In early 1944 the Germans began to mount 'schnorkel'
breathing tubes on their submarines, which allowed them to cruise about eight
metres under the surface while showing only a narrow air intake above water,
which was all but invisible. In this way, the submarines could run their
powerful diesel engines while submerged, and never rise to the surface for
weeks on end. Although the submerged speed of the submarines was still too slow
to catch most ships, the submarines could once again push close to the mouths
of British - and Canadian and American - harbours, and fire torpedoes at ships
as they left or entered ports. With the rocks and old shipwrecks littering the
ocean floor near the coasts, and the complex currents and temperature layers in
coastal waters, escorts often found that their sonar was incapable of finding
the submarines. So serious was the threat in British waters, and so
overextended was the Royal Navy, that the Canadian navy continued to maintain
at least twenty of its best anti-submarine destroyers and frigates in British
waters. Their work required nearly constant alertness, for at any moment a
torpedo could - and did- come racing silently from the depths.
Beginning in the summer of 1944 the Germans also sent four
or five schnorkel submarines at a time to hunt in Canadian coastal waters.
Because of the greater importance of the transatlantic convoys and the
protection of British waters, the Canadian navy kept only minimum forces at
home. These were not strong enough to find and sink the enemy vessels, but did
sufficiently intimidate the Germans that losses in Canadian waters were light -
some 15 ships during the last year of the war.
Among them was the corvette HMCS Shawinigan, which, while on
a routine patrol off Port-aux-Basques, Newfoundland, on the night of November
24th, 1944, had the back luck to pass right across the sights ofU-1228. All 91
men on board the Shawinigan died.
The Sinking of HMCS
Shawinigan
0145 Coast shining beautifully in moonlight, Table Mountain,
Sugar Loaf, Cape Ray [Newfoundland] beacons showing up as gleams on the
horizon...
0150 Hydrophone pickup at bearing 2000. To periscope depth.
0210 At bearing 2100 destroyer [sic] tacking along basic
course NE...
0220 Turned off for stern pursuit...
0230 Tube VI fired turning shot bow... aiming point stern,
estimated range [2500 metres] 0232 Torpedo and screw noises merge.
0234 A hit after 4 min 0 sees. High, 50 m, large explosion
column with heavy shower of sparks, after collapse of explosion column, only
10m high now, then smoke cloud, destroyer disappeared. On hydrophone set screw
noises disappeared with hit, great roaring and crackling sounds....
0236 Depth charge detonations at intervals of 1-3 minutes.
Surmise destroyer depth charges going off as triggers activated when depth
reached... Kapitanleutant Marienfeld, commanding officer, recording the attack
that sank the corvette HMCS Shawinigan. There were no survivors.
'At 1320Z [Greenwich Mean Time] 27th of November, while
carrying out a search in accordance with your signal 270109, aircraft reported
a large oil slick...and it was closed for investigation. Oil, apparently boiler
fuel, covered a considerable area, and in searching further, six bodies wearing
R.C.N. life belts were located floating in the sea, and transferred [sic] to
"TRURO" for passage to Sydney. The oil slick was made up in part of
heavy fuel oil, and resembled chunks of mud floating on the water. Each body
was wearing a life belt when recovered, and appeared to be floating upright in
the water, with the face submerged... it is considered that the bodies were
from H.M.C.S. "SHAWINIGAN".
Acting Commander W.C. Halliday, Royal Canadian Naval
Reserve, commanding officer HMCS Springhill.