HMCS TRENTONIAN finishing acceptance trials at Kingston Shipyards, prior to her commissioning on 1 December 1943.

Veterans of the Battle of the Atlantic – A Royal Canadian Navy Corvette Crew and Their Stories

Join Roger Litwiller as he discusses the remarkable and poignant wartime service of the last corvette lost in action during WWII, HMCS TRENTONIAN.

This ship is the feature of Roger’s latest book, White Ensign Flying. In his research, he has interviewed over thirty members of this historic corvette’s crew, incorporating their astounding personal stories with the official records of the ship, transforming the reader into this extraordinary story as part of the ship’s company.

HMCS TRENTONIAN’s Killicks pose beside the 4 inch gun in October 1944. Left to Right: Top Row – Arthur Slater, Colin Harvey, Jack Straw, Raymond Lounsbury, Ken McDonald. Bottom Row: -Aubrey Wells, Thomas Williams and John Founier.
Roger Litwiller Collection, Allen E. Singleton, RCNVR photo, courtesy Douglas Campbell, RCNVR. (RTL-DC065)

The men related their incredible tales of life at sea, escorting convoys, fighting storms, operations during the invasion, fishing off the Grand Banks and runs ashore in the many ports they visited.

The most heart-rending memory these courageous Canadian sailors related was during TRENTONIAN’s final moments, when she was torpedoed on 22 February 1945 in the English Channel, killing six of their shipmates. Sealing TRENTONIAN’s fate as the last corvette to be lost in the Battle of the Atlantic.

Many of the men also shared with Roger their own personal photographs taken while serving in TRENTONIAN, giving this ship an unprecedented photographic record of the comprehensive life of a sailor in a corvette at war.

These powerful stories, reinforced with photos from the crew are expressed with the same emotions of exhilaration, frustration, laughter, anxiety, joy, sadness and determination experienced by the men who lived, fought and sacrificed in TRENTONIAN.