HMCS GODERICH

HMCS GODERICH

The “Bangor” Class minesweeper or, as she was rated later, Coastal Escort, HMCS GODERICH, was laid down in the yards of the Toronto Shipbuilding Co. Ltd., Toronto, on 15 January 1941, launched on 14 May and commissioned on 23 November of the same year.  The ship was named in honour of the town in Ontario.  It is on Lake Huron at the mouth of the Maitland River and has the largest harbour on the Canadian side of the Lake.

After commissioning, GODERICH steamed to Halifax where she joined the Halifax Force and opened a career, which lasted until the end of the war, of escorting innumerable convoys, some made up of vessels plying between local ports and others comprising trans-Atlantic cargo ships sailing on the coastal part of their voyages.  These duties, while unspectacular, were of a rigorous nature and carried on with a minimum of rest and in every variety of weather.

In July 1941 the ship was transferred to the Sydney Force, but returned to the Halifax Force in August.  She sailed also at times in company with groups in the Western Escort Force.  Although her chief duties were these various forces remained those of the convoy escort, there were occasions when she was called upon for other duties, such as minesweeping, as in June 1943 when the enemy laid mines off Halifax harbour.

Most memorable, perhaps, of her departures from her usual routines came about when she sailed to give aid to the US tanker

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safely to St. John’s, Newfoundland, for repairs.  In the following January, however, when she attempted to reach a U.S. port under tow of HM Tug Frisky and the escort of HM Destroyer Chelsea, she encountered a violent storm which broke her damaged hull in two.  The forward section sank, carrying eleven men with it, but the stern section, crowded with the forty-two remaining members of the crew, remained afloat.  Chelsea and Frisky lost contact with it, but the latter, along with GODERICH and the tug Foundation Aranmore, refound it after a four-day search.  GODERICH and Frisky took off the survivors; the tug then tried to take it in tow, but it proved unsalvageable and she had to sink it.

After the war, GODERICH was refitted at Liverpool, N.S., from 1 August to 5 October 1945.  She was then destored.  She was paid off on 6 November 1945 and sold to Marine Industries Ltd., Sorel, P.Q.  The agreement between the Navy and the purchaser, however, allowed for the reacquirement of the ship by the Navy, if circumstances appeared to demand it.  The war in Korea seemed to be just a circumstance, and in 1951 the ship was turned over to George T. Davie and Sons of Lauzon, P.Q., for modernization.  She emerged from their yards in December 1952 as a “’Bangor’ Class Coastal Escort”.  The similarity converted “Bangor” HMCS BROCKVILLE towed her to Point Edward Naval Base near Sydney, N.S.

But GODERICH was never commissioned again.  She remained in reserve at Sydney until 11 February 1959, when she was resold to Marine Industries Limited.