The "Princes" and preparedness

The usually accepted concept of Canadian military preparedness is one of "little being done in advance of war requirements and tremendous lead times required for any hardware." However, the adaption of three Canadian National Railways' (CNR) small passenger liners, Prince David, Prince Henry, and Prince Robert, in 1939-40 as Armed Merchant Cruisers (AMCs) belies that idea to some extent.

In the 1930s, the Admiralty arranged to store in Canada a supply of guns to be used for arming any Canadian ships taken up as AMCs in the event of war. Also, in 1932, when CNR was trying to dispose of their three money-losing ships in times of depression-forced austerity, the Chief of the Naval Staff, Rear-Admiral Percy Nelles, successfully opposed this sale on the grounds that the ships would prove useful as AMCs if war did happen -- a pretty remarkable feat given the general level of Canadian unpreparedness.

The three 6,900-ton "Princes" had been built under a single contract by Cammell Laird & Co., Birkenhead, as part of Sir Henry Thornton's grandiose plans to expand the government-owned CNR into the hotel and passenger ship businesses to compete with the privately-owned Canadian Pacific Railroad enterprises. At a cost of over $2,000,000 each, the CNR ships were never a success financially and in part led to Thornton's pressured resignation in 1932. Used largely on charter cruise services on the East coast and to Skagway and Juneau on the West, their employment tended to be erratic. CNR was thus quite happy to turn the ships over to the RCN after protracted negotiations in January, 1940.

The Navy had determined as early as September, 1939 that the Admiralty would transfer the twelve 6-inch guns for arming the Princes as AMCs. The Minister of National Defence then arranged to requisition these ships and several others, and Cabinet approved a good part of the funding for this and their conversion.

Conversion was typically hasty, with representatives of the Montreal naval architectural firm of Lambert, German and Milne, a naval constructor, and representatives of Canadian Vickers, in Prince Henry's case, walking about the boat and upper decks marking in chalk those locations to be cut away, or for holes for ammunition hoists, and where deck strengthening would be required for guns. On all three vessels the upper two decks and one funnel were cut away, a small cruiser bridge was fitted, and four single "handraulically" operated and elderly (1906) 6-inch guns fitted. There was no vestige of gunnery control, and only one 3-inch gun and a couple of machine guns for anti-aircraft armament. Depth charges were provided in rails at their sterns and rudimentary ASDIC added later.

While not a huge success, they did serve as a visible, heartening symbol of defence for early 1940 convoys and a security along the Canadian coasts.

Their use as convoy escorts illustrates the paucity of suitable A/S escorts, and yet the planning for defence against German merchant raiders and pocket battleships, which in fact in the western Atlantic in the early 1940-41 days was the threat, not U-boats.

In September,1940, off the coast of Mexico, Prince Robert succeeded in capturing intact the German merchantman Weser, intended as a supply ship for the raider Orion. In a twist of fate, Weser, renamed Vancouver Island and under the Canadian flag, was later sunk in the Atlantic in October 1941 by U-558. Prince Robert went on to escort the Canadian troops sent to Hong Kong in SS Awatea, returning to Victoria via Hawaii just days ahead of the Japanese attack in Dec. 1941. Later, in February 1941, Prince Henry caught two more German merchantmen off Mexico's west coast trying to escape internment. But both were able to blow scuttling charges that eventually sank them before Prince Henry's boarding party could prevent their loss.

The ships were in fact unlikely to be able to combat any serious adversary, and with their large and undivided internal spaces would have been very vulnerable to U-boat attack. But for three years they escorted convoys in the Atlantic and Caribbean, and after a brief refit in Esquimalt in 1942, patrolled the West coast and assisted the in the re-taking of the Aleutian Islands that year. Prince David even appeared in a modestly successful movie The Commandos Strike At Dawn.

By late 1942 it was obvious, taking British experience with their AMCs lost to German raiders and heavy warships, that the three Princes were very vulnerable and should no longer serve in the AMC role. Despite their make-shift conversion, they had served a valuable purpose until we and our Allies were able to catch up with relatively "proper" warships. So on the Admiralty's suggestion, Prince David and Prince Henry were taken in hand at Burrard Drydock in Vancouver for conversion to Landing Ships Infantry (Medium), one to also be equipped as a headquarters ship for the invasion of Europe. As the planners could not see a requirement for three such LSIs, Prince Robert was to be converted to an auxiliary anti-aircraft cruiser.

In that role, Prince Robert was re-equipped with ten 4-inch HA/LA guns in twin mountings, eight 40mm pom-pom and 12 Oerlikon 20mm machine guns. She was despatched to Europe and escorted convoys from the Mediterranean and Gibraltar to England, fighting several battles with attacking German aircraft and their new flying bombs. In the fall of 1944 she was withdrawn for assignment to the British Pacific Fleet (BPF). This was a small part of a complicated political deal whereby the British wanted to have a modifying and definitive influence in the South Pacific alongside the massive US Navy. Canada wanted more destroyers, cruisers and even aircraft carriers for their post-war Navy, and offered the Prince Robert and the cruiser HMCS Uganda as their immediate contribution to the BPF cause.

In a nice touch, Prince Robert was one of the first warships back into Hong Kong, to not only accept the local Japanese surrender but also to go into the Sham Shui Po offshore prison camp where many of the surviving Canadians were held. She brought a few of them home to Canada via the Philippines and was turned over to War Assets Disposal in January, 1946.

Prince David and Prince Henry probably made their most valuable contribution as LSIs on the morning of D-Day, when each ship's eight little Landing Craft Assault boats took in Canadian troops of the 7th and 8th Infantry Brigades and Royal Marines to "Juno" Beach off St. Aubin-sur-mer. Their training had been intensive and paid off in that almost all troops were landed safely, on time, and in the right location. Prince David did not recover any of her LCAs that day because almost all of them were damaged and some even sunk when ramming underwater obstacles on the way in or out. Prince Henry's day was more successful, although a couple of her boats were also damaged but recoverable.

For the next two months these two ships made follow-up trips from Southampton to the Normandy beaches, then were assigned to the forces for Operation Dragoon, taking troops from Italy to the south of France. These were mostly North African French Goum native soldiers, but there were also some men of the 1st Special Service Force. After this successful operation the two ships were employed in trooping from Egypt to Italy and then to Greece, where civil war had erupted between factions loyal to the returning King and Parliament and the Communist EOKA. At one point, Prince David hit a mine in a supposedly swept channel leading to Piraeus, and was withdrawn to North Africa for temporary repairs, leaving her LCAs under Prince Henry's control. It was an excellent example of flexibility of command and use, whereby the seamen coped with soldiers many of whom spoke no English, goats being carried for the Greek evacuees, acting as neutrals in the Greek disputes, and going into ports that no-one could guarantee were mine-cleared, debris free or even welcoming.

Prince David returned to Canada in the late fall to join Prince Robert on the West coast. Prince Henry returned to England where she was turned over to the British Ministry of War Transport for trooping duties between Harwich and the Hook of Holland as the Empire Parkston under British Merchant Navy command and manning. She was withdrawn and scrapped in 1962. Prince David and Prince Robert were later sold to Charlton Steam Shipping Co. who converted them again to passenger ships, under new names, moving emigrants from Europe to North Africa and South America. Prince David only lasted until 1951 when engine problems lead to her scrapping. Prince Robert was later sold to Italian interests as Lucania, and was scrapped in 1962 as well.

In this case, the foresight of Rear-Admiral Percy Nelles paid off. Throughout the war, the three Princes served their country well.

Fraser M. McKee is a naval historian.