WESTERN THEATRE: Dominion Men

While the cruisers Exeter, Ajax and Achilles were holing up the Graf Spee in the South Atlantic; while the R. A. F. harried Helgoland and two British submarines smacked the Nazi Navy in its own waters (TIME, Dec. 25)—across the North Atlantic, obscured by these events, and by winter fog and an efficient blanket of censorship, a large group of long, grey shapes proceeded methodically in eight days from Halifax, N. S. to a port in west Britain.* In that camouflaged convoy were such crack passenger liners as Aquitania, Batory, Empress of Britain. Guarding them was Britain's main Battle Fleet, for on this convoy no slightest chance could be taken.

It was the first contingent of troops from Canada for World War II, a complete division of 12-16,000 men drawn from all nine Provinces (and including about 100 U. S. volunteers who sang Sousa's Washington Post March upon landing). Navy men remembered the fix Britain was in the last time a Canadian vanguard crossed the water. That was in October 1914, when 33,000 men had to be moved in 31 ships from Quebec, plus one from Newfoundland, one from Bermuda. Unknown to the Germans, the British Navy was then embarrassed by the absence of two battle cruisers in the South Atlantic, chasing Admiral Count Spee's squadron. Also unavailable were the battleship King George V, which was in dock for repairs, and the battleships Conqueror and Monarch, which had collided. Assigned to escort the 1914 Canadians were (besides cruisers and destroyers) the antique battleships Glory and Majestic. For the sake of Canadian good will, Admiral Jellicoe grudgingly added the battle cruiser Princess Royal, but only he and the Canadians' commander in chief, Major General E. A. H. Anderson, knew it at the time, for this left Jellicoe with no edge in capital ships to keep guard over the German Navy.

Last fortnight, radio operators on other ships in the North Atlantic were startled to hear a British battleship broadcast one day, right out in plain English: "Read Luke XV: 6." Bible looker-uppers found this quotation : ". . . Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost." (One of the troopships had strayed in fog, been shepherded back by two destroyers.)

Officers of Samaria, outbound from a northwestern British port, thanked the Lord for a larger favor when, in fog that cut visibility to a ship's length, their vessel grazed one of the incoming transports so closely that lifeboats were sheared from their davits.

The press was exasperated when after being allowed to watch the debarkation under oath to keep mum for 48 hours, it heard First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill broadcast, 36 hours before the press deadline: ". . . And I can also tell you that yesterday the leading division of the Canadian Army . . . disembarked safely and smoothly. . . ."

Dominions Secretary Anthony Eden stood on the gangway to deliver a welcoming message from Canada's King George VI. Off his own bat, he said: "The struggle in which we are engaged may be long—it certainly will be tough—we all know that.

But in the assurance of the unity of all peoples of the British Commonwealth is the certainty of final victory." Canadian troops went to Aldershot, famed British training station in Hampshire, for two months' polishing before crossing the channel.