The Second World War
The Merchant Navy  - SS Stanley Park: Merchant Ship

David McMillan's photographs capture wartime and early postwar merchant navy scenes and experiences, mainly aboard the Canadian merchant ship SS Stanley Park. Completed in mid-1943, the Stanley Park was one of around 400 merchant ships built as part of Canada's war effort; postwar, it served with a number of foreign owners until its 1969 scrapping in Italy.

SS Stanley Park

This view of the SS Stanley Park at anchor shows the ship's general layout and much of its defensive equipment.

Stanley Park's most visible defensive armament is the 4-inch gun mounted on its stern (left), with an anti-aircraft rocket launcher often called a "pillar box" just to its right. Ships like Stanley Park also typically had a 12-pounder gun mounted near the bow (right), as well as a number of machine guns and 20mm Oerlikon anti-aircraft guns mounted in various locations. Long booms attached to both masts (centre left and centre right) supported anti-torpedo nets that could be trailed in the water in an attempt to stop torpedoes.

George Metcalf Archival Collection
CWM 19860141-025