The Sinking of the Spikenard
by Mary Ducharme (December 2015)
The HMCS Spikenard K 198, a 925 ton Corvette, was built in Quebec and was owned by the Royal Canadian Navy to guard supply lines to the United Kingdom. After several weeks at sea, on Feburary 10, 1942, the Spikenard was on a “Newfie-Derry” run between Newfoundland and Londonderry, Ireland. It was part of Escort Convoy SC.67 navigating a calm sea. Most of the men were asleep when a torpedo from a German submarine “wolf-pack” ripped into the port side in the bow just below the bridge. Commander Hubert Shadforth sounded the alarm and had increased speed just as the explosion splintered the port lifeboat. Flames quickly engulfed the starboard lifeboat as well. Not a man on the bridge survived to fill in the details.
Within five minutes, the Spikenard sank, carrying with it 57 men of the 65 on board. This was soon followed by another explosion erupting under- water, severing the Corvette in half. In the chaos, other Canadian corvettes were dropping depth charges in a counter-attack and the disappearance of the Spikenard was not noticed in the inky darkness. The search for sur- vivors began the next morning. The Spikenard was the third Canadian corvette lost since the war started.
Chief Petty Officer Alex Day of Verdun, Quebec, gave an ac- count of what happened after the sinking. He had no time to clear the raft he was on before the ship submerged; he floated it off but was dragged down in the suction of the sinking vessel. Then the underwater explosion blew him to the surface again. “There was no panic,” said Day, describing the next few criti- cal minutes: “I got clear of the wake and heard voices from the others on the float who were working to get the rafts and float free.” Four of the men had serious burns and later they picked up two more men from the water, but they were so injured in the explosion that they died in the morning hours. None of the survivors were clothed properly for exposure to the February waters of the North Atlantic and the men removed the clothing of the dead men before they were buried at sea. For 19 hours they huddled together to conserve warmth. “We heard a couple of cries over the water but the voices faded and died before we could locate them.” They were finally picked up by the British ship HMS Gentian (K 90) and taken to England. This story was front page news across Canada. The men were from Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Quebec. Commander Shadforth was well-known in Canada’s West Coast in peacetime mercantile operations. The Canadian Navy death toll in this war was now 522. In the Chateauguay Valley this latest casualty from our region brought the total of six who died in Navy service thus far.
The loss of one man hit close to home, and notification of death carried to his parents was a heartbreak repeated by many oth- ers before the war ended. The details of his death will never be known, and his body was not recovered. Able Seaman Edmund James Fisher died at the age of 29, most of his adult life cut short.
He was the youngest son of Mr. and Mrs. Richard Fisher of Barrington, survived by a sister and two brothers. His great grandfather, James Fisher, was among the first white settlers in Hemmingford in 1790; and he was the nephew of the late Martin Beattie Fisher who was a MLA and Treasurer in the Cabinet under Maurice Duplisses. Edmund James was edu- cated in Hemmingford and enlisted in the R.C.N.V.R. in Au- gust of 1940. After training in Montreal, he was transferred in November to Halifax for training in operating depth charges. He was on his fifth convoy voyage.
King George sent the Fishers his sympathy from Buckingham Palace. The Anglican memorial service in his honour on May 10, 1942 in St. John’s Church in Hallerton was attended by a huge assembly of grieving friends and family.
Among the many mourners was Alex Day, one of the eight survivors who had been there when the Spikenard and his good friend Edmund met their fate.