Spurred on by the article by his old shipmate Kildare Dobbs [“Ship to Shore,” Zoomer magazine, June 2010], Adrian Hamilton QC writes of his memories in the North Atlantic

I am Adrian Hamilton, whose pictures illustrate Kildare Dobbs’s nostalgic reminiscences in your June issue. As the picture on page 66 shows, neither Kildare nor I are unchanged by age!

Perhaps I can reminisce a little about the U-boat war on the Atlantic seaboard in 1942, in particular the considerable contribution of the Royal Canadian Navy, which does not seem to me to have been fully recognized. Of course, as Ordinary Seamen, we were not privy to the whole picture. It was, however, obvious to us on our arrival in the spring of 1942 that there was a major J-boat offensive in progress in these waters, that there was not much sign of USN escort vessels and that the contribution of the Royal Navy was limited. Our ship, HMS Caldwell, was one of the fifty 1914-18 destroyers leased/lent to the RN. She was barely seaworthy at the best of times and was under a major re-fit in Boston when we arrived. The RN had few vessels to spare, and it was clear when we did get to sea on convoy escort duty that the RCN was bearing a major share of the burden and the losses.

In fact, history now tells us that in January 1942 Admiral Doenitz had ordered a fleet of U-boats to sail to the Atlantic seaboard, with refueling arrangements in place, in a major assault on shipping. By 12 January 1942, these U-boat movements were picked up a Bletchley Park, the top-secret British code-breaking unit, who had broken the German Enigma codes, which Doenitz believed to be inviolable. Admiral King, the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Navy, was informed. Admiral King, however, took no action, apparently because he was not prepared to learn anything from “a bunch of limeys.” It is, of course, true that the USN had few escort vessels available and that he was concentrating on the Pacific, after Pearl Harbour. But we can accept the assessment of General George Marshall, the U.S. Army Chief of Staff, in his message to Admiral King on 19 June 1942 that: “The losses by submarines off our Atlantic seaboard and in the Caribbean now threaten our entire war effort.” It is to be remembered that Winston Churchill himself said that the U-boat attacks were “the only things that really frightened me during the war.”

By then, June 1942, convoys began to be organized, and losses of ships were progressively reduced. Further, the U.S.A. started an urgent program of building anti-submarine vessels, which transformed the situation in time. But while these new vessels were becoming available, together with new British vessels, the RCN had to continue to bear a major share of the burden and losses. One statistic is revealing — in 1939, Canada had only six warships; by the end of the war, Canada had more than 400 warships, almost half the North Atlantic escort force.

I returned to England in December 1942, on HMS LST 301, the first LST to cross the Atlantic. I have later learnt that Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, the new Chief of Combined Operations, had been advised that it was uncertain if LSTs could sail across the North Atlantic in the winter seas but decided that it was crucial to invasion plans to try. So off we went in slow Convoy SC113 into a full hurricane! We were all expendable! With her shallow draft, LST 301 would not answer the helm, so we were liable to veer erratically off course and had to sail behind the convoy to avoid ramming the other ships. Fortunately, the U-boats kept submerged to avoid the high seas. By chance, Caldwell, with Kildare still on board, was in considerable difficulties some 30 miles away, as our Radio Operator told me. These difficulties are described graphically in Kildare’s autobiography Running the Rapids. However, with hairy moments and Christmas dinner confined to bully beef and boiled potatoes, we in LST 301 got to Gourock on New Year’s Day 1943, to be met by Lord Louis himself, anxious to start trials with the first LST made available to him.

In July 1943, I was commissioned and in August joined HMS Deptford, a convoy escort sloop. Happily, my involvement with the RCN continued. Of the nine officers on board, two were RCNVR officers, our doctor Surgeon Lieutenant “Mike” O’Brien RCNVR and Lieutenant “Dave” Davidson RCNVR. A picture taken by me in the Mediterranean in February 1944. Surgeon Lieutenant “Mike” O’Brien and Lieutenant “Dave” Davidson are the smart ones with the hats on — Mike with the beard on the left, Dave in the middle. The third officer was Bob Franklin, an Australian Sub-Lieutenant RANVR. The three underline the crucial contribution of the Commonwealth countries in winning the war and particularly the U-boat war.

Ashore, we enjoyed many kindnesses. In particular, in October-November 1942, I hitchhiked much of the way from Halifax to Windsor, Ont., and back to visit my aunt in Detroit. It was wonderful the kindness that was shown to this 19-year-old in bell-bottomed trousers and a suit of navy blue! One final belated thank-you: in September 1945, with the war over, I was one of several officers sent across to Vancouver as part of the crew of a ship being built there. We had a wonderful train journey across Canada, with bands at every stop welcoming the returning troops. We had a long stop at Winnipeg but were surprised to be met by an RCNVR officer, who had heard we were on the train and felt we would be happier back at their mess, without the bands but with a drink or two. He was right, and I am not sure that my thanks on being returned to the train were really adequate.