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Authors: Nathan M. Greenfield

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Finally, thanks to Chris Bucci at HarperCollins, who has wielded his blue pencil skilfully and ensured that this narrative flows.

I, alone, of course, am responsible for any errors that follow.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

T
he four navies and different merchant fleets whose story this is had three different ways of reckoning time. The U-boats used German War Time, the prime meridian of which was Berlin rather than Greenwich, England. The Royal Navy, the Royal Canadian Navy and the United States Navy used Greenwich Mean Time. Thus, German war logs recorded events two hours ahead of whatever time the RN, RCN or USN recorded them, 1445 for the U-boats being 12:45z for the RN, RCN and USN (the “z” stands for “Zulu” and denotes GMT). Some merchant ships used GMT; others used local time, which was four hours earlier than GMT.

Since my main concern is to tell of the events that were unfolding in the St. Lawrence, I generally use local time, though to give the reader a taste of the military record I sometimes use both Zulu and German War Time, trusting that in context all will be clear.

A similar type of confusion reigns in the question of distances. Here the
Kriegsmarine
is most eclectic. Cruising distances were reckoned in nautical miles, and speed in knots; a knot is one nautical mile an hour, and a nautical mile is slightly longer than a mile measured on land. Distances between ships and when diving, however, were reckoned in metres; torpedo runs were, of course, also measured in metres. By contrast, the RCN, RN and USN, all of which used nautical miles and knots, measured distance between ships and from torpedoes in yards (and, less frequently, in cables, a cable being 4,256 feet). At the risk of a certain inconsistency but in the service of giving my reader a sense of the historical documents, I use all
units of measure. As well, in order to give my reader a sense of the German navy, at times I use German phrases and titles, supplying translations where necessary.

I have distinguished between written material being quoted and interviews by using the present tense in the attribution for interviews—for example, “Read recalls”—and the past tense for written sources.

The distances given in the snapshots of the war are calculated from Gaspé, Quebec, and are rounded off to the nearest 500 miles.

Copyright

The Battle of the St. Lawrence
©2004 by Nathan Greenfield.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

EPub Edition © NOVEMBER 2010 ISBN: 978-1-443-40149-4

Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd

Excerpts from James Lamb’s
On the Triangle Run: The Fighting Spirit of Canada’s Navy
(2nd Edition), published by Stoddart in 2000, reprinted by permission of Ruby Edith Lamb. Excerpts from Alfred Noyes’ poem “The Search Lights” reprinted by permission of The Society of Authors (UK) as the Literary Representative of the Estate of Alfred Noyes. Excerpts from John Rooney’s poem “The Men Behind the Guns” reprinted by permission of Bartleby.com, Inc. Excerpt from C. Fox Smith’s poem “The British Merchant Service” reprinted by permission of Bartleby.com, Inc. Maps on pages vi–ix reproduced with permission of Veterans Affairs Canada, 2003.

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.

FIRST EDITION

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
2 Bloor Street East, 20th Floor
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M4W 1A8

www.harpercollins.ca

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Greenfield, Nathan M., 1958–
The battle of the St. Lawrence: the Second World
War in Canada / Nathan
M. Greenfield.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN O-OO-2OO664-2

1
. World War, 1939–1945 -Naval operations, German.
2.
World War, 1939–1945 -Saint Lawrence River.
3.
World War, 1939–1945 -Naval operations–Submarine.
4.
World War,
1939—1945
– Naval operations, Canadian.
5.
Canada. Royal Canadian Navy – History.
6.
World War, 1939—1945 -Canada. I. Title.

D779.C2G73 2004    940.5435943
C2004–903989-X

DWF 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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BOOK: The Battle of the St. Lawrence
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