HMCS FORT WILLIAM

His Majesty’s Canadian Ship FORT WILLIAM was launched, without ceremony, in a ship-builder’s basin at Port Arthur, Ontario, on a cold winter’s day, 30 December, 1941.  Ordinarily, ships are not launched in fresh water in the winter time.  But these were not ordinary times.  It was just a few weeks after Pearl Harbour, that crushing attack that made the Second World War a truly global one.

The war at sea had already raged for two long years and Canada’s shipyards were just getting into the swing of production that was to produce a fleet of fighting ships that no one could have foreseen in 1939.  So down the ways went the FORT WILLIAM, just a bare hull, but, being afloat, her fitting out would go on throughout the winter months.

Late the following summer the scene was quite a different one.  Now the ship was a joy to behold.  Her engines were fitted.  Mast and funnel and bridge were all in place.  Her guns and depth-charge equipment were mounted and she looked, as she was, spanking new.  Most important, she was now a living thing with a growing personality.  Her ship’s company had joined and she was ready to head for salt water to join the fleet.

HMCS FORT WILLIAM, Lieutenant Hugh Campbell, RCNR, was commissioned with fitting ceremony in the yards of the Port Arthur Shipbuilding Company, Limited, 25 August, 1942.  Her steaming trials had been satisfactory and now, with the White Ensign hoisted for the first time abaft her funnel, the ship’s appearance suggested something of a festive occasion.  All decked out in her best bunting, she received on board, for the short run to Fort William, the Mayor and Council of that City, the Mayor of Port Arthur, and the Honourable Mitchell F. Hepburn, Premier of Ontario.  As she entered the harbour of Fort William, on the 26^th, crowds thronged the water-front to welcome the ship named for their City.  Uptown that evening, the City gave a fine banquet for the ship’s company and many were the gifts that were showered upon them.

On the 27^th, down at Ogilvie Dock, where the ship was secured alongside, some thousands of citizens of the Twin Cities witnessed a solemn Prayer of Dedication and at the farewell ceremonies it was most obvious that these people had a personal interest in “their” ship and wished them “Godspeed” and a safe voyage.  With that, lines were cast off and HMCS FORT WILLIAM set course down the Great Lakes for salt water, and battle.

More ratings joined the ship from the shore station at Montreal, HMCS HOCHELAGA, and by 17 September, FORT WILLIAM was outward bound from the Port of Quebec.

Untried and untrained as she was, the new ship was required for escort duty immediately, for German submarines had been sighted and attacked in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

The Germans were carrying the sea-fight right into Canadian coastal waters.  No less than eleven merchant ships were torpedoed in the St. Lawrence River and Gulf during September and the Royal Canadian Navy suffered the loss of HMC Ships RACCOON and CHARLOTTETOWN in the defence of those waters.

Without incident, however, her charge S.S. Spruce Lake deep-laden with a deck cargo of lumber was convoyed to St. Peter’s Canal, Cape Breton Island, and FORT WILLIAM continued on alone.  On 24 September, with her new pendants J-311 flying from her signal halyard, HMCS FORT WILLIAM steamed into the harbour of Halifax for the first time.

For the next few weeks, the ship’s company worked hard to bring themselves and their weapons to a high pitch of operational efficiency.  On 15 November, HMCS FORT WILLIAM was allocated to the Halifax Force which meant her base was to be that port and she was to be employed in convoying merchant shipping in North American coastal waters.  Though classed as a Bangor minesweeper, her duty for some time to come was to be the defence of Canada’s trade at sea.

HMCS FORT WILLIAM displaced 672 tons, was 180 feet long, had a beam of 28.5 feet and, when fully manned and equipped, drew nearly 12 feet of water aft.  Built of steel, her twin engines and screws were capable of driving the ship at just over 16 knots.  On the forecastle she mounted a 12-pounder High Angle gun and on the bridge superstructure there were two twin .5 Colt machine-guns and a 20 millimeter Oerlikon for rapid fire.  Back aft, FORT WILLIAM mounted two depth-charge throwers and had two chutes also for depth-charges, these for attacking U-boats.  Her ship’s company numbered 8 officers and 64 ratings.

Throughout the winter months of 1942-43, and on into the summer, the ship was engaged almost continuously in convoying merchant shipping.  The enemy was not encountered during this time and all ships were brought safely to port.  These convoys were between the following ports: Halifax, St. John’s, Sydney, Saint John, Wabana, and Boston.

When the approaches to Halifax were mined by German submarines in June, 1943, it was fully expected that the strategic port of St. John’s, Newfoundland, being closer to Europe, would come in for the same treatment.  HMCS FORT WILLIAM sailed 19 June to augment the Newfoundland Force for a period of six months.

During this stretch of convoy duty, the ship spent most of August and September in refit at Cornerbrook, Newfoundland, and Pictou, Nova Scotia.

Lieutenant S.D. Taylor, RCNR, was in command at this time, Lieutenant Campbell returning to the ship in October.  Out of refit, FORT WILLIAM, based on St. John’s, continued her convoy duties until she was recalled to Halifax in January, 1944.  Great events were brewing in the cauldron of European waters and the ships of the Royal Canadian Navy were about to roll up their sleeves, so to speak, to have a hand in the mixing of the brew.

By this time, plans were well advanced for Operation “Neptune”, the naval part of the future invasion of Normandy in France.  The tremendous industrial and economic resources of the Allies had been marshalled and the assaulting armies and air forces were being concentrated in the United Kingdom.  Thousands of ships of all types were gradually gathering in British waters to bridge the English Channel and to foil any attempts by German surface and under-sea forces to thwart the enterprise.

But before these forces could penetrate the shores of France and even before the ships of war could lead the assault, a most forbidding barrier had to be cleared away.  This was the host of German minefields that lay in French coastal waters within easy range of concentrated shore batteries.  Free mines and moored contact mines, acoustic, pressure, and magnetic mines, all sown in great profusion, because of their variety presented a technical problem of the first magnitude.  To cope with this formidable system of defences required a whole fleet of those little ships called minesweepers.  HMCS FORT WILLIAM was one of these.  For the dangerous mission that lay ahead of them, FORT WILLIAM’s company set to with a will to become an efficient team.

Fitted out for the role for which she was originally designed, HMCS FORT WILLIAM, in company with HMC Ships BLAIRMORE, MILLTOWN and MINAS, cleared Halifax 20 February, 1944, for the waters of embattled Europe.  Refuelling en route at St. John’s and at Horta in the Azores, the little squadron arrived at Plymouth, England, 8 March.  Training in minesweeping began almost at once, mostly in the vicinity of Fowey and Torquay.

During April, the all-important heavy winch for controlling the sweep wires was overhauled and the boilers blown down for cleaning.  On the 10^th, HMCS FORT WILLIAM, now a member of the 31^st Canadian Minesweeping Flotilla, sailed for the Solent.  The next night, the flotilla took part in Operation “Trousers”, a practice landing by the Canadian Army in brigade strength on Slapton Sands.  Later in the month, a similar exercise was carried out, this time with American troops.  At the end of April, the eight Bangor Class minesweepers were engaged in clearing a field sown with dummy mines.

Early in May, what amounted to almost a full-dress rehearsal of invasion on a large scale, Operation “Fabius” was performed.  In this way, nothing was left undone that would bring the fighting men of both services to peak efficiency.

On the 18^th, the 31^st Flotilla received its first operational assignment, the sweeping of a suspected enemy minefield off Start Point to the Eastward of Plymouth.  All eight ships participated and, of the ten mines swept and exploded, FORT WILLIAM accounted for two; “…the ship’s company felt repaid for the long days and nights of practice, with a winch held together by baling wire and our prayers.”

The flotilla shifted to Portland 27 May and that night the ships were subjected to a short but sharp air raid, a portent of things to come.  As the German bombers swept in over Weymouth Bay, they dropped their bombs on the city and amongst the ships at anchor.  With Nazi aircraft caught in the web of search-light beams, the ships opened up with every gun.  FORT WILLIAM managed to fire twenty rounds with her 12-pounder gun and hundreds more with her light automatic weapons.  As it turned out, this bombing raid was a “cover-up” for the mines that had been dropped on the way into the anchorage.  More work for the minesweepers.

The great day for which all these days and nights of hard training had been endured was near at hand.  D-Day, the day of invasion had been set for 6 June, 1944, — this after much anxious study of tides, currents, weather and the moon.  But the mass movement of thousands of ships and millions of men, all on a strict minute-to-minute schedule, had to be commenced well before that fateful morning, for they had to come from widely separated ports all around the British Isles.

In the Senior Ship of the 31^st Flotilla, the long awaited signal came and at 0300 on 5 June, the Canadians steamed silently out of Portland in line ahead.  CARAQUET, FORT WILLIAM, COWICHAN, WASAGA, BLAIRMORE, MILLTOWN, MINAS, MALPEQUE, MULGRAVE and BAYFIELD, His Majesty’s Canadian Ships all, were to be in the van in the assault on the Baie de la Seine.  By 1900 that evening, keeping well ahead of the convoys approaching from the west, the flotilla had reached the “Start of Sweep” position to the south of the Isle of Wight.

Now, some forty sea miles from the minefields, the ships altered in the direction of the French coast and formed up in two divisions, each line staggered so that each ship was 800 yards astern and 200 yards off to one side of the one ahead.  From the air, the port and starboard columns would appear like the head of an arrow.  So, in broad daylight of that June late-afternoon, the 31^st Flotilla streamed its sweeps and headed in, knowing that upon it depended the safety of the transports and landing craft astern.

Just as darkness was closing in, the barrier had been penetrated to a depth of eight miles.  It was a nerve-racking business to be under the “radar eyes” and the heavy guns of the French coast.  Yet all was quiet.  In formation, each ship covering the next, and with long wire sweeps streamed, it is almost impossible to take avoiding action in the event of air or gun attack.  Sweeping continued throughout the dark hours, necessitating accurate navigation in such confined and treacherous waters.

The flotilla now crossed the area where the heavy transport ships were to anchor.  At 0600, the minesweepers swept towards the beach ahead of the oncoming landing craft.  It was now that the German gunners “opened up” with a vengeance.  But, within five minutes, the Fire Support ships USS Arkansas and the French Cruisers Montcalm and Georges Leygues silenced the batteries with their main armament.  At this point some confusion had developed for the Montcalm had run over FORT WILLIAM’s wire and float but somehow the float bobbed up from under the cruiser’s stern with its faint light still burning.

In order not to crowd the big LCT’s (Landing Craft Tank) which already were launching their amphibious tanks, CARAQUET and FORT WILLIAM were obliged to go further in than planned.  Only 4000 yards from the beach, the men of FORT WILLIAM had a hectic time cutting the chain of the mooring buoy at the mouth of the harbour of Port au Bessin which had fouled the sweep.  This was a ticklish business at point blank range.

With the first forces established on the beach, the flotilla continued to sweep away the mines.  After dark, the ships would anchor some five miles off the beach and participate in the outer defences.  Each day, from dawn to dusk, as thousands more troops were landed, FORT WILLIAM and her sister ships swept the approach channels and areas around them.  This went on for eight days and nights till the 14^th when the flotilla sailed for Portland for fuel and repairs to the sweeps, returning to the French coast two days later.  During this time, between 8 and 10 June, the Canadian 31^st Flotilla accounted for 78 mines, HMCS FORT WILLIAM taking eight of them.

Lieutenant Campbell wrote:  “The flotilla moved to the Solent on the 24^th June, and with the 16^th Flotilla, swept a channel to Cherbourg, thus finishing a month which will be long remembered, and during which time the ship’s company cheerfully accepted the long hours and more arduous duties, knowing that they were part of a victorious force, determined to crush the enemy.”

The same minesweeping operations were carried out throughout July, precise navigation and unceasing vigilance being the order of the day.  On the 9^th, when recovering the sweep, there was some anxiety when a mine was found to be lodged in that portion of the sweeping apparatus known as the “kite”.  It was something of a delicate operation disengaging the mine without detonating it so close to the ship.

During August, 1944, FORT WILLIAM was Senior Ship of the flotilla in the absence of CARAQUET, and operations went on apace in the approaches to Cherbourg.  On the 10^th, the ship entered the French port for the first time and the crew had three hours ashore.  After the strain of so many weeks of round-the-clock, hazardous duties, even this brief respite was most welcome.  Three days later, CARAQUET came back fresh from her “boiler-clean” and her Aldis lamp flashed:  “We have a basket on board to carry you back to Plymouth”, for the Stokers and Engine Room Artificers of the FORT WILLIAM had brought the boilers through an unusual 1530 hours of steaming without a “boiler-clean.”

Securing alongside in Plymouth next day, repairs to equipment took up the rest of the month.  With the installation of a new winch aft, the Commanding Officer could not refrain from remarking:  “We watched the old winch over the side with mixed feelings.  It had been the recipient of so many prayers and curses, and had been in our thoughts continually for so many months, that we saw it go with a twinge of regret.  Maybe it wasn’t such a bad old winch after all!”

Throughout the autumn months and winter, HMCS FORT WILLIAM and the flotilla continued to sweep areas in various parts of the English Channel where enemy submarines, and mine-laying vessels and aircraft were attempting to disrupt the steady flow of men and supplies to the armies ashore.  The winter season often brought monotony to the Bangor crews for it was impossible to sweep in the short rough seas of the Channel’s winter storms.  It took four ships three weeks to clear one small field in the Dieppe area which normally would have been accomplished in a day or two.

By February, 1945, FORT WILLIAM was long overdue for refit.  Leaving the rest of the flotilla to keep the mines swept in the areas allocated to the flotilla, the ship cleared Plymouth bound for Halifax 19 February, HMCS COWICHAN in company.  An uneventful passage was made by way of the Azores and St. John’s, and on the last leg, a merchant ship was escorted into Halifax, 8 March.  This day being just over a year since FORT WILLIAM had sailed from Halifax, the ship’s company was proud and pleased to receive this signal from the Commander-in-Chief, Canadian North-west Atlantic, “Welcome home, Congratulations on a job well done.”

The Commanding Officer, Hugh Campbell, now promoted Lieutenant-Commander, and the Executive Officer, Lieutenant George Kelly, on their arrival home, proudly wore the Distinguished Service Cross for the fine work HMCS FORT WILLIAM had accomplished under fire in the English Channel.

The same day, 8 March, 1945, the ship was ordered to proceed independently for Saint John, N.B.  In that friendly port, she was to spend three months receiving extensive repairs and new equipment.  Leaving only a small duty watch on board, most of the ship’s company proceeded on long leave and then returned to various training establishments for refresher courses.

By the time FORT WILLIAM was ready in June to rejoin the fleet, the war in Europe was over.  There still remained, however, much work to be done by the Bangor minesweepers.  The ports of Europe were a shambles.  Sunken ships had to be cleared away and the beaches and harbour mouths, littered with the debris of war, required immediate attention.  Similarly, minefields, both enemy and our own, had to be swept to make the seas safe for merchant shipping.  Without such operations, trade, that important factor of economic recovery, could not be rebuilt.

Now under the command of Lieutenant George Kelly, DSC, RCNR, formerly the ship’s Executive Officer, HMCS FORT WILLIAM cleared from Saint John 11 June.  From Halifax, on the 23^rd, the ship sailed for Plymouth, HMCS MILLTOWN in company.  It seemed strange to FORT WILLIAM’s men to be sailing the Atlantic without zigzag courses and burning navigation lights and yet still bound for most hazardous duty in mine-infested waters.  Plymouth was reached 10 July, 1945.

During August, the ship destroyed seventeen mines off the south coast of England.  On the 9^th and 10^th, FORT WILLIAM and other ships of the flotilla swept a channel from Portland up-channel to Southampton ahead of the great liners (now troop transports) Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth.

In September, the work of the Canadian minesweepers came to a close and preparations for the voyage home were soon in hand.  Since its formation, the 31^st Flotilla had accounted for 390 German, French, and British mines.  The 11^th was the last day that the ships worked together as a unit after which, in small groups, the flotilla headed home for Canada.  On 21 September, HMCS FORT WILLIAM departed from Devonport bound for the Azores and St. John’s.  With her were HMC Ships MILLTOWN, BLAIRMORE, and GEORGIAN.  Five days later all ships refuelled in the tiny harbour of Ponta del Gada.

As the other ships left St. John’s to jettison, their ammunition in deep water en route to Sydney 2 October, FORT WILLIAM was despatched up the east coast of Newfoundland on a rescue mission.  At Belle Isle, a stranded air crew and a man requiring the immediate attention of medical officers embarked in FORT WILLIAM, were brought back to port.  It was the morning of the 5^th that the ship re-entered the crag-walled, narrow gut that is the opening into the harbour of St. John’s.

At Sydney, Cape Breton, the next day, much equipment was removed.  With HMCS SWIFT CURRENT, the ship then cleared for Shelburne, N.S., where Lieutenant Kelly paid her off into reserve 23 October, 1945.  The ship’s bell was removed and in a fitting ceremony the following summer (15 August, 1946) this memento from a proud ship was presented to the City of Fort William by the Commanding Officer, HMCS GRIFFON.

Today, HMCS FORT WILLIAM wearing the hard-won Battle Honours

“Atlantic, 1943”
“Normandy, 1944”

is a ship of the Reserve Fleet of the Royal Canadian Navy awaiting another opportunity to sail again in the service of Canada.