HMCS MAGOG

The “River” Class frigate HMCS MAGOG was built by Canadian Vickers Ltd., Montreal.  She was launched in their yards on 22 September 1943 and commissioned on 7 May 1944.  She was named in honour of Magog, a city in Stanstead County, Quebec, 78 miles east of Montreal.

MAGOG sailed for Halifax after her commissioning, arriving on 28 May.  Necessary repairs to defective boiler tubes held her in the port until 21 June when she sailed for Bermuda for a month of “working-up” exercises.  Back in Halifax in July, she was allocated to the newly-formed Escort Group 16, a support group which was to be composed of seven frigates with the Senior Officer in HMCS SPRINGHILL.  Groups of this kind did not have any convoy commitments to restrict their activities.  While they did lend support to the close escorts of convoys, their chief function was the hunting out and killing of enemy underseas raiders and their weapons were chosen and their crews trained for this purpose.

During the autumn of 1944, Nazi submarines ventured into the St. Lawrence region for the first time since the disastrous year of 1942 when they had sunk or damaged twenty-four allied ships.  Consequently, EG-16 was ordered to the area.  Owing to the need for repairs at Halifax, MAGOG was not able to leave for the base at Gaspé until September.  During that month and in October she and her companions patrolled and escorted convoys in both the Gulf and the River.  On 13 October she and the frigate HMCS STETTLER left Gaspé to rendezvous with GONS-33, the 12-ship Gulf section of a slow convoy from the United Kingdom.  With the convoy was a close escort and another frigate from EG-16, HMCS TORONTO.

The next day, the 14^th, an RCAF Catalina aircraft maintained an air patrol above the convoy.  MAGOG zigzagged on its starboard beam and TORONTO patrolled a mile ahead of her.  At 1325Z disaster unexpectedly struck when a torpedo fired from beneath the surface struck MAGOG in the stern, shearing off nearly sixty feet of the after part in the resulting explosion.  A few minutes later an acoustic torpedo exploded about fifty yards off the frigate’s port quarter.

Three men were killed instantly in the explosion and three injured.  Several were blown over the side and boats had to be lowered to rescue them.  The ship remained afloat.  Fast and efficient damage control, learned only a few months before at Bermuda, played a large part in saving her.  At 1405Z TORONTO took her in tow, but then slipped the tow when she sighted what appeared to be a periscope.  She went off, firing her guns and throwing depth charges, but all without results.

At 1614Z the corvette HMCS SHAWINIGAN, herself soon to be torpedoed, took MAGOG in tow and proceeded at 1700Z at six knots, screened by TORONTO.  A half-hour later she brought her to a safe anchorage at Godbout Bay.  The next day the tug Lord Strathcona steamed into the bay to tow the frigate to Quebec City.

In the light of overall escort requirements for the war against Japan as well as Germany, Canadian authorities sought Admiralty opinion on the advisability of making arrangements for the rebuilding of MAGOG and the frigate HMCS CHEBOGUE, then in Britain and similarly disabled by an acoustic torpedo.  In view of other work crowding the shipyards, along with the possibility of victory before such reconstruction could be completed, Admiralty opposed the idea.

In the meantime, on 20 December 1944, MAGOG was paid off to care and maintenance.  Following the decision not to rebuild her, she was turned over to War Assets Corporation which sold her in October 1945 to Marine Industries Ltd. of Sorel, Quebec, for scrap.