“As experienced and professional a destroyer as any of them on the North Atlantic run.”

By James Brun

HIS MAJESTY’S Canadian Ship Skeena was a River-class destroyer and one of the first two ships built expressly for the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN).

She served as an escort on the deadly North Atlantic run during the Second World War, destroyed a German U-boat, guarded the D-Day invasion force from enemy submarines, and sunk surface raiders off the coast of France. Despite her illustrious wartime record, she met an ignoble end: smashed upon Iceland’s frigid shores amidst a terrible gale. Her story is emblematic of the wider Atlantic campaign – bitter, grinding, and occasionally, unforgivingly violent.

Along with her sister ship HMCS Saguenay, Skeena was built to Canadian specifications by John I. Thornycroft of Southampton, England.

Launched in 1930, she was designed to operate in the harsh Canadian climate. River-class vessels needed strengthened hulls, steam heating and an extra margin of stability to account for the ice that would accumulate on her upper decks.[1]

As her design was based on the Royal Navy’s A-Class destroyer, Skeena displaced over 1,300 tonnes, was 98 metres long, and capable of sprinting at an enviable 31 knots. Her complement of 150 sailors would man her formidable armament, consisting of four 4.7-inch guns, one three-inch gun, six 20mm Oerlikon machine guns, torpedoes, and a Hedgehog anti-submarine mortar.

Skeena was commissioned at Portsmouth on June 10, 1931, and arrived in Halifax in July of that year. After a brief layover in the Canadian Maritimes, she sailed through the Panama Canal to Esquimalt, on the country’s Pacific coast, where she operated until 1937 before transferring back to Halifax.

One of only six RCN destroyers in service at the outbreak of the Second World War, she was immediately given local escort duties off the Atlantic coast. During the first few months of the conflict, Skeena cut her teeth conducting routine convoy duties. This all changed in the spring of 1940, when the Nazis steam-rolled Western Europe with devastating Blitzkrieg tactics.

To support Great Britain, the Canadian government dispatched three destroyers to the United Kingdom: the St. Laurent, Restigouche and Skeena. Upon arrival in Portsmouth on May 31, the warships were assigned to Western Approaches Command. Little time was wasted employing the Canadian vessels, and within a week, Restigouche and St. Laurent were taking part in the evacuation of British and French troops from Dunkirk while Skeena performed anti-submarine patrols in the Western Approaches. Skeena was involved in near continuous escort duties over the next year.

By autumn of 1941, she was “as experienced and professional a destroyer as any of them on the North Atlantic run.”[2] Lieutenant Commander James Hibbard, Skeena’s captain, was a proficient and respected commander.

In early September, Hibbard found himself in command of escort forces protecting SC 42, a slow-moving convoy of 67 ships that was protected by Skeena and three additional Canadian corvettes: Orillia, Alberni, and Kenogami.

The convoy departed Sydney, Nova Scotia on Aug. 30 and was routed north near Greenland to avoid a large group of U-boats known to be operating southwest of Iceland. On Sept. 6, maritime patrol aircraft launching from Iceland located and attacked the large Markgraf group of U-boats. The air strikes damaged two German submarines. Subsequent action from Allied surface ships destroyed a third boat, and permitted the capture of a fourth.

Because of these attacks, Befelshaber der U-Boote (U-boat High Command) dispersed the Markgraf group’s remaining 14 submarines, ordering them to patrol the area between Newfoundland and Iceland – a stretch of water that covered both the central and northern Allied convoy routes.[3] Two days later, these orders were decrypted by Allied intelligence at Bletchley Park; SC 42 was heading directly into the U-boat patrol area.[4]

By that point, SC 42 had been steaming through a gale for five days, and were 72 hours behind schedule. Many ships in the convoy had insufficient fuel to permit a further course diversion. Fortuitously, a well-guarded westbound convoy was nearby, and Western Approaches Command ordered five British destroyers from that convoy to detach, refuel in Iceland, and reinforce the eastbound Canadian convoy. In the meantime, Commodore Leonard Murray, commander of the Newfoundland Escort Force, ordered two additional Canadian corvettes, Chambly and Moose Jaw, to sail from Newfoundland to strengthen Hibbard’s group.

On Sept. 9, U-85 sighted the Canadian convoy. The submarine reported the merchant ships’ position and moved in for an attack. Her torpedoes missed, but the submarine remained undetected. Throughout the day, U-85 maneuvered for a second attack. Again, she failed to strike a target, but this time a lookout on one of the merchant ships spotted a torpedo’s wake and the alarm was raised. Although convoy escorts were unable to locate the enemy sub, the British destroyers in Iceland sailed to intercept and defend SC 42; the corvettes Chambly and Moose Jaw continued to close the convoy, but were still over 24 hours away.[5]

The Markgraf group’s wolf pack gathered. At 2130, torpedoes from U-432 slammed into the merchant ship Muneric. Laden with iron ore, the vessel sank almost immediately, taking all hands down with her. The wolf pack closed in, and more attacks followed. Skeena used her speed to weave through convoy vessels, responding to calls for help while the corvettes plucked drowning men from the icy water. The attacks were relentless, but the corvettes, preoccupied with rescue operations, were unable to engage the enemy. That changed when Lieutenant Commander James “Chummy” Prentice in HMCS Chambly arrived on scene and immediately engaged the enemy forces, sinking U-501, thought to be the first confirmed Canadian submarine kill of the war.[6]

The Canadian escorts defended SC 42 from the remaining 13 German submarines until British naval and air support arrived to tip the scales against the Axis. The battle for convoy SC 42 lasted 66 hours. Over the course of the fighting, 16 merchant ships sank, and the Royal Navy destroyed a second U-boat. Despite Skeena’s heroic actions and those of the Canadian corvettes, the losses were devastating, and caused Allied forces significant anxiety concerning the role of RCN convoy operations throughout the remainder of 1941.[7]

Skeena maintained a busy escort schedule over the next year with Newfoundland Command and the Mid-Ocean Escort Force. Most convoys under Skeena’s protection arrived at their destinations unharmed. However, her battle with U-588 during the summer of 1942 was particularly noteworthy.

On July 31, 1942, while escorting convoy ON 115 near Greenland, Skeena, in company with corvette HMCS Wetaskiwin, engaged in a classic anti-submarine battle.

Six U-boats pursued the merchant ships with Skeena and Wetaskiwin defending the convoy’s starboard flank. Action commenced when Skeena sighted the diesel exhaust of a submarine, eight miles off the convoy’s starboard beam.

Skeena alerted Wetaskiwin with the signal, “Acts 16, Verse 9,” which told the corvette: “And a vision appeared to Paul in the night; there stood a man of Macedonia and prayed him saying, come over into Macedonia and help me.”[8] Wetaskiwin responded with “Revelations 13, Verse 1”, which told the destroyer: “And I stood upon the sand of the sea and saw a beast rise up out of the sea having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his head the name of blasphemy.”[9] The Canadian escorts altered towards the submarine, and prepared to attack.

The first Canadian attack drove the submarine deep. Skeena coordinated a search, and within an hour, the two ships regained SONAR contact with the enemy. Over the next few hours, the Canadian escorts executed a textbook anti-submarine action: one ship held the contact while the other ship maneuvered to attack.

In total, Wetaskiwin deployed four patterns of depth charges, and Skeena attacked twice. Finally, their patience and proficiency was rewarded with the sound of “two distinct underwater explosions, thirty seconds apart” followed by the appearance of oil, floating debris, and human remains on the ocean’s surface.[10] Skeena signalled that she was putting a boat in the water to collect evidence of the destruction, passing to Wetaskiwin that she was “lowering a whaler to pick up guts.”[11]

In June of 1944, Skeena guarded the D-Day invasion fleet from enemy submarines. Following the invasion of Normandy, the German navy still controlled the French Atlantic port of Brest from which U-boats threatened the Allied invasion force and supply lines. Canadian ships Skeena, Restigouche, Saskatchewan, and Qu’Appelle patrolled the coast to destroy the light German warships used to escort U-boats entering or leaving harbour.

On the night of July 5, radar from the Canadian squadron detected a group of four armed German trawlers escorting a U-boat from Brest.[12] The Canadians fired star shells to illuminate the sky, and swept into the harbour at 30 knots. Tracers from their 20mm Oerlikon guns burned across the harbour as their main armaments battered the light German ships. The enemy vessels returned fire in a determined effort, but after an hour of fighting, three of the Axis ships were burning in the harbour. Two weeks later a similar action near Ushant occurred, with Skeena and her partners sinking three more German ships.

On October 24, 1944, Skeena met her end: wrecked on Videy Island, near Reykjavik, Iceland. Seeking shelter from a gale and 15-metre seas, she went to anchor at a moorage with poor holding ground of volcanic ash. The crew paid out a second anchor when turbulent seas and high winds caused the ship to drag her cable. Despite this added precaution, Skeena smashed onto the rocks, a mere 90 metres from shore. Her hull ground against the rocks, threatening to tear her apart. Seawater poured into the ship, and the captain prepared his crew to abandon ship. Skeena’s position stabilized, and the captain ordered a cessation of preparations to abandon ship. Tragically, this order was misunderstood – or not heard – amidst hundred-knot winds. The sailors began to abandon ship, using Carley floats on Skeena’s leeward side. The floats were loaded with sailors, and held by lines to the ship. Unfortunately, the men were unable to hold the lines due to the combination of oil and snow that had accumulated on the upper decks. Some crew were smashed into the rocks, while others were tossed into the sea. Fifteen sailors died.

Later, the crew abandoned ship in earnest, and made it ashore. The crew buried their dead with full naval honours at the Fossaburg cemetery near Reykjavik. Canada sold Skeena for scrap in the months that followed. She sunk in the North Atlantic while being hauled away by salvagers – an ignominious end for a proud fighting ship that served Canada with distinction throughout the relentless Atlantic campaign.

In 1957, the Royal Canadian Navy accepted the second HMCS Skeena into service, a tribute to the original ship. A St. Laurent class destroyer, Skeena (II) served in an anti-submarine role in the North Atlantic until the end of the Cold War.

James Brun is an officer in the Royal Canadian Navy and regular contributor to MilitaryHistoryNow.com. For his daily tweets of rare and fascinating World War Two photos, follow him at @lebrunjames81

[1] W. A. B. Douglas et al, No Higher Purpose: the Official Operational History of the Royal Canadian Navy in the Second World War, 1939-1943 Volume II, Part I. (St. Catharines, ON: Vanwell Pub., 2002), 31.

[2] Douglas et al, No Higher Purpose, 236.

[3] Douglas et al, No Higher Purpose, 237.

[4] Douglas et al, No Higher Purpose, 237.

[5] Douglas et al, No Higher Purpose, 240.

[6] James Brun, “The Sinking of the ‘Faa di Bruno’ — Inside Italy’s Submarine War in the North Atlantic”. Military History Now, September 23, 2020, https://militaryhistorynow.com/2020/09/23/the-sinking-of-the-faa-di-bruno-inside-italys-submarine-war-in-the-north-atlantic/ (Accessed November 1, 2020). Fifty years after U-501 sunk, the British Admiralty reassessed a submarine action of HMCS Ottawa and HMS Harvester against an unknown enemy submarine. This reassessment officially credited Ottawa and Harvester with the destruction of the Italian submarine Faa di Bruno on 6 November 1940, ten months before Chambly killed U-501, making Chambly’s victory the second Canadian submarine kill of the war.

[7] Marc Milner, Canada’s Navy: The First Century (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), 96.

[8] Hal Lawrence, Tales of the North Atlantic, (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1985), 162.

[9] Lawrence, Tales of the North Atlantic, 162.

[10] Douglas et al, No Higher Purpose, 496.

[11] Lawrence, Tales of the North Atlantic, 164.

[12] Milner, Canada’s Navy, 146.