By Dan McCaffery For the Sarnia Observer
(1993) Half a century after it fired its last shot in anger, a Canadian warship named for the City of Sarnia has won a new battle honour. Governor General Ray Hnatyshyn has announced the HMCS Sarnia has been recognized for its role in the Second World War Battle of the St. Lawrence.
Until now, Canadian ships did not receive battle honours for any fighting that took place in the St. Lawrence. Because of that, Sarnia’s only previous laurels were for actions in the North Atlantic. Battle honours are awarded to publicly recognize the operational deeds of military units and personnel.
“I’m very pleased indeed,” John Carson, president of the Sarnia Ranch of the Royal Canadian Naval Association, said Saturday when told the news. The people of Sarnia played an indirect role in the ship’s activities by sending Sarnia’s sailors food, gifts, and other valuables almost from the day it was commissioned on August 13, 1942 until the end of the war. Mr. Carson doesn’t know whether any local men served on the vessel, which engaged in at least two notable combats with German submarines.
Sarnia, which was a minesweeper, was commissioned in Toronto and immediately escorted a convoy from Québec City to Sydney, Nova Scotia. After that, she was assigned to the Newfoundland force, later joining the Navy’s Halifax Fleet. Sarnia distinguished herself on February 9, 1944 by driving off the U-845. The submarine had damaged an Allied merchant ship, striking it with two of five torpedoes it had fired. But before it could finish the crippled vessel off, Sarnia streaked to the rescue. While the minesweeper forced the enemy submarine to flee, a tugboat towed the damaged freighter to safety.
Sarnia’s finest hour may have come three weeks before the end of the war when her crew rescued 26 survivors from the HMCS Esquimalt, which had been sunk off Nova Scotia by the U-190. Sarnia drove the submarine off with a fierce depth charge attack and then rescued 26 of Esquimalt’s sailors. The men were freezing to death aboard rubber rafts when they were picked up.
Three weeks later, at the close of hostilities, the U-190 surrendered to a pair of Canadian warships. In 1958, Sarnia was sold to the Turkish Navy, where it was known as the Buyukdere.
Seventy-four former Royal Canadian Navy ships have been granted the new recognition for being involved in operations in the St. Lawrence area from Québec City to Cabot Strait and the Strait of Belle Isle between May and October 1942 and September to November 1944. In all, 22 Allied ships were sunk and 250 sailors killed in the St. Lawrence area. German submarines came within 173 kilometres (107 miles) of Québec City.
