HMCS MELVILLE

For each ship of war that acquires a glamorous reputation through an action-packed career, there are many that might be termed the “work-horses” of the fleet – little ships manned by stout-hearted young men, cheerfully patrolling Canadian coasts in sunshine and in blizzard, shepherding merchantmen in and out of ports, and seldom if ever catching a glimpse of the enemy.  But all in the knowledge that their work is an essential ingredient in the making of victory.  Such a vessel was His Majesty’s Canadian Ship MELVILLE.

Construction under the 1940-1941 programme, the MELVILLE displaced 590 tons, had an overall length of 162 feet, an extreme breadth of 28 feet, and drew 8 feet 9 inches of water.  Having two propellers, the ship was powered by twin 1000 horse-power diesel engines which gave her an endurance of 2700 nautical miles at a speed of 13 knots and a maximum speed of 16 knots.  On the forecastle, she mounted a 12-pounder gun while aft she carried depth charges for attacking submarines.

HMCS MELVILLE was a ship of the Bangor Class, fifty-four of which served with the Royal Canadian Navy.  These were triple-purpose ships designed originally to be minesweepers but which were used to a great extent for coastal patrol and for convoy escort.  While many of these ships swept the seas ahead of the Normandy invasion forces, the Bangors for the most part did duty off Canadian harbours and in the Western Atlantic.

The MELVILLE was built in the yards of the Davie Shipbuilding and Repairing Company, Limited, at Lauzon near Quebec City.  She was launched without ceremony on 7 June 1941 and, in like fashion, her sister ships GRANBY and NORANDA soon joined her in the fitting-out basin.  A week later, on 14 June, the three ships were christened when HMCS LACHINE was launched, the sponsor for the four ships being Mrs. Godfrey M. Hibbard, wife of Captain Hibbard who was at that time the Director of the Technical Division at Naval Headquarters.  HMCS MELVILLE was named during this ceremony in honour of the Town of Melville in Southern Saskatchewan, and the Honourable James G. Gardiner MP and Mrs. Gardiner, representing Melville, were invited to attend.

The work of fitting her engines and other equipment went on during the summer and autumn and, rather than take a chance of her being locked in by the winter’s ice of the St. Lawrence, the MELVILLE was hastily manned and commissioned 4 December, 1941, just three days before Pearl Harbor.

Not yet ready for war this newcomer to the fleet steamed down the St. Lawrence into the open gulf.  On 11 December, the MELVILLE anchored off Mulgrave to take shelter from a blinding snowstorm.  Two days later, Lieutenant R.T. Ingram, RCNR, brought his ship into the port of Halifax for the first time, a port that was for many years to see this ship’s pendants J-263 flying from her yard-arm signal halyard.

Secured alongside in Halifax harbour, the ship spent the first two months of 1942 fitting out for sea duty.  Armament was fitted and ammunition stowed; a full ship’s company joined and gradually came to know the ship and all her workings.  HMCS MELVILLE was now “in all respects ready for sea” and the year 1942 was to be a grim challenge to the men and ships of the growing Royal Canadian Navy.

In this month of February, German U-boats sank fifteen ships off Canada’s eastern shores, six of them being torpedoed within 30 miles of the Nova Scotia coast between Canso and Cape Sable.  Over 400 survivors were rescued from the icy seas; at least 250 went down with their ships or were lost from boats and rafts.  It was also during this month that the Canadian corvette SPIKENARD was torpedoed and lost, there being but eight survivors.  Just off the Nova Scotia coast German submarines dared to surface and attack small coasters with gun-fire.  HMCS MELVILLE at once put to sea to join the constant patrol that watched the Halifax approaches.

On the afternoon of 22 February, 1942, the tanker Kars was torpedoed just six miles south of Sambro Light Vessel.  MELVILLE five miles away saw not only the explosion, but, shortly afterwards, a submarine surface and disappear again beyond the smoke.  Closing at top speed, the minesweeper failed to get a sound contact but did pick up two survivors.  The after portion of the Kars was towed into port.

On the 5 March, HMCS MELVILLE joined in a search in the same area for the submarine that sank S.S. Collamer.  Three days later, she steamed to a point 40 miles off Sambro Light where an aircraft had attacked a U-boat.  On 23 March, the MELVILLE was despatched to assist HMC Destroyer ANNAPOLIS who was pounding a suspected submarine with depth charges off Chebucto Head.  Two weeks later, HMCS CHEDABUCTO depth charged a U-boat to the surface just off the mouth of Halifax harbour and the MELVILLE joined in the search after the submarine had dived again.  In each case, there was no evidence of success, but the MELVILLE and her consorts were beginning to make things unpleasant for the under-sea raiders.

HMCS MELVILLE continued with the Halifax Defence Force until 20 April, 1942, when she was taken in hand for refit.  On completion in May, she was allocated to the Shelburne Force and arrived for duty at that base 17 May.  Two days later, the minesweeper rescued the survivors of the torpedoed 7000-ton merchant ship Port Qu’Appelle and landed them at Shelburne, N.S.

The MELVILLE had a busy summer while based on Shelburne.  Many days were spent searching for merchant seamen adrift in small boats and in screening salvage operations when torpedoed merchant ships had been beached or brought into temporary anchorage.  In addition, cargo ships were escorted to and from the ports of Yarmouth and Saint John.  For two weeks in August, in a dense fog, the MELVILLE screened the salvage operations being conducted on the grounded merchant ship William Maclay, a piece of work that required outstanding navigation and seamanship.  On 15 September, 1942, HMCS MELVILLE entered Halifax harbour to join the Western Local Escort Force.

Based on Halifax the ship was now engaged in convoy escort duties, mainly in connection with protecting portions of trans-ocean convoys on detaching or joining the main convoys well out in the Atlantic.  On these runs, MELVILLE’s ship’s company quite often managed to get ashore in Boston and New York.

The ships of the Bangor Class, though small, were remarkably seaworthy craft and when hove to in a storm of gale proportions seldom sustained damage as larger ships often do.  In her two years of duty on the Halifax station there was many a day and night when the men of MELVILLE kept the ship’s head to the wind without making headway and thus rode out gales of hurricane force.

By the spring of 1943, the over-worked MELVILLE was badly in need of a major overhaul or refit.  This was carried out in the port of Lunenburg, N.S., where she arrived 3 February, 1943.  Parts of the ship’s company were drafted ashore for refresher courses in communications, gunnery, anti-submarine warfare and other technical schools to be in readiness to take the MELVILLE back to the convoy lanes.

Commencing in April the ship was at sea for long periods of convoy duty from New York to St. John’s until the end of June, 1944.  Things had been quiet on the western ocean in the summer of that year, for the German Navy was fully absorbed in attempting to counter the mighty invasion armada that struck the Normandy beaches in June.  However, in May, the Canadian frigate VALLEYFIELD had been sunk by torpedo, with the loss of 125 lives, just off Newfoundland’s Cape Race.  It was to these waters that HMCS MELVILLE shaped course in late July, 1944.  Allocated to the Sydney Force, MELVILLE was to reinforce the ships already in that area, for the naval authorities anticipated another U-boat assault in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

Fresh from working up to fighting efficiency in Bermuda waters, the MELVILLE protected convoys of merchant ships from New York to the ports of Newfoundland and Father Point on the St. Lawrence.  The U-boats again took their toll in the gulf but MELVILLE continued to get her charges through without being attacked.

With the end of hostilities, HMCS MELVILLE’s services were no longer required by the Royal Canadian Navy.  She was placed on the disposal list.  Her last voyage flying the White Ensign, was to Pictou, Nova Scotia, where she arrived 15 July, 1945.  In that port, she was turned over to the Department of Fisheries for service in the protection of Canadian fisheries.  HMCS MELVILLE still sails Canadian waters as CGS Cygnus.