Today, Canadians and sailors from coast to coast to coast commemorated the 79th anniversary of the end of action in the Battle of the Atlantic and the sacrifices of the thousands of Canadians who fought valiantly from 1939 to 1945 during the longest campaign of the Second World War.
Each year on the first Sunday in May, sailors from Canadian Forces Bases Halifax in Nova Scotia and Esquimalt in British Columbia, and the 24 Naval Reserve Divisions across Canada commemorate the sailors, merchant sailors, and aviators who perished at sea during the Battle of the Atlantic.
Fought largely by reservists in small ships built in Canada and operating from Canadian bases, the task of defending North Atlantic trade routes against indiscriminate submarine attacks, defined a naval role for Canada within a much larger alliance. After 1945, the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) became one of the best anti-submarine warfare navies in the world due, in part, to maritime aviation capabilities.
