Canada’s navy was founded by the Laurier government in 1910.

At the outbreak of the Great War, the Royal Canadian Navy consisted of only two ships — the HMCS Rainbow and HMCS Niobe — and less than 350 men.

Initially, Canada believed that Britain’s powerful navy would be all that was needed to win the war on the seas. However, as the First World War wore on, Canada’s fleet slowly grew to more than nine thousand personnel.

Navy ships patrolled the east and west coasts of Canada, and were tasked with keeping the key shipping lanes through the Gulf of St. Lawrence and along the Atlantic Coast clear of German ships and submarines.

It was the enemy submarines that posed the biggest threat to the allies. Britain was dependent on supplies from Canada, and German submarines were eager to sink as many cargo and troop ships as possible.

Due to a lack of ships, the navy recruited vessels from Canadian citizens for use in patrols. By the end of the war, more than one hundred yachts and other vessels had been put to work along Canada’s coastlines.

Credit has to be given to the courageous sailors of the merchant marine that shipped the goods, supplies and material across the Atlantic for use in Europe and beyond. Canada formed the Canadian Government Merchant Marine in the spring of 1918.

“While there was an unknown number of civilian sailor casualties during the war, their work was essential in supporting the Allied war effort, and would prove equally important in the Second World War,” the Canadian War Museum states in its exhibit “Canada and the First World War.”

The introduction of the German U-boats meant heavy losses for the allies, but it also resulted in attacks on neutral ships as well as hospital ships. The allies countered the U-boat threat by travelling in convoys protected by warships equipped with antisubmarine warfare technologies, such as depth charges.

By the end of the war, Canada’s navy boasted more than 100 ships and more than eight thousand personnel. About nine hundred Canadian and Newfoundland sailors and merchant seamen lost their lives.