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A tale of three ships

Mar
2010

House flag, Canadian Pacific Steamships. Manufactured by Porter Bros Ltd, c. 1955. (National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London, Pope Collection, Item #AAA0189)

A fascinating look into the lives of three vessels of the former Canadian Pacific Steamship Company (and its Atlantic subsidiary, Canadian Pacific Ocean Services) suggests that perhaps the CPR was the world’s greatest travel system, after all.

RMS Empress of Australia

	Type:	Ocean liner
	Launched:	20 December 1913
	Owner:	1913-19 Hamburg-Amerika Line 1920-21 P&O Line 1921-52 Canadian Pacific Steamship Co.
	Tonnage:	21,861 gross register tonnage
	Length:	615 feet
	Beam:	42 feet
	Speed:	19 knots
	Capacity:	First class, 400 Tourist class, 150 Third class, 635
	Crew:	520 officers and crew

Originally built as SS Tirpitz for Hamburg-Amerika line, but outfitting was interrupted by the Great War. Claimed as war prize by the United Kingdom, operated by P&O Line for a year, then bought and refitted by CPR.

Claim to fame #1: Docked at Yokohama, Japan, on September 1st, 1923. At 11:55am, while the ship was preparing to get underway, the city was rocked by an earthquake (now known as the Great Kanto earthquake) measuring 8.3 on the Richter scale. The temblor continued for a duration of four to ten minutes and caused many buildings to collapse instantly; noontime cooking fires also set off up to 88 separate blazes across the city. Tokyo was similarly devastated by the quake and its own series of fires. All told, the quake was thought to have killed approximately 105,000 souls. Sections of Empress‘ pier collapsed, dumping families and well-wishers into the harbour; the ship lowers boats to recover them.

While attempting to move away from land (and fire), the ship’s screws got fouled by the lines of another vessel. Empress sends an SOS and received a tow out of the danger area—where an oil-slick fire was spreading across the water. After her navigation was restored, Empress remained in the vicinity and acted as a hospital ship and marshalling point for refugees, dispatching her boats to take in the afflicted. She was able to remain on station for twelve days due to resupply from the Empress of Canada, another CP ocean liner which arrived just three days after the quake. Most of the refugees were taken to Kobe, where the Japanese government had set up a relief station.

Ultimately, Empress of Australia and her crew were responsible for evacuating and caring for over 2,000 refugees in the wake of the disaster. Captain Samuel Robinson (see photograph) was awarded seven honours from the United Kingdom, Japan, Siam and Spain, for both saving his ship and assisting the relief effort.

(Compare and contrast with Empress‘ modern-day counterparts following Haiti’s devastating earthquake.)

Claim to fame #2: When King George VI and Queen Elizabeth embarked on their 1939 Royal Tour of Canada and the United States, Buckingham Palace selected SS Empress of Australia as the royal yacht.

Claim to fame #3: As a commander in the Royal Naval Reserve, Samuel Robinson (her first captain) was entitled to fly the blue ensign rather than the red ensign usually flown by civilian merchant and passenger craft.

Claime to fame #4: The ship was painted grey and pressed into service as a troop transport for the Second World War (and Korea). Despite criss-crossing the world, she fortuitously avoided major combat damage, but never returned to glamorous passenger service. Empress of Australia remained a grey-clad troop transport until finally heading to the breakers in 1952.

RMS Empress of Britain

	Type:	Ocean liner
	Launched:	11 June 1930
	Owner:	1930-40 Canadian Pacific Steamship Co.
	Tonnage:	42,348 gross register tonnage
	Length:	760.6 feet
	Beam:	97 feet, 6 inches feet
	Speed:	24 knots
	Capacity:	First class, 465 Tourist class, 260 Third class, 470 or 700 first-class suites for world cruising
	Crew:	520 officers and crew

The pride of CP’s passenger liner fleet, Empress of Britain was conceived from the outset with dual roles. In the summer she would operate from Britain to Quebec with over a thousand cabins in three classes; every winter (when the Saint Lawrence River froze), her accommodations were converted into an all-first-class arrangement with 700 suites, and she cruised the world’s tourist hotspots at a more leisurely pace. Equipped with four screws, she could make over 24 knots in transatlantic service, where speed was important. But for world cruising, two of her screws were removed—dropping her top speed from 24 knots to 22 knots, but also increasing her fuel efficiency; on transatlantic runs Empress of Britain consumed roughly 356 tons of oil a day, but on her 1932 world cruise consumption was a mere 179 tons per day.

Claim to fame #1: She was the largest, fastest and most luxurious ocean liner to travel between Britain and Canada. Christened by Edward, Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII) on June 11th, 1930.

Claim to fame: #2: Her captain from 1934 to 1937 was Ronald Niel Stuart, a Great War veteran and Victoria Cross winner. As an officer in the RNR, we was also entitled to fly the blue ensign rather than the merchant marine’s common red ensign. Commanding the Empress of Britain was Stuart’s final and most prestigious sea command. He remained with CP in senior management for a further 13 years, and was a part-time naval aide-de-camp to King George VI during the Second World War.

Claim to fame #3: In June of 1939, Empress of Britain conveyed King George VI and Queen Elizabeth back to the United Kingdom at the conclusion of their Royal Tour. The passenger manifest for this trip was the smallest she ever carried—just 40 people, including the King and Queen, 13 lords- and ladies-in-waiting, 22 household staff, two journalists and a photographer. She was escorted back to England by three Royal Navy warships and two from the Royal Canadian Navy. Following her loss in October 1940, the Royal Couple sent a message to Sir Edward Beatty and the directors of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, expressing their sympathies at her loss and fond memories of their 1939 return journey.

Claim to fame #4: Requisitioned for wartime troop transport in November of 1939 and painted low-visibility grey. An 9:20am on October 26th, 1940, Empress of Britain was spotted by a German Fw 200 Condor maritime bomber, which hit her with two 250kg bombs and strafed her three times. With the ship ablaze and flooding, and her firefighting equipment knocked out, Captain Charles H. Sapsworth gave the order to abandon ship. Of the 643 people aboard, 45 were unaccounted for; 32 of them were crew members.

Remarkably, Empress of Britain refused to sink, so an effort was made to salvage the ship. Two oceangoing tugs arrived and took the hulk in tow, while destroyer escorts and Sunderland flying boats patrolled for enemy activity. Late in the day, German sub U-32 managed to slip through the screen and put two torpedoes into the Empress‘ side, bringing her seagoing days to an end. U-32 was itself destroyed by HMS Harvester and HMS Highlander two days later; some of the sub’s crew were rescued by these same destroyers. They were subsequently transferred to POW camps in Canada aboard another Canadian Pacific liner, the Duchess of York—commanded by Charles H. Sapsworth.

SS Beaverford

	Type:	Merchantman
	Launched:	28 October 1927
	Owner:	1927-40 Canadian Pacific Steamship Co.
	Tonnage:	10,042 gross register tonnage
	Length:	512 feet
	Beam:	61.5 feet
	Speed:	15 knots
	Crew:	77 officers and crew

Second of five general-purpose merchantmen in the Beaver class (Beaverburn, Beaverford, Beaverdale, Beaverhill and Beaverbrae), initially built for CPR but eventually impressed into the war effort.

Claim to fame #1: Beaverford witnessed probably the most hopeless engagement ever embarked upon by a naval escort. The merchantman departed Halifax, Nova Scotia on October 28th, 1940 along with the other ships in convoy HX-84. On November 5th, 1940, the convoy was intercepted by German pocket battleship Admiral Scheer. The convoy’s only dedicated escort—armed merchant cruiser HMS Jervis Bay—engaged the battleship but was easily outranged by the Scheer’s larger guns. Jervis Bay lasted somewhere between twenty-four and sixty minutes, losing 190 of her 256 crew. (Captain Edward Fegen was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for his valiant but futile defence of the convoy.) Admiral Scheer eventually overhauled the trailing elements of the convoy and started taking apart the helpless merchantmen, sinking six. Beaverford was one of the casualties, as were all 77 of her officers and crew. Her wireless officer transmitted a final message before the ship’s destruction: “It’s our turn now. So long. The Captain and crew of S. S. Beaverford.”

Claim to fame #2: None of Beaverford’s four sister ships survived the Second World War, either. Beaverburn (first of the class) became CPR’s first war loss when torpedoed by U-41 in the North Atlantic on February 5th, 1940. Beaverdale was torpedoed by U-48 April 1st, 1941, although she achieved minor fame before that as two of her boats were used in the evacuation at Dunkirk. Beaverhill was the only ship of the class not lost to enemy action—she went aground near Saint John, New Brunswick on November 24th, 1944. Beaverbrae was sunk by enemy aircraft in the north Atlantic on March 25th, 1941.

Count the cost

by Chris Taylor

Jan
2010

Master Corporal Serge St-Aubin (front) and Corporal Adam Valiquette (rear) are greeted by local Afghan children as they patrol through the village of Teymurian. (CF Combat Camera / Master Corporal Matthew McGregor, Image Tech, JTFK Afghanistan, Roto 8)

The Globe & Mail’s Douglas Bland asks Canadians to consider all of the implications of withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2011:

Canada-U.S. relations: The maintenance of co-operative relations with the United States is Canada’s vital national interest. What are the likely security, defence and economic impacts of withdrawal in 2011?

Canada-NATO relations: Would a complete withdrawal from Afghanistan negatively effect Canada’s diplomatic and economic relations with the Atlantic alliance and the European Community generally?

The Taliban and other foes: Will a Canadian withdrawal embolden Taliban leaders and weaken the Afghan government, endangering subsequent humanitarian effort in the country?

The Canadian Forces: No one knows how much the Afghan mission will eventually cost Canada. But government officials do know that staying will cost many more billions, eating into budgets for other policies. Leaving will save something. Is the government actually willing to sacrifice the Afghan commitment (and its defence policy aimed at rebuilding the Canadian Forces) in order to reduce the deficit?

Canada and the UN: Will withdrawal from the UN mission in Afghanistan risk forfeiting our credibility as a leader of the “Responsibility to Protect” concept?

Canada’s place at the table: When Afghans eventually (and inevitably) decide to negotiate an accommodation among their country’s many factions, does Canada expect to have influence if we have abandoned the country?

– Bland, Douglas. “Afghanistan: After 2011, then what?” Globe & Mail, 7 January 2009.

It should come as no surprise to anyone that the citizens of a nation generally do not have a realistic idea of how their nation is viewed by foreign policymakers. One of the most interesting things revealed in General Rick Hillier’s recent book is that our long service in the Balkans under the UN flag inadvertently undermined NATO’s perception of our fighting worth.

Contrary to the popular perception at home—where we were seen as comforting the afflicted, boldly doing what others would not do, garnering respect around the world—allied political and military brass saw a Canadian Forces that was sclerotic, ill-equipped and micromanaged by Ottawa to the point where it could not be usefully employed in a fluid tactical environment. When UN forces in-theatre needed troops to put into action on short notice, Canada rarely got the call. NATO commanders in the Balkans (Hillier included) avoided tasking CF units because they knew that Ottawa’s approval would take weeks to obtain, when the fight would be over within days or even hours. When we did get the requisite approvals in time and went into combat, our logistics train could not keep us supplied and armed, and we had to beg, borrow and steal from better-supplied UN outfits. As we strove to make a difference in the world and increase Canada’s prestige and influence, and despite the ultimate sacrifice of dozens of good Canadians, we accomplished the opposite. Not because UN missions are inherently unworthy, but because our allies got to see firsthand how our combat potential was paralysed by bureaucracy and lack of political will back home. The Canadian public did not realise this (because the message traffic had obviously remained internal to DND and PMO), but Canada’s reputation at the policymaker level suffered; our allies saw that we meant well, but could not be counted on to deliver.

This had consequences for Canada in Afghanistan, too. Some NATO allies (Britain is the only one I can remember offhand) were initially quite determined to keep Canadian forces out of the Afghan mission, because the perception was that we would once again field an ill-equipped contingent that would be hamstrung from taking part in operations by tortoise-like micromanagement from Ottawa. This perception has been reversed due in part to the sacrifices of our men and women, naturally; but also due to hardworking CF brass like Generals Hillier and Natynczyk, and the willingness of our political leadership—and here I include Paul Martin, Bill Graham, Stephen Harper, Gordon O’Connor and Peter MacKay—to attack the bureaucratic sclerosis and allow our Canadian Forces to be more flexible and agile.

Whether one supports continued action in Afghanistan or not, the reality is that this fight has increased Canada’s visibility, influence and prestige at the top-tier political level; which is, on balance, a good thing. Stronger influence helps a nation pursue its national interest and get results. Withdrawing before the Afghan government is independently viable risks summoning the recently-dispelled impression that once again, Canada means well but can’t be counted on to deliver. This would not be a positive development for our nation, and Canadians should be under no illusions about how such a move will be viewed by allied governments.

The landscape photography of Byron Harmon

by Chris Taylor

Dec
2009

Byron Harmon (1876-1947) was an American photographer from Tacoma, Washington, who settled in Banff, Alberta.

Mr. Harmon’s stated ambition was to photograph every major peak and glacier in the Rocky Mountains, in as many moods (i.e. different weather and ambient lighting conditions) as possible.

The majority of Harmon’s photographs were taken between 1906 and 1934, shot with a 5×7 view camera with cellulose-nitrate negatives (glass plates being both too heavy and too fragile for mountaineering use). Mr. Harmon had also made several films during his mountaineering expeditions, but most the footage has since been lost or destroyed.

The Three Sisters (Big Sister, Middle Sister and Little Sister) near Canmore, AB.

Mt. Assiniboine (dubbed "The Matternhorn of North America"), a part of the Southern Continental Range of the Canadian Rockies.

Camp on Moraine Lake. Byron Harmon, c1906-1924.

Camp on Moraine Lake. Valley of the Ten Peaks (also portrayed on the back of the old Canadian twenty-dollar bill) appears in background.

Banff Avenue in Winter. Cascade Mountain appears in background.

An encampment of the Lyärhe Nakoda nation (a.k.a. Stoney Indians).

Group of Nakoda on horseback.

Swimming pool of the Chateau Lake Louise.

Bow Lake (elev. 1,920m), east of the Waputik Range.

Hungabee Mountain, at the head of Paradise Valley. Hungabee is a Nakoda word meaning "chieftain".

Pool of the Government Bath House, Banff, Alberta.

See more of Byron Harmon’s photographs and postcard images here.

More biographical details about Byron Harmon here, from the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies.

Right on

by Chris Taylor

Dec
2009

Journalist David Akin, writing on his personal blog, notes that the facts do not bear out Hu Jintao’s rebuke to Prime Minister Harper.

With all due respect, Premier Wen, when you rebuke our prime minister, you rebuke all 30 million of us – Liberal, Conservative, or NDP — whether we voted for Harper or not.

Canadians are a polite and patient people, Premier Wen, and we have some tremendous social problems of our own that we are labouring to resolve. We do that in a messy, noisy way called democracy. You don’t, buddy.

And, by the way, when are you going to pull your spies out of our country? Those spies are costing us a billion dollars a month! Frankly, that ticks me off that you send your security agents into a country that’s stood by you for 40 years.

Now, I don’t want readers of this blog to mistake this for an apology for the current Conservative government or an attack on earlier Liberal governments… This is instead, a response, to an unwarranted slight on the government of my country, of Canada, by a country that, it seems to me, has no moral grounds for such a public rebuke of the prime minister of all 30 million of us.

…Canada has had diplomatic relations with China for — let me check — why 40 years now! No other Western country can say that. As former Liberal foreign affairs minister Pierre Pettigrew noted today, even the arch-Conservative John Diefenbaker shipped wheat to China when that country was starving in the 50s. Liberal Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau stuck with China in the 1970s when everyone else in the West would demonize the country. Canadian newspapers were among the first to put their journalists here. And the current prime minister, Stephen Harper, has been a strong advocate for supplanting (or supplementing) the G8 with the G20, precisely because he wanted China at the table.

Canada does this because of the 1.2 million Canadians who have origins in this country and because Canada has generally believed that engagement is the best way to achieve social and political change in China.

And yet, when our prime minister travels thousands of kilometres to visit, his Chinese hosts have the gall to embarrass him in a very public way. I’ll tell you something, Premier Wen: There’d be no end of the howling from the media and the opposition in Canada if a Canadian prime minister acted that way toward a guest. It’s just not done where we’re from.

– Akin, David. “Excuse me for being impertinent but China has no right to be rude to our PM.” On The Hill, 03 December 2009. [Emphasis is mine.]

I have one minor quibble, as Britain was the first Western nation to recognise the PRC, in 1949; followed, I think, by the Netherlands. It certainly wasn’t Canada.

That aside, this is exactly the sort of nonpartisan attitude that should be adopted when dealing with totalitarian states. You can treat our PM like crap and we aren’t about to launch a trade war over it, but you’re not fooling anyone into believing that we deserve it.

Mao Zedong and his successors slaughtered somewhere between 40 and 70 million of their countrymen though poor economic policies and social projects like the Cultural Revolution and Great Leap Forward. That is an order of magnitude more bloody-minded than anything Canada has perpetrated on her own sons and daughters. The loss of 40 million Canadians at any point in our history (including today) would have extinguished us as a nation; leaving a negative integer.

We are also somewhat reluctant to engage in what appears to be large-scale, government-sanctioned industrial espionage against major trading partners. That sort of thing sends a strong message that maybe a nation isn’t as friendly and benign as it pretends to be.

Read the whole of Mr. Akin’s opinion piece; it’s worth it.

The World’s Greatest Travel System

by Chris Taylor

Nov
2009

There was a time in the Jazz Age when sure-footed Canadian businesses dared tread amongst the world’s titans, and even declared themselves to be of the first rank. One of these was the Canadian Pacific Railway, which operated a full-blown vertically integrated empire encompassing a railway, steamship line, airline, and hotel chain. CP gave itself the grandiose title of “World’s Greatest Travel System”, and buttressed the claim with a sheaf of beautiful ad posters.

The powerful Hudson 4-6-4 steam locomotive. Several remain operable; CP Rail still runs one (#2816) on sightseeing tours through the Rockies.

Looking out at Lake Louise from the Chateau of the same name.

An idealised view of Lake Louise from the Chateau of the same name.

RMS Empress of Britain, 42,348 gross tons. Construction started 1928, launched 1931. Carried 1,195 passengers (in two classes) in the summer, converted to 700 all-first-class berths in the winter. Torpedoed and sunk by U-32 off Northern Ireland on October 26th, 1940.

I don't think anyone has ever had as much fun on a Great Lakes tour as this woman appears to be having. Also, don't slip.

They may have been the world's greatest travel system then. Today we would settle for an airline aspiring to be world's greatest at something other than frustration and delays.

CP would have been the third airline to operate Comets, and actually lost one in service—albiet not on the Pacific routes, and not due to the famous problem with metal fatigue. On March 3rd, 1953, a CP Air's second Comet 1A crashed on takeoff from Karachi on March 3rd, 1953, killing all 11 passengers and crew. It was in the process of being delivered to the airline; CP's first Comet was subsequently sold to BOAC.

Canadian Pacific’s railway business still survives, of course, while the airline (sold to Pacific Western in 1987, merged with Air Canada in 2000) and steamship line (merged with Hapag-Lloyd in 2005) were not so lucky. The CP Hotels chain, however, was wildly successful—to the point where it bought up American competitor Fairmont in 2001 and operates under that name today.

Canadian Pacific “Empress” #2816

by Chris Taylor

Nov
2009

Although the era of the steam locomotive is long since past, it is nice to know that the Canadian Pacific Railway has one 80-year-old legend still on active duty hauling passenger cars through the Rockies.

The Empress is a Hudson 4-6-4 steam locomotive; some of her sisters (2820 through 2864) later gained the moniker Royal Hudson after one of their class hauled King George VI’s train throughout the Dominion in 1939 without any breakdowns.

See more of Empress at CPR’s photo gallery.

Elegy for Afghanistan

by Chris Taylor

Oct
2009

At first light, the Leopards from “C” Squadron, Lord Strathcona’s Horse (Royal Canadian) fire on a building containing an arms cache and material for the manufacture of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs). The Combat Team from Lord Strathcona’s Horse (Royal Canadians) “C” Squadron is giving armoured support to the American forces and is preventing the insurgents from escaping from the village of Mushan toward the East. (CF photo / Master Corporal Jonathan Johansen, JTF-Afg)

At first light, Leopards from “C” Squadron, Lord Strathcona’s Horse (Royal Canadian) fire on a building containing an arms cache and material for the manufacture of Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs). “C” Squadron is giving armoured support to American forces and is preventing insurgents from escaping from the village of Mushan toward the East. (CF photo / Master Corporal Jonathan Johansen, JTF-Afg)

When the history of the Afghan war is written, future historians will look back on this time and wonder how the world’s richest and most powerful democracies had such a difficult time countering what is at heart one of the human race’s most unappealing and weak ideologies.

The answer may well be that we saw fit to kill its adherents and drive them from the field, but made few attempts to win converts to our own cause and ideology—both at home and abroad. Indeed the failure of NATO governments to make any concerted effort at generating popular support will be rightly seen as an epic blunder; a treasonous double-cross of the men we have sent to fight.

Now it appears that our sympathy and efforts there have peaked, and from this point forward they will decline. Reporting from Afghanistan, Michael Yon paints a bleak but insightful picture of the country’s unpleasant situation. I have abridged it significantly, but please read the whole thing:

We are losing popular support. Confidence in the Afghan and coalition governments is plummeting. Loss of human terrain is evident. Conditions are building for an avalanche. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the military commander in Afghanistan, and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates are aware of the rumbling, and so today we are bound by rules of engagement that appear insensible.

…Enemies are strengthening. Attacks are dramatically increasing in frequency and efficacy. We are being out-governed by tribes and historical social structures. These structures are – and will be for the foreseeable future – the most powerful influence upon and within the political terrain. “Democracy” does not grow on land where most people don’t vote. The most remarkable item I saw during the Aug. 20 elections was the machine-gun ambush we walked into.

The coalition is weakening. While the U.S. has gotten serious, the organism called NATO is a jellyfish for which the United States is both sea and prevailing wind. The disappointing effort from many partners is best exemplified by the partners who are pushing hardest: The British are fine examples.

The British landed in Helmand province after someone apparently vouched that Helmand would be safe, and they believed it. Helmand is today the most dangerous province in Afghanistan.

…Germans had deployed to one of the safest areas in Afghanistan yet today they are staggered by Taliban punches. Berlin is brittle and apt to quit. Smart money says the Germans crumble from any significant role by 2011.

Canadians will quit in 2011. Canadian soldiers have earned respect, but their NATO-partner government has empowered our enemies by quitting at a crucial moment. This likely will be remembered consciously and subconsciously in future dealings with Ottawa.

Other fine partners, such as the Dutch, who have fought well, plan to downsize right when we need them most. The Dutch need to stay in this fight and increase their efforts. We need them.

The key partner in redirecting Afghanistan should be the Afghan government. Yet Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s corrupt narcocracy is widely disrespected by Afghans and increasingly combative with the coalition. We are pouring support into a government that we don’t want, and many Afghans resent.

…In this unprecedented moment, dozens of the world’s most notable nations have focused on helping one land, yet Western sympathies for Afghanistan already have peaked.

While an Afghan avalanche is poised, our thoughts are growing cold. This is it. Either we will begin to show progress by the end of 2010 or, piece by piece, the coalition will cleave off and drift away, meaning 2011 will begin the end to significant involvement in Afghanistan.

– Yon, Michael. “The Greatest Afghan War.” 01 October 2009. [Emphasis mine]

Canadians of course live in a bubble of their own making, a fantasy world where no action or inaction on our part can cause any loss of esteem or respect for the nation elsewhere in the world. Our national mythology says we ascended into heaven with St. Lester in 1956, and have since been seated at the right hand of the UN, sifting the wheat from the tares.

In reality—outside the bubble of Canadian public opinion—our allies will remember this as the time we insisted on helping, but ducked out before the contest was decided. Not a proud moment in our history.

Two steps forward, one step back

by Chris Taylor

Sep
2009

There was a time within living memory when Canada knew what dictators deserved and how to give it to them.

On Wednesday our Foreign Affairs Minister and the Canadian delegation left the room when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressed the United Nations General Assembly. The Prime Minister, despite a comical fast-food setting, issued stern words (video here; parts 1 & 2) stating that Canada would not lend any legitimacy to a regime which detains and murders Canadian citizens, gives no thought to human rights, tortures and abuses its own citizens, and issues strident declarations denying one of history’s most heinous and systematic crimes against humanity.

Today we learn (via CTV’s David Akin) that Col. Muammar al-Gaddafi will have a one-day layover in St. John’s, Newfoundland, on his way back to Libya. Two decades ago Libya was a notable supporter of terrorism, with citizens and officials being implicated in the murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher; the bombing of a German discotheque; the destruction of Pan Am Flight 103, and the destruction of UTA Flight 772. In those acts six Canadians perished. We are told that the Foreign Affairs Minister will let Col. Gaddafi know of the government’s extreme displeasure at the way in which the Colonel has celebrated the return of a convicted terrorist and mass murderer.

While wagging the finger at dictators is not, in and of itself, a bad thing to do, it would be about ten times better to deny him landing rights on sovereign Canadian soil. Col. Gaddafi’s aircraft is an A340-200—usually this one, civil registry 5A-ONE—operated by Afriqiyah Airways. For those who are interested, the A340-200 has an unrefueled ferry (empty) range of about 8,000 nautical miles. In a typical three-class airline configuration (263 passengers plus baggage, freight, and adequate fuel reserves) it can operate on routes like Paris to Taipei, a distance of 5,294 nautical miles (about 11 hours flying time).

Now we can assume that in its VIP configuration the A342 will not be carrying a full 263 passengers, baggage and freight, but for our purposes we will assume that an equivalent weight in removable ballistics armour, secure comms gear, and missile countermeasures has been installed. In other words we’ll assume its maximum unrefueled range with payload is 5,294 nm. To fly from New York to Tripoli on a great-circle route is a distance of 4,051 nm (8.5 hours flying time), well within the A340’s range for maximum payload. If the aircraft is sound (no unresolved or un-waivered maintenance squawks), and assuming Afriqiyah Airways is operating this flight with the usual oceanic precautions (standard reserves for transoceanic flight, additional flight crew members for relief) there is absolutely no reason why Col. Gaddafi should have to stop in St. John’s for a day.

In fact it would be rather better to let Gaddafi know that his aircraft must not divert from a New York-Tripoli flight plan except in the event of mechanical or medical emergency, and reinforce that point with a trailing fighter escort until it clears the ADIZ and is no longer our problem. No man who has organised and fêted the murders of Canadians so unrepentantly should have the privilege of walking where the victims once tread.

UPDATE 270923Z SEOT 2009: It seems Col. Gaddafi has cancelled his plans for the Newfoundland layover. Just as well, as the feds were not doing a good job of keeping the municipality in the loop:

In St. John’s, Mayor Dennis O’Keefe said he had yet to receive word from any officials as to whether Gadhafi was coming, saying that he was relying on media reports.

“I never heard anything from Foreign Affairs up front or from the federal government initially — absolutely not one word about his visit,” he said in an interview.

The mayor said he would have appreciated some kind of advance warning, considering Gadhafi’s notorious reputation.

“You’re talking about an individual who controls a state that has financed and housed and promoted terrorism, and violations of human rights . . . I would have thought that we would have been informed when anybody (like) this individual is going to be in our city and on our streets.”

O’Keefe said he learned about the possible visit from a local hotel, which had apparently been told to reserve a block of rooms for the president and his entourage.

In St. John’s, Mayor Dennis O’Keefe said he had yet to receive word from any officials as to whether Gadhafi was coming, saying that he was relying on media reports.

“I never heard anything from Foreign Affairs up front or from the federal government initially — absolutely not one word about his visit,” he said in an interview.

The mayor said he would have appreciated some kind of advance warning, considering Gadhafi’s notorious reputation.

“You’re talking about an individual who controls a state that has financed and housed and promoted terrorism, and violations of human rights . . . I would have thought that we would have been informed when anybody (like) this individual is going to be in our city and on our streets.”

O’Keefe said he learned about the possible visit from a local hotel, which had apparently been told to reserve a block of rooms for the president and his entourage.

– “Gadhafi cancels N.L. visit.” The Chronicle Herald, 27 September 2009.

Battle of the Plains of Abraham, 1759

by Chris Taylor

Sep
2009

The Death of General Wolfe. Benjamin West, oil on canvas, 1771 (Chris Taylor | National Gallery of Canada)

Whatever separatists and revisionists may say, the inarguable truth is that, had the war gone differently, the Canada (and Québec) we know today would not exist in their present form. One visionary of the age was William Pitt the Elder, who realised that European territorial conquests would inevitably be negotiated and bartered back, whereas lucrative colonies might change hands in a more permanent fashion. And Pitt’s game-changing schemes would not have laid the foundations of an Empire on which the sun never sets without men like Major General James Wolfe.

It was towards ten o’clock when, from the high ground on the right of the line, Wolfe saw that the crisis was near. The French on the ridge had formed themselves into three bodies, regulars in the centre, regulars and Canadians on right and left. Two field-pieces, which had been dragged up the heights at Anse du Foulon, fired on them with grape-shot, and the troops, rising from the ground, prepared to receive them. In a few moments more they were in motion. They came on rapidly, uttering loud shouts, and firing as soon as they were within range. Their ranks, ill ordered at the best, were further confused by a number of Canadians who had been mixed among the regulars, and who, after hastily firing, threw themselves on the ground to reload.

The British advanced a few rods; then halted and stood still. When the French were within forty paces the word of command rang out, and a crash of musketry answered all along the line. The volley was delivered with remarkable precision. In the battalions of the centre, which had suffered least from the enemy’s bullets, the simultaneous explosion was afterwards said by French officers to have sounded like a cannon-shot. Another volley followed, and then a furious clattering fire that lasted but a minute or two. When the smoke rose, a miserable sight was revealed: the ground cumbered with dead and wounded, the advancing masses stopped short and turned into a frantic mob, shouting, cursing, gesticulating. The order was given to charge. Then over the field rose the British cheer, mixed with the fierce yell of the Highland slogan.

Some of the corps pushed forward with the bayonet; some advanced firing. The clansmen drew their broadswords and dashed on, keen and swift as bloodhounds. At the English right, though the attacking column was broken to pieces, a fire was still kept up, chiefly, it seems, by sharpshooters from the bushes and cornfields, where they had lain for an hour or more. Here Wolfe himself led the charge, at the head of the Louisbourg grenadiers. A shot shattered his wrist. He wrapped his handkerchief about it and kept on. Another shot struck him, and he still advanced, when a third lodged in his breast. He staggered, and sat on the ground. Lieutenant Brown, of the grenadiers, one Henderson, a volunteer in the same company, and a private soldier, aided by an officer of artillery who ran to join them, carried him in their arms to the rear. He begged them to lay him down.

They did so, and asked if he would have a surgeon. “There ’s no need,” he answered; “it’s all over with me.”

A moment after, one of them cried out: “They run; see how they run !”

“Who run?” Wolfe demanded, like a man roused from sleep. “The enemy, sir. Egad, they give way everywhere!”

“Go, one of you, to Colonel Burton,” returned the dying man; ” tell him to march Wehb’s regiment down to Charles River, to cut off their retreat from the bridge.” Then, turning on his side, he murmured, ” Now, God be praised, I will die in peace!” and in a few moments his gallant soul had fled.

– Parkman, Francis. Montcalm and Wolfe, Vol. II. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1884.

It has become fashionable since the early 20th century to degrade Wolfe’s victory as ineptitude saved by mere chance and luck; as opposed to shrewd planning and canny improvisation. Macleans editor-at-large Peter Shawn Taylor (no relation) provides a much-needed corrective in the form of two well-researched and well-reasoned articles (here and here) for the National Post.

This nation has done well in the two hundred and fifty years since the world’s superpowers fought for supremacy on what would become her soil, two hundred and fifty years ago today. She deserves our respect and loyalty still.

Perhaps the best audio-visual representation of the battle is from Series 1 of Canada: A People’s History.