I remember one particular summer my mom had taken all of us
kids to the Canadian National Exposition in Toronto. This was an annual event but this one year I
learned something new and very strange.
This year they had a large ship, HMCS HAIDA, in the harbour that was
open to the public. My mom dragged us on
the ship. I was possibly 10 years of age
and did not want to go on some old ship – I wanted to go on the rides!
However once on the ship my mom had said something to a
steward that caught my interest. Her
brother was on a similar type ship during the war and it sunk. She asked if we could go down below to see
where he might have worked and we all were led down to the bottom of the ship
to see the boiler room. It seemed like forever to get there and it was small
and dark and smelly. My mom said that
only reason that her brother survived was he was jettisoned to the surface in
an air bubble as the ship sunk. The
steward looked at her in disbelief and I must confess, I could not picture that
happening. I never forgot that story and
had always wondered if there was any truth to it or was it just a “tall tale”.
Built at the Yarrows Ltd. shipyard in Esquimalt, British
Columbia, she was commissioned on February 4, 1941 and arrived at Halifax on
April 13 in company with HMCS AGASSIZ.
On May 23, 1941, the two ships departed for St. John's to join the
recently formed Newfoundland Escort Force.
ALBERNI left the following month with a convoy for Iceland, and served
as a mid-ocean escort until May 1942 when she was taken out of service to have
a new boiler installed. in September
1942, she had taken part in the defence of Convoy SC.42, which lost 18 ships to
as many U-boats, fifteen merchantmen were sunk and U-501 was destroyed by
CHAMBLY and MOOSE JAW.
Assigned to duties in connection with the invasion of North
Africa, she sailed for the U.K. in October with Convoy HX.212, and until
February 1942, escorted convoys between the U.K. and the Mediterranean. She returned to Halifax in March 1943 and
served briefly with WEEF before transferring to Quebec Force in May. For the next five months she escorted
Quebec-Labrador convoys, leaving Gaspe on November 6 to undergo repairs at
Liverpool, N.S. With repairs completed
early in February, she proceeded to Bermuda to work up, and on her return to
Halifax joined EG W-4. On April 24 she
sailed for the U.K. for duties connected with the coming invasion. ALBERNI was
then based on Londonderry, and made a name for herself during 1942 by rescuing
over 145 torpedoed merchant seamen on two occasions. She was assigned to
escorting convoys in support of North African landings between Britain,
Gibraltar and North African Ports. She was present with the Mediterranean
convoys when VILLE DE QUEBEC and REGINA obtained their submarine kills but, as
with U 501, did not have the chance for direct participation and credit.
Reports did give ALBERNI a "Probably damaged" verdict after an attack
in 1941. Returning to Canada in March 1943, she served in the Western Local and
in the Gulf Escort Force in the St. Lawrence. Time was taken for a modest and
partial refit. In April 1944 she was one of seventeen RCN corvettes sent to the
UK in support of Operation Neptune, the landings at Normandy.
In June and July she escorted a miscellaneous collection of
landing craft and ships, barges, tugs and floating piers for Mulberry and
merchant ships between Southampton Water and the Beaches.
On July 26, 1944 she shot down a German Junkers 88 that had
attacked her at almost sea level. ALBERNI opened fire with her starboard
Oerlikons and the after pom-pom as the plane tore toward her. The Junkers
climbed and banked to clear ALBERNI and her port Oerlikons scored direct hits
at close range. The enemy burst into flames and exploded in the sea 100 yards
off ALBERNI'S port bow with no survivors. On 28 July she narrowly missed an
aircraft-laid mine, then a depth charge laid over an asdic contact set off
another mine 200 yards off ALBERNI'S starboard beam without significant damage.
It was an exciting time.
On July 28, 1944 Corvette HMCS Alberni was narrowly missed an
aircraft-laid mine when
a depth charge laid over an asdic contact set off another
mine 200 yards off Alberni's starboard
beam without significant damage.
After brief maintenance at Southampton, ALBERNI was ordered
to relieve HMCS DRUMHELLER on patrol for u-boats to the eastward of the swept
channel leading to the Normandy beaches.
At 11:45 on August 21 1944 she was steaming south at fourteen knots in fair
weather with a NNE wind of five knots but State Four seas for the rendezvous,
sweeping by asdic eighty-degrees on either bow, radar operating. "Hands to Dinner" had just been
piped. Four minutes later, with no asdic
warning whatsoever, she was hit by a torpedo fired from U-480 on her port side
just aft of the engine room. In less than 10 seconds she was awash from
the funnel aft, listing to port and sinking fast. In another twenty seconds she was gone,
sinking stern first. Most of the
off-watch hands were trapped in their mess decks, and only one stoker escaped
from the engine and boiler rooms.
That stoker was my late uncle, William Thomas Stapleford
Palin. The only way he could have got to
the surface of the water in 20 seconds was to be jettisoned up in an air
bubble! So then the story was true!
For forty-five minutes the dazed survivors struggled to keep
from drowning or giving up in heavy seas.
Providentially HM motor Torpedo boats 469 and 470, returning from duties
off Normandy and having seen an explosion and the startling disappearance of
the corvette on their horizon, altered course to investigate. They came across the survivors and rescued
three officers and twenty-eight men of the ship's company of ninety. They were taken to Portsmouth, where two
moderately injured were admitted to hospital.
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