Sarty Roger -The Maritime Defence

Sarty Roger -the Maritime Defence of Canada and Marc Milner - the implications of technological Backwardness: the Canadian Navy 1939-45. The main objective will be to discuss the state of the Canadian naval fleet during the Second World War, debate on the main factors that led to this situation, the tactics and the strategy adopted by the Canadian navy rulers and finally present the references and the convincing power of the two articles.

The Second World War represented an important moment in the history of human kind. Whether we discuss the issue from the German point-of-view, that wanted to rule Europe and make racial eradication, or from the Allies point-of-view, that defended the democratic values and the rights of offended national states, the Second World War was a huge clash or armies, economies, tactics and strategies.

In the end, the force that triumphed managed to allocate more resources to the conflict than the opposing party. The ground, air or see confrontation was based on technological breakthroughs, especially in the army field. National states, and especially Germany who prepared the battle ground long before the Allies, wanted to upgrade its military power so as to enable a durable and painful war.

The history may offer evidence that Hitler's dictatorship regime enabled a better concentration of industrial and economic resources that resulted in an efficient military apparatus. In the next paragraphs, we shall discuss the state of Canadian navy and its contribution to the Allied victory, the tactics and strategy adopted by the Canadian politicians and military specialists.

The state of the Canadian navy

It is the common opinion of both authors that Canadian navy was in an improper state to deploy a war of this magnitude, being unprepared form all points-of-views - low number of war ships, inadequate technological level, unskilled personnel and poor maintenance practices. However, due to the help of its Allied partners, it finally managed to pass over these difficulties from the start, and obtain positive results, together with Great Britain forces, in the naval war against Germany. We shall discuss all of them in turn.

The improper state of the Canadian navy could be translated by a reduced level of war ships (corvettes and frigates) and no destroyers. In military terms the capabilities of the Canadian navy were limited having only two types of vessels, with a defensive character, but not a destroyer, which could have brought a contribution to the offensive against the German and the Japanese enemy. To put it more exact, the Canadian forces went to war from the start with an unwanted advantage, unbalanced fleet of vessels, incapable to keep up with the enemy. The finishing of the vessels was also unprofessional, even from an war amateur point-of-view, since the paint and the primer applied to the surface of the ship, would soon disappear due to the salty environment. This inconsistency show the lack of preoccupation on the part of the Canadian authorities and small interest paid to the naval forces.

The low speed of vessels is the main characteristic of the Canadian naval force. Due to this characteristic, they were only able to guard convoys and this action was performed with extremely low efficiency. Due to the reduced water movement speed, the vessels were easy to be spotted by the enemy. It was no surprise to the historians and specialists to observe the low efficiency in sinking more performance U-boats and German submarines.

Another key characteristic of the Canadian navy power is the non-performing radar, offering a reduced visibility. This situation led to the inability of the Canadian forces to spot and defend the enemy, and perform the tasks for which they were called upon. Besides the fact the Canadian forces could not observe their task, that is defend Allied convoys travelling in Pacific and Atlantic seas, to Gibraltar, Burgundy or coming from Great Britain.

The personnel was not enough in number, and did not posses sufficient skills to conduct a naval battle of this size. A clear example for the lack of naval war specialists is that the efficiency in sinking enemy submarines was extremely law, representing 5% from the accomplishments of British forces. An interesting fact is that although the British specialists observed the shortage in specialized personnel, it only offered in 1942-1943 extensive training course for the Canadian naval military persons. However, the situation dramatically changed upon the end of the Second World War, when the Canadian naval forces numbered more than 150.000 persons employed in this industry, including technicians, specialists, naval strategy developers, making it the third largest Allied naval force.

The maintenance strategy was also unsuccessful, since the vessels needed more harbour stationing days that operational days. This situation led, in turn to a series of unfortunate situations - the Canadian navy could not maintain a well-cooperation and synergy within the convoys since the ships and the personnel were in a continuous change - one time in the war waters, and one time in harbour decks, performing maintenance and other regular procedures.

Factors that explain the situation

In the opinion of the article writers, the main responsibility for Canada's inability to provide a proper flee relies in the hands of Central authorities, more specifically the Government, the British Admiralty, the Canadian Minister for Internal Affairs. It seems that the authorities feared the reaction of the public regarding the Government expenditure on war preparation. We have to remind ourselves that the role of the Government is to care for its citizens, offering them proper economic, social and environmental development opportunities, but also enabling them the security and tranquillity of tomorrow. The latter dimension of the Governmental prerogatives was neglected, since the tranquillity of Canadian citizens, and moreover, of the citizens from the Democratic world was endangered by the German conquering aspirations. The lack of spending for enhancing the naval fleet, which later on led to the use of commercial vessels and improper and obsolete equipments imported from Great Britain, was mainly caused by the public opinion disagreement on war preparation, and consequently on navy quality and quantitative upgrade. A clear point should have been made that Canadian forces will be used for exclusive defence operations, and will not be based on destructions and international aggressions.

A second reason that explains the average performances of the Canadian navy was the improper collaboration between the Canadian naval and air forces. These military lines were both at their beginning, each wanting its own independence. Although assigned to work together, there was an obvious lack of communication at all levels. Seen by the specialists as complementary forces, having the goal to watch the back of the other entity, the Canadian Naval and the Air forces were not able to come on common grounds, and even the strategies and the plans were discussed separately, often with disagreements.