Battle of the Atlantic: Gauntlet to Victory

Lecturer: Ted Barris and David O'Keefe

Date: Sat 5 Nov 2022

Meet & Greet: 11:00 am - 12:00 pm QEII Atrium

Lecture Time and Venue: 12:00 pm (noon) Naval Museum

Discussions: 2:00pm

Join authors Ted Barris and David O'Keefe at The Military Museums on November 5 as they bring fascinating stories from their recent research and writings. Ted Barris will regale visitors with tales from his new book, Battle of the Atlantic: Gauntlet to Victory, and David O'Keefe will be discussing new material unearthed in his research on the Dieppe Raid.

Battle of the Atlantic: Gauntlet to Victory In the 20th century’s greatest war, one battlefield held the key to victory or defeat – the North Atlantic. It took over 2,000 days and nights to determine its outcome, but the Battle of the Atlantic proved the turning point of the Second World War.

For five and a half years, German surface warships and submarines attempted to destroy Allied transatlantic convoys, mostly escorted by Royal Canadian Navy destroyers and corvettes, as well as aircraft of the Royal Canadian Air Force. Throwing deadly U-boat ‘wolf packs’ in the paths of Merchant Navy convoys, the German Kriegsmarine nearly strangled this vital lifeline to a beleaguered Great Britain.

In 1939, Canada’s navy went to war with exactly 13 warships and about 3,500 sailors. During the desperate Atlantic crossings, the RCN grew to 400 fighting ships and over 100,000 men and women in uniform. By V E Day in 1945, it had become the 4th largest navy in the world.

Ted Barris: Ted Barris has worked as a freelance journalist, broadcaster, and author since the 1960s. He regularly contributes to CBC Radio programs and the CTV News Channel.

He taught journalism at Centennial College in Toronto for 18 years and has written/published 19 non-fiction books (most recently, Rush to Danger: Medics in the Line of Fire, which was a finalist for the RBC Taylor Prize). He has written a weekly newspaper column/weblog – The Barris Beat – for 40 years.