HMCS NEW GLASGOW

HMCS NEW GLASGOW (ocean escort) was built by Yarrows Ltd., Esquimalt, B.C., was launched in May, 1943, and was commissioned on December 23, of that year.

She left Esquimalt for the East Coast in January, 1944, arriving at Halifax in February.

Until the fall of 1944, the NEW GLASGOW was employed, on convoy escort duty, first in the Western Atlantic as senior ship of Escort Group W1, and later as senior ship of C1, a mid-ocean group operating between Newfoundland and Northern Ireland.

Late in 1944, German U-boats returned to the coastal waters of the United Kingdom to harass Allied shipping, and it was in this theatre of operations that the NEW GLASGOW spent the last six months of the European war.

In October, the NEW GLASGOW joined Escort Group 26, a Canadian group working out of Lough Foyle in Northern Ireland in support of inward and outward bound convoys.  Sister ships in the all-Canadian group were the BEACON HILL, MONTREAL, RIBBLE and JONQUIERE.

Five months later the NEW GLASGOW got her submarine.  On the night of March 20, 1945, an hour after leaving Lough Foyle, the frigate sighted a U-boat’s schnorkel and periscope not more than 100 yards off the port bow.  She rammed and severely damaged the U-boat, which immediately dived to the ocean floor.  Further inconclusive attacks were carried out by the NEW GLASGOW, but she herself had been damaged in the collision, and had to return to port for repairs.  The U-boat, meantime remained submerged for nearly two days.  The damage she had received was fatal, however, and after surfacing, she was scuttled by her crew.  Thirty-one survivors were picked up by HMCS THETFORD MINES on the morning of March 23, about four miles from the spot where she was rammed by the NEW GLASGOW.

The NEW GLASGOW returned to Canada in June, 1945, and later was placed in reserve.  Taken out of reserve in 1951, she was modernized at Canadian Vickers Ltd., Montreal, completing in December, 1953, and commissioning again on January 30, 1954.

She was allocated to the Pacific Command early in 1954 and travelled to the West Coast by way of the Panama Canal, arriving at Esquimalt on April 1, 1954.

The NEW GLASGOW is a unit of the Second Canadian Escort Squadron, and has been engaged in training and operational duties.

Directorate of Information Services

Canadian Forces Headquarters

January 1965