Origins of Combined Operations (5)

Passage From a Canadian Text

In the book pictured above, The Naval Service of Canada, 1910 - 2010: The Centennial Story (edited by R. H. Gimblett), one finds mention of the first Canadians who entered the Combined Operations organization as volunteers and voyaged to Scotland, then Southern England, in early 1942.

From page 64:

The RCN also made a substantial contribution to the Combined Operations service, the organization created to carry out raids on occupied Europe and develop the specialized techniques required to conduct the large amphibious landings that marked the latter years of the war. In early 1942, 50 officers and 300 ratings proceeded to Britain to form two flotillas of landing craft. On 19 August 1942, 15 officers and 55 ratings from this group were with British landing craft flotillas that participated in Operation Jubilee, the ill-fated raid on Dieppe that cost the Canadian army nearly 3,000 casualties, or about 65 percent of the troops that took part. In a letter home written shortly afterward, Sub-Lieutenant D. Ramsay*, RCNVR, provided a dramatic kaleidoscope of the images he had witnessed that terrible day, including:

“A German armed trawler blown clear out of the water by one of our destroyers; a five-inch shell right through from one side to the other on the boat next to me without exploding; the boat Officer, Skipper Jones, R.N.R. (ex-Trawlerman as you can guess) screaming invectives at the Jerry and coming out once in a while with the famous Jonesian saying, "Get stuffed"; a large houseful of Jerry machine gunners pasting hell out of anybody who dared come near the beach; a Ju.88 whose wing was cut in half by AB (Able Bodies Seaman) Mitchinson of Ontario in the boat astern; a plane swooping down low behind a destroyer and letting go a 2000 lb. bomb, which ricocheted over the mast and burst about 10 yards on the starboard bow; peeking over the cox'n's box and looking into the smoking cannon of an Me. 109. I'm here to state that that was close.”

(*D. Ramsay's letter, in full, can be found on this site, '1000 Men, 1000 Stories'.)

Organized as four distinctly RCN flotillas, Canadian Combined Operations personnel then took part in Operations Torch (the landing in North Africa in November 1942), Husky (the Sicily landing in July 1943) and Baytown (the Italy landing that September). The achievements of the Canadian flotillas were almost unknown in Canada, much to the chagrin of NSHQ, which became determined that the same case would not apply with the RCN’s Tribal-class destroyers when they entered service. (The first of these warships was commissioned HMCS Iroquois).

* * * * *

In the first paragraph taken from the book we read:

"In early 1942, 50 officers and 300 ratings proceeded to Britain..."

Canada's first volunteers proceeded to Britain aboard Volendam - Dutch Steam

passenger ship. Photo credit - U-Boat/Allies/Merchants

It is known that the first volunteers signed up for 'hazardous duties overseas' without fully knowing what the duties entailed, and that their departure for the United Kingdom (January, 1942) was delayed by the grounding of the ship they had boarded in Halifax - during a major winter storm - at least one month earlier. These earlier details can be found on this site as well, at Story: Canada's Early Days in Combined Ops

Please link to Origins of Combined Operations (4)