ATLANTIC GAP
The Battle of the Atlantic was at its peak when Strang Lamont Gower Gurney enlisted in the Royal Canadian Naval Volunteer Reserve. German U-boats were sinking merchant ships at a terrifying rate, choking the slow-moving convoys that were a vital lifeline of supplies to Britain. By January 1941, Gurney was assigned to H.M.C.S. Restigouche, a destroyer that had already seen service protecting convoys from U-boats and surface raiders. Originally commissioned in 1932 as H.M.S. Comet, the ship had been transferred to Canada in 1938 as part of Britain’s effort to bolster the fledgling Royal Canadian Navy. It would not be the last time Gurney served on a ship with British roots, fitting as he had been born in Twickenham, England, before being raised in Victoria, British Columbia. A sleek, narrow-hulled destroyer of the C & D-class, Restigouche was built for speed and aggression, but during the convoy war, she was limited by the slowest ship in the convoy and, instead of pursuit and attack, practiced defense, detection, and endurance.
The nights at sea felt endless. All hands were certain an attack could come at any time, from anywhere. U-boats often struck at night, surfacing in the dark to launch torpedoes before slipping away beneath the waves. Detection was vital, and as 1941 turned to 1942, detection was changing. At the start of the war, convoy escorts relied almost entirely on hydrophones and visual spotting to detect submarines. The Royal Navy and Royal Canadian Navy were still integrating radar—then called R.D.F. (Radio Direction Finding)—into their destroyers. When it worked, it changed everything. Radar could detect surfaced U-boats at distances beyond human sight, spot enemy raiders through fog, and even help escorts navigate more safely in darkness. But it was new, sensitive, and required a skilled operator.
Gurney was sent for specialized training at H.M.C.S. Stadacona between April and June 1942, where he earned his Grade 4 Seaman qualification and was certified as an R.D.F. Operator 1st Class. The training was extensive and technical—working with early radar screens, identifying contacts from clutter, and learning to differentiate between friend and foe. These operators became some of the most valuable men aboard.
Returning to Restigouche in June 1942, Gurney took his place in the ship’s radar compartment, a cramped, dimly lit space humming with electronic signals. The oscilloscope screen flickered with ghostly green arcs—each one a potential enemy contact. His job was to track threats, guide escort movements, and ensure the convoy’s safety. A skilled R.D.F. operator could detect a periscope breach, a surfaced U-boat, or an incoming aircraft long before visual contact—a critical advantage in the Battle of the Atlantic. As he stared at the glowing screen, he had to communicate range and bearing updates to the bridge, ensuring the ship was always in the best position to intercept or avoid a U-boat or assist another escort in a depth charge attack. His hands scribbled furiously over a plotting board as the officers above shouted for bearings. It was a chess match played in the dark, the enemy always unseen, always waiting.
Throughout 1941 and 1942, Restigouche operated as part of Mid-Ocean Escort Force groups, the workhorses of convoy defense. She was assigned to protect merchant ships crossing the Atlantic, often escorting them from Newfoundland through the U-boat-infested waters of the mid-Atlantic gap, where air cover was scarce. She was also deployed in anti-submarine sweeps, convoy rescue missions, and patrols in the Caribbean and along the Eastern Seaboard. When the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau attempted to raid shipping in the western Atlantic, Restigouche was among the destroyers hunting for them.
By December 1942, after nearly two years aboard Restigouche, Gurney had grown from an ordinary seaman to a specialist in one of the most critical technologies of the war. The Battle of the Atlantic would continue for another two and a half years, but Gurney’s time with Restigouche concluded, and he returned to H.M.C.S. Stadacona.
NORMANDY
After her engagement at the Bay of Biscay with the German blockade runner Alsterufer, the H.M.S. Glasgow docked at Plymouth for repairs. Arriving from Canada after a year of training, Gurney joined the crew on December 31st, 1943 after passing proficiency for the rank of petty officer and qualifying as an instructor in radar. Through early 1944, Glasgow was heavily engaged in escort duties, fleet exercises, and convoy protection, including an assignment escorting H.M.S. King George V back to the UK with Prime Minister Winston Churchill aboard. Spending most of the coming months off of Plymouth in gunnery and battle-readiness exercises, interrupted only by joining two convoys on their last leg going into the United Kingdom, the Glasgow only went as far as the Azores.
She was officially nominated for Operation Neptune in April 1944, while the final fleet assignments were being determined and later confirmed as part of Western Task Force Bombarding Force C. By late May 1944, she was actively training with her assigned bombardment group in the Dundrum Bay area before moving into position for the invasion. Allocated to Assault Force O, H.M.S. Glasgow joined an international fleet that included U.S.S. Texas, U.S.S. Arkansas, Free French cruisers Montcalm and Georges Leygues, escorted by a mix of British and American destroyers and smaller vessels. In preparation for the invasion, she conducted bombardment exercises at Cape Wrath before sailing on June 3rd for the operation area.
The morning of June 6th was wet and windy, the sea heaving in swells three to six feet high. Conditions were brutal for the landing forces. Since 0400, troops had struggled to board their landing craft in rough, pitching seas; boats smashed against their transports, dropping soldiers into the churning ocean or tangling them hopelessly in cargo nets draped down the ships' sides. Those who managed to board endured two hours of miserable seasickness, battered by waves and wind as they waited in darkness for their assault.
The first broadside sent a shudder through Glasgow’s steel frame, a deafening crack that rippled through the decks. At 0554, the first salvo of 6-inch shells screamed toward a target far inland, near a bend in the Seine River close to Rouen. In the radar plotting room, the air was thick with cigarette smoke and sweat, the dim glow of screens casting blue-green halos over hunched figures in headset clamps and navy wool. Gurney and the radar operators worked methodically, scanning for surface contacts and tracking the shifting coastline through dense banks of fog, smoke, and dust kicked up by bombardment. Their screens pulsed with ghostly arcs mapping the shore, and their steady stream of data fed precise range and bearing adjustments to the gunnery teams above.
Naval gunfire slowed to a tense silence as infantry finally hit the beaches. With orders to cease fire until clear communication was established with shore fire control parties, Gurney waited anxiously as the destroyers and cruisers offshore held their guns, unwilling to risk friendly fire against the obscured bluffs now crawling with Allied troops. Soon, calls from the beach crackled through headsets with desperate requests for support. The cycle aboard Glasgow resumed: twenty minutes of deafening bombardment, followed by brief, uneasy lulls before the bulkheads shuddered again beneath another rolling concussion. Glasgow fired over seventy times, pounding Omaha’s defenses with methodical, merciless precision throughout the day. Every thirty minutes, another barrage that by nightfall, the crew’s were ringing.
The following morning brought slower bombardments at half-hour intervals that stretched to an hour, interspersed sporadically by urgent bursts to support infantry advancing through Normandy’s fields and hedgerows. Radar, once a novelty, was indispensable in guiding each shell to its target through smoke and chaos.
"MUTINY"
Commissioned into the Royal Canadian Navy on October 21st, 1944, H.M.C.S. Uganda, a Fiji-class light cruiser, joined Canada’s fleet with seasoned scars from prior Mediterranean engagements, notably the heavy damage sustained at Salerno in 1943. Refitted and extensively modernized, she was handed over as part of Canada's strategic aim to balance its naval capabilities. Gurney, by now an experienced petty officer, was among the crew slated to be the only Canadian vessel in Pacific operations. It marked his third assignment aboard a British-origin warship.
The extensive refit in British dockyards significantly upgraded Uganda's combat capabilities with great enhancements to her radar systems. The ship was fitted with Type 281, a sophisticated long-range air search radar; Type 277 for detailed surface search; and Type 293, specifically designed to provide accurate aircraft altitude data. With this improved technology, Uganda assumed radar picket duties within the British Pacific Fleet, venturing 30 to 100 miles ahead of the main force. Far ahead of the reassuring silhouettes of fellow warships, it was one of the most dangerous assignments within the fleet.
Gurney scanned his radar screen tirelessly, each flickering blip a potential kamikaze threat. He concentrated on identifying aircraft as friend or foe and coordinating with fighter direction officers to intercept incoming threats long before they reached the vulnerable carriers. Unlike their American counterparts, Commonwealth ships like Uganda had to compensate for other vessels lacking robust radar and communication equipment.
By April 1945, Uganda reached Manus in the Admiralty Islands before steaming into the cauldron of combat around Okinawa. The battle was intense and unrelenting. Gurney, often hunched over his radar screens, relayed critical targeting information as Uganda’s six-inch guns pounded airfields on Miyako and Ishigaki islands, attempting to cripple enemy airfields before kamikazes could lift off, but Japanese aircraft repeatedly broke through. At dawn on May 9th, Gurney watched grimly from his radar console as blips swarmed across his screen only to disappear as kamikazes attacked the fleet, one crashing into H.M.S. Formidable. Uganda’s anti-aircraft guns thundered in response, fending off further attacks in a frantic display of precision and desperation.
By mid-May, Uganda had been rotated back into radar picket duty. For hours, Gurney remained at his station, his world consisting of pulsing green radar echoes, static-filled headset transmissions, and the ever-present tension of waiting. His efforts did not go unnoticed – he was later recognized with a Mention in Despatches. His duty was broken by a political controversy that would overshadow Uganda’s Pacific service. On April 4th, Prime Minister Mackenzie King had announced that only volunteers would serve in the Pacific theater, an edict met aboard Uganda with bitter resentment. The men aboard Uganda had originally volunteered for service in Europe, believing their duty would end once Germany was defeated. Many crew members considered their commitment fulfilled with the victory in Europe and saw this new requirement to re-volunteer for combat in the Pacific—under conditions far harsher than anticipated—as a betrayal. Now, in the Pacific's punishing environment of heat, disease, shortages, and relentless psychological stress from kamikaze attacks, they were asked once more to volunteer or return home, deepening the sense of frustration and injustice felt aboard the ship.
On June 2nd, the crew held a public vote. Standing openly before their shipmates and officers, 556 out of 900 men refused to re-attest. What began as an administrative formality quickly escalated into a profound rupture between sailors and their government. The crew's refusal, fueled by frustrations over living conditions, relentless attacks, questions of Canadian national identity—particularly the ongoing use of a British ensign rather than a distinctly Canadian flag, which many crewmen felt undermined their national pride and implied they were fighting a British rather than Canadian war—and postwar civilian employment fears, as sailors worried that prolonged service in the Pacific would delay their return home and result in lost job opportunities, culminated in significant discontent for the majority of the crew.
The public response was immediate and scathing. Headlines such as 'PACIFIC SERVICE PROTEST' in the Daily Sketch and 'PACIFIC? NOT US!' in Evening News magnified the controversy, forcing the Canadian government into an awkward and humiliating retreat, and Uganda was ordered home. As the papers explained, however, "The crew...had volunteered for service anywhere when they enlisted originally. They resented being asked to volunteer again,” and presented no accusations of cowardice or disloyalty. On July 27th, she set course for Esquimalt, arriving just days before Japan’s surrender, leaving Canada with no naval representation at the war’s conclusion in the Pacific.
For Gurney and his shipmates, the return was complex—relief mingled with regret, pride shadowed by a lingering sense of unresolved frustration. Though the crew of Uganda had fought with zeal and bravery, she is remembered largely for her controversial return. The decision cast a long shadow, igniting debates about national identity, military obligation, and the political dimensions of voluntary service that would echo through postwar Canada for decades. Uganda’s experience, emblematic of broader questions facing Canadian military policy, influenced subsequent debates about Canada’s naval future, conscription, and the nation’s role on the global stage, ensuring the legacy of her crew’s contentious stand would not soon be forgotten.
KOREA
Aboard H.M.C.S. Sioux, a Tribal-class destroyer, Gurney found himself once more in a theater of war, this time under the banner of the United Nations. The ship was one of the first Royal Canadian Navy vessels to join the United Nations effort, steaming westward across the Pacific to reinforce naval operations against the advancing North Korean forces in July 1950.
The Sioux initially took up convoy escort duties, safeguarding troop and supply transports heading for the embattled Korean peninsula. Radar screens pulsed with moving contacts, tracking merchant convoys and patrolling for enemy submarines lurking beneath the cold Pacific swells. But it was not long before the ship transitioned to more aggressive coastal blockades and bombardments. Along the east coast of Korea, narrow roadways and rail lines laced along the faces of steep cliffs, exposed and vulnerable to naval artillery. The Sioux delivered precise bombardments against enemy transport arteries, disrupting troop movements and supply convoys. Gurney, hunched over the radar console, tracked their targets in real-time to relay coordinates to fire control teams. The destroyer’s guns roared to life, sending shells screaming toward rail junctions and coastal batteries.
As North Korean and later Chinese forces sought to reinforce the front, Canadian and Commonwealth warships worked in tandem to deny them safe passage. Gurney’s scope painted blips of enemy motor convoys, their movements betrayed by the flickering echoes of radar pulses bouncing off steel and stone. One moment, Sioux was unleashing salvos on a hidden artillery position, and the next, she was maneuvering hard to evade counter-battery fire, enemy shells splashing too close for comfort.
The Korean War saw an unprecedented use of naval mines, particularly in the treacherous waters around Inchon, Chinnampo, and Wonsan. These deadly, unseen threats turned narrow coastal approaches into gauntlets of destruction. Sioux was assigned to mine-clearing operations, using radar and lookouts to spot drifting mines before they could claim a ship. More than once, the destroyer’s sharp-eyed crew detected and neutralized floating mines just in time to prevent disaster. The tension in the radar room was palpable—one miscalculated detection could mean catastrophe.
Beyond the mines, the harsh Korean winter of 1950-51 brought its own challenges. Arctic winds cut through steel bulkheads and turned decks into ice-covered hazards. Ocean spray coated gun turrets, radar antennas, and rigging in a thick sheath of ice that had to be chipped away with regularity. Gurney’s hands ached from the cold as he adjusted fine radar calibrations, tracking unseen threats through blizzards and sleet-lashed nights.
South Korean island villages, cut off by Communist forces, suffered starvation and isolation. During blockade patrols, Sioux’s crew took it upon themselves to deliver supplies, often sharing from their own stores. Some sailors volunteered to cut their own rations, ensuring that island communities received food and medicine. The destroyer also participated in amphibious raids, landing small parties to disrupt enemy outposts. These missions were brief but dangerous—quick incursions to sabotage supply caches or harass Communist forces before vanishing back into the sea. Radar played a crucial role in these operations—tracking enemy reinforcements, guiding landing craft, and ensuring the ship could extract raiding parties before North Korean patrols converged.
After fourteen months in Korean waters, Sioux was ordered home and on March 12th, 1951, she returned to Esquimalt. Gurney had seen war from the radar against German U-boats and artillery, Japanese fighters, and North Korean shore batteries. Few Canadian sailors could claim such varied service, particularly in the Pacific. His service into the 1960s remained peaceful and he witnessed how the small but significant vote on the Uganda in 1945 became a catalyst for significant reforms and shaping of the Canadian military service in the decades following World War II. Post-war policy emphasized distinct Canadian naval identity, leading to the adoption of uniquely Canadian symbols and practices, including the replacement of the White Ensign (British) with the Canadian Ensign.