Bangor Entering Esquimalt

In Rowley Murphy's painting, the Bangor class minesweeper HMCS Miramichi steams past the boom vessels and the opened anti-submarine boom (left) near Esquimalt's distinctive lighthouse.

An elaborate system of defences including heavy nets suspended from floats was intended to protect the naval base at Esquimalt from submarine attack. The October 1939 sinking of the British battleship HMS Royal Oak in Scapa Flow, Scotland killed more than 800 sailors and emphasized the threat submarines posed to vessels in port. Miramichi spent the entire war on the west coast, and is shown in the unusual "jigsaw" camouflage applied to minesweepers stationed there.

Bangor Entering Esquimalt
Painted by Rowley Murphy in 1944
Beaverbrook Collection of War Art
CWM 19710261-4261