“Fraser was the first RCN warship lost during operations in the war.”

By James Brun

HIS MAJESTY’S CANADIAN Ship Fraser began her life as a C-class destroyer in Britain’s Royal Navy. Five years later, she was sold to Canada and commissioned into the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN). One of only six RCN destroyers at the outbreak of the Second World War, she served as an escort for the first fast convoy that would sail from Halifax, and was among the first Canadian warships to enter European waters during the conflict. She met a tragic end off the coast of France; the first operational loss for a young Canadian naval service.

Fraser was laid down in 1932 by Vickers-Armstrong in Barrow-in-Furness. She displaced nearly 1,400 tonnes, was 100 metres long, and could make 31 knots underway. Her complement of 180 sailors and officers were sufficient to crew her four 4.7-inch guns, one 3-inch gun, two 2-pounders, six 20mm machine guns, torpedoes, and a Hedgehog anti-submarine mortar. Fraser was bigger, faster, and boasted greater endurance than Canada’s existing destroyers.[1] She was stationed on Canada’s Pacific coast, where she operated until the winds of war began to blow.

On Aug. 31, 1939, Fraser and her sister ship St Laurent were ordered from Esquimalt to Halifax. When they received their orders, both ships had been enjoying a community relations visit to Vancouver. Nevertheless, they were underway within three hours.[2]

When 26-year-old German U-boat captain Lieutenant Fritz Lemp fired two torpedoes into the side of the passenger liner Athenia on Sept. 3, the two Canadian destroyers were already steaming south in the Eastern Pacific. When Canada declared war on Germany seven days later, Fraser and St Laurent had arrived at the approaches to the Panama Canal.[3] On Sept. 14, two weeks after leaving Vancouver, the two destroyers arrived in Halifax – the front line of the Atlantic war. They had completed the transit so quickly that “the bricks in the boilers of both ships collapsed on arrival.”[4]

Two days after Fraser arrived in Halifax, the war’s first “slow” convoy departed the city. Three days later, Fraser slipped her berth in Halifax and escorted Convoy HXF1, the war effort’s first “fast” convoy, which had been organized for ships capable of making, at least, 15 knots.[5] Fraser participated in local convoy operations until November when she was transferred to the RN’s America and West Indies Station in the Caribbean. At her new duty station in southern waters, she escorted convoys and conducted anti-submarine patrols until the spring of 1940.

In support of its British allies, the Canadian government dispatched four destroyers to the United Kingdom. The first three ships – St Laurent, Restigouche, and Skeena – departed Halifax on May 24 and arrived in Plymouth on the 31. The fourth ship, Fraser, was on patrol from Jamaica. She refuelled in Bermuda on May 26 and joined the other Canadian destroyers in Plymouth on June 3.^[6] Upon arrival in Plymouth, Fraser was refitted with improved anti-aircraft weapons. Her captain, Commander Wallace Creery, became the senior officer within the Canadian force.[7]

As France fell, Fraser and Restigouche completed their hasty refits, slipped their berths in Plymouth, and steamed south to assist with the evacuation of Allied forces from France. The Canadian destroyers arrived at St Jean de Luz near the Spanish border on June 21, the same day France signed an armistice with Hitler.[8] Fraser was ordered to evacuate Sir Ronald Campbell, the British ambassador to France. While sailing into the harbour, Fraser was hailed by a small sardine boat floundering in the heavy seas. The fishing vessel was carrying Campbell, as well as other dignitaries, including the Canadian minister to France, Lieutenant Colonel Georges Vanier.[9] Fraser transferred these officials to HMS Galatea and returned to the harbour to continue ferrying evacuees from the shore.

Following the evacuation effort, Fraser and Restigouche shaped their return transit to England under the control of HMS Calcutta, a British cruiser. On the evening of June 25, the Canadian ships were screening for enemy submarines ahead of Calcutta. The visibility was poor on the moonless night. Calcutta’s skipper, Captain D.M. Lees, disbanded the anti-submarine screen and ordered the Canadian destroyers to form a line astern of Calcutta. Fraser was a mile-and-a-half off Calcutta’s starboard bow. Commander Creery ordered his officer of the watch to alter to port, pass down the cruiser’s starboard beam, and assume station. The officer of the watch complied, but ordered minimal helm. His mistake was not immediately recognized by the captain, who increased the vessel’s speed to 20 knots in an effort to hasten the manoeuvre.[10] Seconds later, Creery noted his ship was turning too wide as a result of the minimal rudder being used, and tightened his helm. Meanwhile in Calcutta, Captain Lees interpreted Fraser’s actions as an intent to cross across Calcutta’s bow, as opposed to down her side. Lees altered Calcutta to starboard in an attempt to avoid a collision, sounding one short blast on his ship’s whistle to indicate the alteration. Unfortunately, the alteration exacerbated the problem and placed the two ships on a collision path with a closing speed of 34 knots. Creery heard Calcutta’s maneuvering signal and immediately ordered his engines full astern.[11] It was too late. Calcutta’s bow collided with Fraser’s beam, cutting the Canadian ship in two, parting the destroyer just abaft her bridge.[12]

Calcutta lowered a whaler and ordered Restigouche to collect the survivors. Lees did not remain at the scene, however, abandoning the Canadian ships to continue for England. Complying with the order, Restigouche’s captain, Lieutenant Commander Horatio Nelson Lay, approached Fraser, unaware that she had been rammed by Calcutta.[13] He found Fraser’s stern, afloat in the sea, but the bow was gone. Lay brought Restigouche alongside of Fraser’s wreckage and embarked the remaining survivors. Restigouche rescued 59 sailors. Calcutta’s whaler saved another 107 officers and rates from the Atlantic. 47 Canadian sailors perished, along with 19 RN sailors who were taking passage home to England.[14] Fraser was the first RCN warship lost during operations in the war.

In the collision, Fraser’s bridge was separated from her hull and came to rest on Calcutta’s forecastle. Incredibly, Commander Creery and his bridge team, uninjured in the event, stepped from their own bridge onto Calcutta’s deck. Calcutta sailed into Plymouth with Fraser’s bridge still lodged atop her forecastle.

HMCS Fraser was replaced by the British D-class destroyer HMS Diana. Diana was commissioned into RCN service in September of 1940 and renamed HMCS Margaree. Many of Fraser’s survivors were assigned to Margaree, and the destroyer began operations in the bloody North Atlantic conducting convoy escort duties. One month after her acceptance into the RCN, Margaree was escorting convoy OL 8 to Canada when she was rammed by MV Port Fairy, one of the merchant ships under her protection. She sank with 142 souls onboard; many of those who perished had been survivors of the Fraser disaster.

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 @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), 33.

[2] Douglas et al, No Higher Purpose, 52.

[3] Marc Milner, Canada’s Navy: The First Century (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999), 81.

[4] Milner, Canada’s Navy, 81.

[5] Douglas et al, No Higher Purpose, 62.

[6] Douglas et al, No Higher Purpose, 96.

[7] Douglas et al, No Higher Purpose, 97.

[8] Douglas et al, No Higher Purpose, 98.

[9] Douglas et al, No Higher Purpose, 99.

[10] Douglas et al, No Higher Purpose, 99.

[11] Douglas et al, No Higher Purpose, 100.

[12] Hal Lawrence, Tales of the North Atlantic, (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1985), 176.

[13] Lawrence, Tales of the North Atlantic, 176.

[14] Milner, Canada’s Navy, 84.