The Second World War
The Merchant Navy  - The Merchant Navy

Between 1939 and 1945, Canadian and Allied merchant ships and their crews transported personnel, munitions, weapons, and food across the world's oceans as part of the Allied war effort. Enemy action sank some 70 Canadian and Newfoundland merchant vessels. Over 1,600 Canadians and Newfoundlanders, including eight women, were killed.

An Explosive Cargo

Dockworkers load cases of the high explosive TNT into the hold of a freighter in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Looking down into the ship's hold from one of the hatches on deck, the photograph shows cases being lowered by a crane and steadied by workers (right), while others (top and bottom left) move the crates into place and use planks of wood to help secure the cargo and keep it from shifting while the ship was at sea. Merchant ships carried explosives and a wide variety of other cargoes essential to the war effort, including weapons, equipment, and food supplies.

George Metcalf Archival Collection
CWM 19810649-094