adopted ships started off with a very expensive splash, but so far as I hear their enthusiasm died down after a few months.
White Ensign Flying Page 18
