2 pm
As we commemorate the Battle of the Atlantic, the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic is pleased to welcome Roger Litwiller for a special presentation on Saturday, May 4th at 2:00 in our second-floor Warehouse Theatre.
The longest battle during WWII was the Battle of Atlantic; if this ocean battle was not won the war would have been lost. It was not settled by a glorious sea battle amongst the Grand Fleets, but the hard fighting day after day by the sailors that went to sea in “little” ships, escorting the convoys that kept the supply lines open between Canada and Great Britain. The Battle of Atlantic was fought by destroyers, frigates and corvettes.
The bulk of the fight was carried by 267 Flower class corvettes. They were the largest class of warships built and saw service with the Canadian, British, Dutch, French, Norwegian and American Navy’s, 111 corvettes formed the back bone of Canada’s wartime Navy.
HMCS Trentonian
This is the story of the last corvette lost in action during WWII. HMCS TRENTONIAN was one of these little ships, seeing action on the North Atlantic, coastal waters of the UK and the beaches of Normandy. She had been strafed by the Royal Airforce, shelled by the British Army and accidently attacked by the US Navy, so when the big German guns at Calais fired on her convoy, her sailors remarked, “It’s about time the enemy took a few shots at us too!”
Her fate was sealed on 22 February 1945 when a torpedo from U1004 ripped the little corvette open and she sank in the English Channel in 10 minutes killing six of her sailors, making TRENTONIAN the last corvette lost in action during WWII.
Discover the legacy of HMCS TRENTONIAN and the stories of the men that served in her.
Roger Litwiller is an author, historian and speaker on the Royal Canadian Navy and has lectured across Canada, discussing the stories of Canada’s Navy and the sailors that have served. Roger tells the stories of the men that served in TRENTONIAN in his book, White Ensign Flying –The Story of HMCS TRENTONIAN.
For additional information:
Richard MacMichael
902-424-8897
richard.macmichael@novascotia.ca