Review: A Blue Water Navy

Abstract

A BLUE WATER NAVY The Official Operational History of Royal Canadian Navy in second World War, 1943-1945. Volume II, Part 2 W.A.B. Douglas, Roger Sarty, Michael Whitby, with Robert H. Caldwell, William Johnston and William G.P. Rawling St. Catharines: Vanwell Publishing, 2007. 05opp, $60.00 cloth (ISBN 1-55125-069-4)For three-and-a-half grueling years, from 1939 to 1942, primary role of Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) was shepherding convoys across Atlantic Ocean. It was an important role but not one that senior Canadian naval authorities relished. The long-cherished dream of building a balanced fleet dominated thinking at naval service headquarters. After three years of rapid and uneven expansion, that dream came to fruition and RCN began to participate in a far wider range of operations, from fleet destroyer and escort carrier actions to dispatching one of its newly acquired cruisers to Pacific theatre in 1945. In addition, Navy performed a myriad of other tasks ranging from amphibious operations in Mediterranean to minesweeping both at home and overseas, as well as taking part in D-Day landings in Normandy. And inshore campaign waged against modern German U-boats late in war required tactics, equipment, and skills. The scope of Canadian operations in final two-and-a-half years of war was extraordinary, especially when one considers that navy consisted of some n ships and 2,700 personnel in 1939. The story of how and why RCN took on these roles is subject of this long-anticipated operational history.Work on two-volume history began in 1987 when a team of naval historians was assembled under Roger Sarty, then senior naval historian at directorate of history, Department of National Defence. Twenty years later, this volume and its companion-No Higher Purpose: The Official Operational History of Royal Canadian Navy in Second World War, 1939-1943, Volume II, Part i, Vanwell, 2002-are results of their painstaking work. Until now, operational history of Canadian navy in period 1943-45 has not been examined to any great extent. This volume redresses that imbalance in scholarship.The research is exhaustive and, equally important, synthesis of many themes and disparate operations is impressive. The book is divided into two main sections. The first section, comprising six chapters, deals with consolidation of planning and naval operations, and examines such wide-ranging topics as fleet modernization in period 1942-43, destroyer and coastal forces' operations with home fleet, and Operation Neptune-the naval assault on fortress Europe-among other topics. The second section, entitled new directions, examines inshore antisubmarine campaign in European waters and northwest Atlantic, fleet operations in European and Arctic waters from July 1944 until V-E Day, and operations with British Pacific fleet in 1945.The authors have not shied away from controversial issues such as equipment crisis in 1943 that led to sacking of Admiral Percy Nelles, chief of naval staff. Their examination of that particular issue is both objective and balanced. Angus L. Macdonald, minister of national defence for naval service, observed at time that [i]t seems to me that some officers at NSHQ are impressed mainly with size. Careful planning and estimating, efficiency of equipment, and high skill of personnel rather than mere numbers of ships or men ought to be our watchword (182). The authors contend that the minister [did not] realize that his advisors considered modernization issue an integral part of refit crisis and presented to him as such. Without making that connection, therefore, Macdonald missed what Nelles was trying to tell him. Consequently, it is difficult to escape conclusion that Macdonald was not interested in workings of his department as long as problems did not run risk of becoming political ones (182). …