The HMCS Merrittonia
I can tell you two things about my childhood. One is that I grew up with a great interest in the Second World War. The other is that I grew up in a part of St. Catharines, Ontario known as Merritton, a community that was separate before being absorbed by St. Catharines.
I only recently discovered that there was a connection between these two things.
Many ships in the Royal Canadian Navy, even today. are named after cities or towns in Canada. For example, we have the HMCS Halifax, HMCS Vancouver, HMCS Toronto, and many others.
Only recently did I discover that there was an HMCS Merrittonia, named after my hometown of Merritton.
The HMCS Merrittonia was a corvette, the smallest class of warship that were used to great affect in protecting convoys during the Battle of the Atlantic. It was originally named Pointe Claire but was named Merrittonia after Merritton before it was commissioned.
The HMCS Merrittonia had a fairly short period of service. It was commissioned 10 November 1944 and it was decommissioned 11 July 1945. It had been ordered in 1942, at a time when there was no idea how long the war was going to last.
The HMCS Merrittonia did serve in the Battle of the Atlantic and it survived the war. It was sold to a civilian company but unfortunately sank of the coast of Nova Scotia. Ironically, I now live in Nova Scotia.
On another note, many people do not realize that at the end of the Second Word War, Canada had the fourth largest fleet in the world, only behind the U.S., Great Britain, and the Soviet Union.
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