Wedding photo of Stu and Mary (nee-Balch) Graves while serving in HMCS MALPEQUE, with his Best Man and Helen Balch, Maid of Honour. Notice the white tapes sewn into the grooms jumper. Roger Litwiller Collection, courtesy of Bill Widger. (RTL-BW_001)
HMCS ESQUIMALT
HMCS ESQUIMALT, Bangor class minesweeper, was torpedoed by U190 off Halifax on 16 April 1945. Forty-four sailors of her ship’s company of seventy-one were killed when she was lost. Late in the day of 15 April, ESQUIMALT left Halifax to perform and anti-submarine sweep of the approaches to the harbour in advance of a convoy […]
HMCS GUYSBOROUGH
HMCS GUYSBOROUGH -Bangor class minesweeper, was sunk by two torpedoes fired by U-878 in the Bay of Biscay on 17 March 1945. Of the ninety-two sailors in her ship’s company , fifty-one were killed. GUYSBOROUGH was returning to the UK after a refit at Lunenburg, NS, sailing alone the minesweeper was off the coast of […]
HMCS CLAYOQUOT -A Christmas Eve Tragedy
HMCS CLAYOQUOT -Bangor class minesweeper, was torpedoed and sunk by U806 two miles from the Sambro Light vessel off Halifax on 24 December 1944, killing eight of her crew of eighty-four sailors. At the time of CLAYOQUOT’s sinking she had been assigned to Halifax as an escort. However, on 23 December she was ordered to […]