Battle of The St. Lawrence - Fall 1942

Fall 1942

In October, the Newfoundland Railway passenger ferry SS Caribou was torpedoed by U-69, in the Cabot Strait, between Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, with a heavy loss of life. U-69 escaped a counter-attack by the Bangor-class minesweeper HMCS Grandmere. In November, U-518 sank two iron ore freighters and damaged another at Bell Island in Conception Bay, Newfoundland, en route to a patrol off the Gaspé Peninsula where, despite an attack by an RCAF patrol aircraft, it successfully landed a spy, Werner von Janowski at New Carlisle, Quebec; he was captured at the New Carlisle railway station shortly after landing on the beach.

U-boat losses experienced by the Kriegsmarine during 1942 following the entry of the United States Navy into the Battle of the Atlantic, coupled with declining German shipbuilding capability to replace battle losses, saw the U-boat fleet redeployed to the primary Atlantic convoy routes to disrupt the Allied war resupply effort; this effectively saw enemy submarines withdrawn from the St. Lawrence River and Gulf of St. Lawrence by the end of the 1942.