MIGRANT BEAVER-- D.E.V. BEAVERBRAE

 

Hope have we won from out despair,

And joy out of pining.

Fast anchored, safe in waters fair we've lain at rest.

Hark! From afar on wider quest, life calls us now.

Then up anchor, spread the sails and point the prow where Hope is shining.

The New Commonwealth, Ralph Vaughan Williams, words by Harold Child

Of all Canadian Pacific's post-war passenger ships, Beaverbrae was unique.  Far removed from the glamour of the "White Empresses," her more prosaic purpose being the carriage of a different generation of New Canadians, specifically the human flotsam and jetsam left in the wake of the Second World War--  the tens of thousands of Displaced Persons, refugees and war brides from Germany, Poland, Ukraine and the Baltic States--  to new lives in the Dominion.  As such, she was to post-war Continental immigration to Canada what the pre-war C.P.  liner Metagama was to earlier English, Scottish and Irish migration. Beaverbrae, herself German-designed and built, has been aptly described as "The Mayflower of German Immigration to Canada."

As a ship, Beaverbrae was as distinctive as her purpose, then being  the only deep-sea Canadian-registered passenger ship with an all-Canadian crew, the largest Canadian merchantman, Canadian Pacific's first motorliner and their only liner serving Continental ports.  No luxury liner, she carried cargoes of Canadian grain, flour and beef eastbound to help feed a war-depleted Britain and westbound, accommodated her human cargo in utilitarian dormitories, offering a safe passage but little in creature comforts. Getting there was not half the fun, yet for some 38,000 their crossing in Beaverbrae opened a new chapter in their lives and enriched the Dominion with a new generation of citizens.  

Unlike today's frivolous cruise ships, the humble little Beaverbrae was a vessel of purpose that figured in the fortunes and futures of her passengers like none other. As it was, she endured for a remarkable 59 years, but here our focus is her first 15 during which she went from being a triumph of German marine engineering to war service under the swastika to go on, flying Canada's Red Ensign, to restore so many lives uprooted and degraded by the war and its aftermath. 

D.E.V. Beaverbrae, 1948-1954, photographed in the English Channel, 1 June 1952. Credit: Skyfotos.

'One of 31 German girls; all of whom came to Canada to be reunited with their Canadian fiancees they met while the men were serving in Germany. Christel Thomsen; of Wilhelmshaven; smiles from porthole of the Beaverbrae as she gets glimpse of Quebec.' Credit: Toronto Star Archives, Toronto Star collection, Toronto Public Library. 

HAPAG poster for the West Coast of South America service.

Of all their ships, one that would prove its longest surviving, hardly figured in the history of Germany's oldest overseas shipping company. Founded in 1847, the  Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Aktien-Gesellschaft (HAPAG), or as known in English, Hamburg American Line,  was, at their height, before the First World War, the world largest shipping company. HAPAG were, with rival Norddeutscher Lloyd, the very symbol of German supremacy on the  world's ocean highways, even to the exclusion of their British rivals. 

Although famous for the Blue Riband record breaker, Deutschland of 1900, the first purpose-built cruise ship Prinzessin Victoria Luise of 1901 and the giant 52,000-grt Imperator, Vaterland and Bismarck of 1912-14, HAPAG made their real profits on the carriage of immigrants to America and cargo to much of the world, especially the Americas. Much of their remarkable expansion, innovation and market dominance was owed to its Director, Albert Ballin, who before the war, practically created modern passenger shipping from the luxury market to the humblest steerage traffic not to mention inventing the modern ocean cruise. 

The acquisition of the Kosmos Line in 1926 saw HAPAG expand their services to the West Coast of South America. 

The First World War and the Armistice of November 1918 claimed almost the entire fleet and Albert Ballin who, seeing a life's achievement destroyed, took an overdose of sleeping pills on the 8th. The Company, however, managed a remarkable post-war rebuilding and in 1926 HAPAG acquired the Deutsch-Austral & Kosmos Linien, their 60-ship fleet and routes, including those from Hamburg to the West Coast of South America. The Depression blunted further expansion and forced  co-operation between HAPAG and North German Line that pooled costs, profits and losses.

Route map, 1930, for the HAPAG-Kosmos West Coast of South America service. Credit: timetableimages.com 

From a fleet of 173 vessels totalling 1,100,000 tons in 1933 to 98 aggregating 714,000 tons in 1936, reflected effects of the Depression shipping slump, the policies of the National Socialist government and, in measure, international boycotts of German lines against the regime.  The existing union between HAPAG and NDL which dated from 1930 was reformed and loosened in 1935 and government intervention to reduce HAPAG's debts by spinning off many of its regional operations saw the South American East Coast, African and Mediterranean routes reassigned to other German lines.  In return, HAPAG gained exclusive rights to the West Coast of South America as well as the North Pacific via Panama routes.  

In return, too, for government intervention to reduce their debts, HAPAG, too, found their ships used increasingly for political purposes and, notoriously, had to consent to Nazi demands that their popular New York liner Albert Ballin, named in honour of its greatest Director, be renamed Hansa as Ballin was Jewish and the sad saga of St. Louis is well known. In the wake of it all, came an astonishing output of some of the most innovative passenger vessels of their era, all of which had commercial careers measured in months, products of The New Order that would be thrown asunder with much of the rest of the world. 

HAPAG brochure, printed in February 1939, for the West Coast of South America service. Credit: eBay auction.

The smaller, leaner HAPAG set about to modernise its fleet and in particular the West Coast of South America run so that within three years, the Hamburg-Valparaiso route was one of the real showcases of the German merchant marine, reflecting increasing German economic and political influences in the Americas, and eventually served, albeit fleetingly, by three outstanding new combination or "combi" cargo-passengers-- Monserrate (b. 1938/5,578 grt), Osorno and Huascaran (b.1938-39/6,951 grt) and one express luxury liner, the 16,595 grt Patria of 1938. 

Credit: Liverpool Journal of Commerce, 1 June 1937.

On the occasion of HAPAG's 90th anniversary on 28 May 1937, Chairman of the Board Dr. Walter Hoffmann announced a new shipbuilding programme to include a new ship for the Eastern Asia route, three cargo ships of 4,500-get, two cargo cargo ships of 6,300 tons each and a ship of 5,600 with limited number of passengers. Of the two 6,300-ton cargo ships, these were contracted with Blohm & Voss's Hamburg yards and laid down as nos. 517 and 518.  In due course, it was announced that no. 517 would be named Osorno after the volcano in Chile and no. 518 would be christened Huascaran after the mountain in Peru. 

These were the most modern and technically advanced "combi" ships in the world at the time as well as the most luxurious in terms of passenger accommodation and facilities. They were miniature Patria's in their basic design, machinery and decor, and the three representing a heyday, albeit it a very fleeting one, for German shipbuilding and design without equal in the world.

The pioneering HAPAG Wuppertal of 1936, the world's first ocean going diesel-electric merchantman, arriving at Melbourne.  Credit: Allan C. Green Collection, State Library of Victoria. 

Today, when diesel-electric propulsion is common for the world's largest cruise ships (having been re-introduced to passenger ships with the re-engining of Queen Elizabeth 2 in Germany in 1987), it is worth recalling that it was pioneered by Germany and HAPAG in particular.

The first newbuilding of the reformed HAPAG, the 6,736-ton Wuppertal, delivered on 26 November 1936 by Deutsche Werft, Hamburg, was the world's first large diesel-electric ocean going vessel.  But the basics of diesel-electric propulsion dates back to 1902 with the development of the German Navy unterseeboots or U-Boats. In merchantmen, the propulsion system offered maximum efficiency in output and fuel consumption as well as allowing individual diesels to be put "offline" for underway maintenance.  The system also was exceptionally quiet running and vibration free, two qualities especially desired in passenger vessels. 

The magnificent Patria of 1938, first twin-screw diesel-electric liner of which Osorno and Huascaran were vest pocket versions. Credit: cruisebe.com

Wuppertal, despite her conventional appearance, was one of the great pacesetters in pre-war marine engineering and so successful in service, that the propulsion system was carried over in the next four newbuildings for HAPAG launched in 1938: the imposing twin-screw 16,595-ton Patria followed by Osorno and Huascaran and, for the Far East run, the 8,736-ton Steirmark which became famous as the raider Komoran in the Second World War.  Literally the last word in diesel-electric liners for many years was the 27,288-ton Robert Ley, completed in March 1939 for the NC Gemeinschaft Kraft durch Freude (KdF) organisation for German workers cruises and managed by HAPAG.  

All these elektroschiffen had essentially the same machinery layout consisting of MAN-built diesels powering Siemens-built electric AC generators and propulsion motors and truly groundbreaking for the era, anticipating what is standard in many ships today.    In Osorno and Huascaran, this consisted of three MAN (Augsburg)  diesel engines-- two 2-stroke 8-cylinders  and one 2-stroke 6-cylinder developing a total of 6,350 hp-- each turning a Siemens 2000 kva 3750 v. alternator at 244 rpm and driving a propulsion motor rated at 7070 hp at 122 rpm operating on 3750 v. current and driving a single screw.   The maximum speed was 16 knots with a service speed of 15.5 knots.  Fuel consumption worked out to about 30 tons of diesel fuel a day with a 1,098-ton bunker capacity. 

Huascaran measured 464.7 ft. (overall), 459 ft. (b.p.), 60 ft. beam with a tonnage of  6,951 (gross) and 4,026 (nett) with five decks: Bridge, Boat, Promenade, Shelter and Main. 

With six holds, three forward and three aft with a total capacity of 555,000 cu. ft. (bale) and 15,706 cu. feet (reefer) with a 8,860 deadweight ton capacity worked by four sets of substantial kingposts and mast booms and 20 electrically driven winches. It was claimed these were the most efficient cargo vessels in world, two teams of longshoremen being able to work simultaneously in 4 of the 6 hatches and reducing cargo working time in port.

Interiors of Osorno (Huascaran was identical): Dining Saloon (top left), Smoking Room (bottom left), cabin (top right) and Lounge (bottom right). Credit: eBay auction photograph.

Although limited to 35 berths (58 using uppers), all First Class, the passenger accommodation was exceptional with 18 all outside cabins with lower beds and running hot and cold water in all cabins, some also having private bathrooms attached.  The public rooms were remarkably extensive for a "combi" type ship with a single-sitting dining saloon, lounge and bar-smoking room.  The ample open, covered and glass-enclosed promenade space was capped by an outdoor pool on Sun Deck aft of the funnel. Her officers and crew numbered 58. 

This magnificent model of Huascaran displayed in 2016 at the Historische Museen Hamburg shows off her beautiful and highly advanced hull design and other details. Credit: www.arbeitskreis-historischer-schiffbau.de

Showing her beautifully modelled bows, three forward holds and characteristic Blohm & Voss kingposts. Credit: www.arbeitskreis-historischer-schiffbau.de

Midships superstructure had the bridge, officers accommodation and passenger accommodation and public rooms. Note the outdoor pool aft of the funnel. Credit: www.arbeitskreis-historischer-schiffbau.de

Her after quarters, showing the three aft holds, single screw and balanced rudder. Note the emergency boat on the starboardside of the poop deck house only. Credit: www.arbeitskreis-historischer-schiffbau.de

The hull design of these ships was as advanced as their machinery, building on the German innovation of incorporating the Taylor (named after the American naval architect David W. Taylor) bulbous bow, rounded cast stems and hollow shaped waterline to reduce drag and provide a clean entry in express passenger liners in 1929, NDL's Bremen and Europa.  This design was later used in the rebuilding of HAPAG's Albert Ballin-quartet in 1933 which reduced the required propulsion power by 28 per cent to maintain their 19-knot service speed. Blohm & Voss then introduced the concept to the new generation of German liners of the late 'thirties, Norddeutscher Lloyd Potsdam, Deutsche Ost-Afrika Linie's Pretoria and Windhuk.  The final ships so designed were Osorno and Huascaran where it did not materially lessen wave resistance at their comparatively slow service speed but improved their seakeeping behaviour.  

In appearance, Osorno and Huascaran were models of late thirties design and style with their sweeping, flared and rounded bows, high freeboard forward, solid but compact superstructures and stubby motorship funnels and especially their distinctive lofty, narrowly spaced kingposts with ventilator caps, ending in a gracefully profiled cruiser stern. 

A reminder that Osorno, destined for the sultry West Coast of South America, made her maiden voyage in a north German winter, January 1939. 

Osorno, launched on 7 September 1938 was completed in remarkably short order, being handed over on 21 December and making her maiden voyage on 6 January 1939.

A beautiful portrait of Osorno showing the pleasing combination of purposefulness and proportion of these sisters. Credit: www.maritime-photographie.de-Wolfgang K. Reich-Wedel.

For a vessel that would endure for a remarkable 59 years, Huascaran was ordered, built, launched and delivered just as quickly as her sister.   Ordered in May 1937, she was launched on 15 December 1938 and handed over on 27 April 1939, so just under two years from contract to completion.

 

Beginning her remarkable 59-year career, Huascaran leaves the Blohm & Voss yards, Hamburg, in April 1939. 

Berlin, May 11-- 

Considerable interest has been aroused here by Field Marshal Herman Goering's 'private cruise' in the Mediterranean aboard the new Hamburg-America Line's new motorship Huascaran on her maiden voyage. Press reports had said that the Marshal was going to Valencia, which rise to speculation as to whether he might not be going there in an effort to persuade Spain to join the Italo-German military alliance. 

An official report here today said that Marshal Goering in connection with his visit to San Remo, Italy, had accepted a long-standing invitation from the steamship line to make a trip on the Huascaran in the Mediterranean. He is aboard, the report continued, cruising along the western shores of the Mediterranean, and 'at the conclusion of his trip in a few days will return to Berlin from an Italian port."

Montreal Gazette, 12 May 1939

Huascaran's entry into service thrust her into headlines in a way that would only be repeated once for the  rest of her 59-year career.  She came on the scene during a time of unmitigated triumph for Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in March 1939 with German forces occupying Czechoslovakia and the victory of Franco's Nationalist forces in the long Spanish Civil War. Amid plans for a triumphant return of Germany's Condor Legion which had fought with the Nationalists from Spain by ship and rumours that Franco would join Spain to the German-Italy Axis, HAPAG dispatched Huascaran on a "trials cruise" from Hamburg to Genova, thence on a Mediterranean cruise that would accommodate one "V.I.P." 

Press photos of Reichmarshal Herman Göring's visit to San Remo, Italy, in March-April 1939 showing (top left) his considerable luggage on arrival at the station, promenading in the town, playing tennis and being shown the view from Mount Bignone. His ensuing abbreviated voyage in Huascaran was rather less documented.  

Field-Marshal Goring has accepted an invitation from the Hamburg-Amerika Line to take part in the maiden voyage of the Huascaran in the Mediterranean.

Official communique, 11 May 1939.

The new HAPAG ship was sailing right into the middle of an extraordinary power struggle between Reichmarshal Hermann Göring and Foreign Secretary Joachim von Ribbentrop. Without informing the German ambassador in Spain or the Foreign Office in Berlin, Göring made plans to meet with Franco in Spain during a many months long Mediterranean vacation he was enjoying (which had already included a visit to Libya aboard the HAPAG liner Monserrat on 7 April from Naples to Tripoli as a guest of Governor Italo Balbo). At first Franco consented to the meeting, then dithered over where it should be held, preferring Saragossa while Göring insisted on Valencia.  

Sailing from Hamburg on 29 April 1939, Huascaran passed Gibraltar on the 30th, bound it was said for Alexandria. On 9 May, amid enormous international press attention,  Göring embarked on the vessel at San Remo, sailing out of the harbour escorted by the German destroyers Friedrich Ihn (Z14) and Erich Steinbrinck (Z15) and the supply ship Altmark.  By the time he reached the Spanish coast, Foreign Minister Ribbentrop called off the meeting and Hitler sent Göring a message at sea forbidding him to land and sail back to Italy. It was then that Göring's office concocted the ruse that he had been "invited" by HAPAG to "take part in the maiden voyage of the Huascaran in the Mediterranean," as part of his holiday.  Returning to Livorno on the 12th, where the deeply humiliated Reichmarshal disembarked, and returned Berlin in a few days. Meanwhile, Huascaran  returned to Hamburg, passing through the Straits of Gibraltar on the 15th and arriving at her homeport on the 18th.  

HAPAG advertisement showing the maiden voyage of Huascaran from Hamburg as 3 June 1939, in the event, she sailed on the 1st. Note, also, the misspelling of the nation of Colombia as "Columbia"!

As Huascaran prepared for her maiden voyage on her regular route to Valparaiso, the Pact of Steel between Germany and Italy was signed in Berlin on 22 May 1939 and the Port of Hamburg was the scene of a triumphant return on the 30th of the Condor Legion aboard Wilhelm Gustloff, Robert Ley, Der Deutsche, Stuttgart, Sierra Cordova and the Oceana escorted by Admiral Graf Spee and Admiral Scheer and passing in review of Reichmarshal Göring aboard the State Yacht Hamburg. 

E.S. Huascaran heads out to sea to commence a commercial career for HAPAG that lasted but four months but just the beginning of a 59-year lifespan for a remarkable vessel. Credit: shipsnostalgia.com

Huascaran with doubtless rather less fanfare, sailed from a crowded Port of Hamburg on 1 June 1939, but her departure was no less noteworthy, being the last new German liner to enter service before the outbreak of war. As it was, she was embarking on her one and only commercial voyage. 

HAPAG's West Coast of South America route and fleet in 1939 at its short-lived apogee on the eve of war: Patria, Osorno, Huascaran, Monseratte, Hermonthis and Rhakotis. Credit: eBay auction photo.

The normal route for the HAPAG West Coast of South America route was Hamburg to Cherbourg, Southampton, Kingston (Jamaica), Panama Canal, Buanaventura (Colombia), Salinas (Guayaquil), Callao (Peru), Mollendo (Peru), Arica (Chile), Antofagasta (Chile) and turning around at Valparaiso, Chile, a distance of some 9,981 sea miles, and calling at the same ports homewards.   

On her first (and only) voyage, Huascaran seems to have skipped her calls at Cherbourg and Southampton and recorded to have passed the Azores on 12 June 1939, transited the Panama Canal 21-23, called at Salinas on the 27th and arrived at Valparaiso on 9 July. Homewards, she made two extra calls, one at Corral (Chile) 17-18th and Talcahuano (Chile) on the 22nd, in addition to the regular waystops, including Callao on 3 August, another extra call at Salaverry (Peru) on the 6th, passing through the Panama Canal 9-10th and, skipping Cherbourg and Southampton (the news of the signing of the Germany-USSR Non-Aggression Pact in the middle of the night of the 23rd-24th guaranteeing the eminent outbreak of war), Huascaran arrived at Hamburg on the 25th, ending a 20,000-mile maiden voyage and her commercial career.

HAPAG advertisement showing Huascaran's planned second voyage for the West Coast of South America scheduled to depart Hamburg on 16 September 1939. 

Huascarn's next voyage, scheduled to depart Hamburg on 16 September 1939 was obviously cancelled upon the German invasion of Poland on the first of the month and Britain and France declaring war three days later. Her one voyage commercial career as a HAPAG liner was unquestionably the shortest chapter in her 59-year history and the brand new Huascaran was now, with so much of the world, to go to war. 

E.S. Huascaran, the world's newest and finest combination cargo-passenger liner, April-September 1939. Credit: shipsnostalgia.org

So the new Huascaran,  "enlisted" in the Kreigsmarine. In the seeming prosaic and unheroic role as a  werkstattschiff which, as so happened that put the ship and her crew at the heart of German naval operations in occupied Norway. From 1940-45, Huascaran rendered vital repair and support work to some of the most famous ships of the German Navy.  

1939-1945

On 11 November 1939 Huascaran was commissioned as Werkstattschiff 1 after having been converted to the purpose of a repair ship for the navy, both for surface warships and submarines.  This entailed added a boxy superstructure extension aft of the funnel in place of the open deck space for extra accommodation, fitting her with extensive machine shop facilities including a forge (for which a prominent kingpost smokestack was fitted directly behind the superstructure addition), in the 'tween deck which was further provided with portholes, the work being done by HAPAG repair works in Hamburg.  

Huascaran, after her aft superstructure had been extended, but still in mostly peacetime livery, at Pillau, East Prussia c. 1940.

The invasion of Norway and subsequent occupation of France in April-June 1940 finally gave the German Navy what had always eluded it: bases directly on the Atlantic and Channel coasts.  With the u-boat fleet based from L'Orient and Brest on the French coast, a major base for heavy surface units was established in the Lofjord, north of Trondheim, where they could be serviced and repaired, without being "bottled up" in the North Sea bases at Kiel and Wilhelmshaven.  In her role as a repair ship, Huascaran performed a critical function in the new base's operation and had a very busy war without barely going to sea. 

On 1 June 1940 Huascaran left Kiel and indeed Germany "for the duration," destined for Trondheim and carrying ammunition, in company with Alstertor and Samland and escorted by four M-boats, three R-boats and Elbe, arriving on 6 June.  

Huascaran alongside the damaged German battleship Gneisenau in Lofjord, June 1940. Credit: Kriegsmarine Facebook group. 

Huascaran's repair crews were very soon called to their tasks when the Royal Navy, in two separate engagements, damaged the sister German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau.  After being hit in the stern by a torpedo attack by the British destroyer H.M.S. Acasta, Scharnhorst  took refuge in the Lofjord from 9-20 June 1940 where she repaired by crews of Huascaran and Parat before sailing to Kiel. On the 20th, Gneisenau was hit on the starboard bow by a torpedo by the British submarine H.M.S. Clyde and she, too, underwent provisional repairs in Lofjord by Huascaran's technicians before retiring to Kiel on 25 July.

Prinz Eugen (centre) under repair in the Lofjord; next to her, on her starboard side, is the repair ship Huascaran; Admiral Scheer is also moored behind anti-torpedo nets. Credit: Wikipedia Commons.

The ship's most impressive repair job was on the famous heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen which, after being torpedoed off the Norwegian coast by the British submarine H.M.S. Trident on 23 February 1942 which blew off her stern, managed to make to Trondheim and then towed to Lofjord where she arrived on the 25th. There, Huascaran's repair crews, with great skill and ingenuity,  cut away the remains of her entire stern, plate over the hull end and fit two jury-rigged rudders, operated by capstans and cables. On 16 May Prinz Eugen managed to sail for Kiel for complete repairs.  

An impressive achievement by Huascaran's repair crews was the temporary repair of Prinz Eugen's stern, blown off in a torpedo attack from a British submarine in February 1942. By May (below) she was able to sail home with a jury rigged rudder system and the damaged hull cut away and sealed. Huascaran can be seen alongside in both photos, showing the boxy superstructure addition aft.  Credit: historyphotos.org.

Trondheim in late 1942 with the German submarine "pen" Dora 1 (left) nearing completion and Huascaran (right) in camoflage paint with patrol boats alongside. Credit: Svein Aage Knudsen, krigsbilder.net

On 31 July 1943 Huascaran left Trondheim for Altafjord, escorted by destroyer Z-29, and arrived, via Narvik, on 3 August to join the support ships for the battleship Tirpitz moored there. 

After repeated attacks, the Royal Air Force finally succeeding in destroying the battleship Tirpitz off Håkøy Island near Tromsø, Norway, on 12 November 1944 and Huascaran went alongside the capsized wreck to rescue trapped survivors in the hull. After this, she returned to Lofjord to act as a support ship for the 13th U-boat Flotilla based there.  

Sonderführer Kapitänleutnant (Ing.) Jacob Koepke (1900-1965), workshop manager of Huascaran, 1940-45. Credit: https://forum.axishistory.com/

The workshop manager aboard Huascaran since 19 April 1940, Sonderführer Kapitänleutnant (Ing.) Capt. Lt. Jacob Koepke, was awarded the Knight's Cross with Swords of the Order of War on 28 January 1945.  

Fittingly in view of her later career, Huascaran, other surface ships and 15 U-boats were intercepted on 17 May 1945 and surrendered to the Canadian frigate Matane (Lt. J.J. Coates).  Credit: Archives Canada.

Just a few days before the German surrender on 7 May 1945, the U-boats of the 13th Flotilla completed their final wartime patrol and returned to Narvik to join Huascaran and the fleet tender (and Hitler's former yacht) Grille there among the other support vessels.  On the 12th, the allies ordered all German naval units in the Narvik zone to sail to Skjomenfjord. Instead, three days later the depot ships Huascaran, Stella Polaris, Grille, minesweeper Kamerun and the fleet tanker Kärnten along with 15 U-boats departed for Trondheim, but were intercepted on the 15th by the Royal Navy's 9th escort group off Åsenfjord. Among those diverted from escorting convoy JW67 to Murmansk to intercept the Germans was the Canadian Navy's River-class frigate (built by Vicker Canada, Montreal) H.M.C.S. Matane (K-444) whose Captain, Lt. J.J. Coates, RCNVR, took the surrender of the German vessels from Capt. Reinhard Suhren aboard Grille on the 17th.  

The 15 U-boats were escorted to Scotland by Matane and other units whilst Huascaran and the other surface vessels proceeded to Trondheim. There, Huascaran was formally seized by the British, her 13 officers, 50 Petty Officers and 280 ratings were taken prisoner and the German patrol boats V6602, V6603 and V6605 moored alongside. She was eventually laid up in the Lofjord awaiting deposition as a prize of war. 

On 14 November 1945 Huascaran, then at Liverpool, was handed over to Canada by the War Reparations Commission.  Although managed by the Park Steamship Co.. Montreal, which operated Canada's government owned, wartime-built standard ships, there is no evidence that Huascaran was used in their service and appears to have remained in lay-up, eventually in the Clyde off Greenock. 

Just over six years old, Huascaran had lost her homeland, line and intended service and was in the hands of strangers.  As such, she had much in common with millions in Europe and elsewhere in the aftermath of the war and the remaking of the Continent.

Her dull war paint, scraggy and rusted now, makes the once proud unit of the Hamburg-America line look something of a bedraggled old lady, tied up at her Sorel wharf. 

But the rebuilding job will change all that. Tuesday in the Commons, Reconstruction Minister Howe made known then that the 6,900-ton liner which Canada took as part of war reparations from Germany, was being prepared for immigrant use. 

Edmonton Journal, 10 July 1947

It was with a certain irony that a now "homeless" ship, torn from her normal commercial life, country, officers and crew, should find a new career, country and crew in the carriage of passengers who, too, had lost home, homeland and happiness, to a new beginning.  

1947

No other steamship company of an allied country suffered proportionally as heavy losses in the Second World War than Canadian Pacific with five Empresses, two Duchesses, all the Monts, all the Beavers lost to the fleet by the end of 1945 through enemy action, maritime accident and one to a fire whilst being refitted and one to extended transport service. The road back was long and slow, and included a bit of detour when the company found itself acquiring a very different sort of vessel for a new service that reflected a post-war world that was no less fraught with problems. 

Initial sales announcement for Huascaran and Empire Gatehouse. Credit: 15 January 1947.

On 19 January 1947 Park Steamships Co. Ltd, acting as agent of Canada's War Assets Corp. offered two German-built ships that been award the Dominion by the Inter-Allied Reparations Agency: the steamer Empire Gatehouse, at Halifax, and Huascaran, then anchored off Greenock. Both were offered under the proviso they would be operated under Canadian register and, additionally, it was stipulated that Huascaran be reconditioned and repaired in Canada, with tenders to be submitted by 29 January. Clarke Steamship Co. bought Empire Gatehouse but sale of Huascaran was not immediate and she was offered independently with tenders to be submitted by 17 February, this time specifying a minimum bid of  $606,000 for the vessel. 

When offered for sale separately, a minimum bid of $606,000 for Huascaran was specified. 

Huascaran was sold to North American Transports Ltd., of Montreal,  on 19 February 1947, War Assets Corp. holding a $465,000 mortgage on the vessel. 

The orphaned Huascaran now found a new home, of sorts, if not an immediate or disclosed purpose. That she would eventually find employment taking tens of thousands to their new homes, indeed country, seemed entirely fitting.  

Credit: columbiabasinherald.com

Of the welter of acronyms produced by "WW2" which was the most famous of all, among the more sadly common in the wake of it was the "DP" or "Displaced Person," the bureaucratic shorthand for the human tragedy of 40 millions  who had lost their homes and, in many cases, their countries after the war, both by the actual combat and forced dislocation during the period 1939-45, and by the post-war reordering of European boundries, governments and the evolving Cold War and Soviet Occupation.  Of these, no fewer than 11 million were in Allied Occupied Germany, including former POWs, slave laborers, concentration camp survivors, orphans, Poles, Ukrainians and ethnic Germans forcibly removed from East Prussia,  Danzig, Sudetenland, Silesia, Poland and the Baltic States as well as  those fleeing Russian occupied East Germany.  The ethnic cleansing that characterised the Third Reich, was no less a feature of the remaking of post-war Europe, both contributing to the DP crisis. 

Even after some six million refugees had been repatriated, the remaining "DPs", many with no place to go, were housed in improvised camps. Gradually, many counties all over the world began to accept them as immigrants whose immediate needs were entrusted to more acronyms, the UNRRA, the United Nationals Relief and Rehabilitation Administration and IRO or International Relief Organisation. Notable, too, were the number of charitable and religious organisations that had enormous impact on finding new homes and lives for DP's throughout the world especially those excluded, on political grounds by the USSR, from IRO aid and relocation, as the evolving Cold War cast its shadow on those already dislocated by the real one just ended. 

Canada was, with Belgium and Great Britain, among the first countries to adopt a settlement scheme for DPs.  It was, of course, a nation already built on immigration, a vast but underpopulated land of but 3.4 millions at Confederation in 1867 that had by the end of the First World War grown to 8.3 millions and by end of the Second World War, 12 millions, the vast majority of immigrants originating from the British Isles and most of it under government schemes to encourage settlement of the prairies and the West.  Of European immigration to Canada, Germans played an early part, burgeoning during the American War of Independence (Samuel Cunard's family were German-Americans who as Loyalists settled in Halifax) and another substantive wave were Mennonites and Hutterites from America and between the world wars, some 100,000 Germans immigrated to Canada.

The passing of an order-in-council in Ottawa on 6 June 1947 for the immediate admission to Canada of 5,000 DPs, was prompted by an outcry against "commercial immigration" after a private Canadian businessman sponsored 800 Poles to work for his company.  But the government scheme, too, was  built around a preferred low-skilled employment qualification to ease chronic labour shortages in mining, logging, agriculture, textile trade and domestic service.   Canada also signed an agreement with the Dutch government to bring in agricultural families. Between 1947 and 1949, close to 16,000 individuals from Dutch farm families resettled in Canada and by 1954,  94,000 Dutch immigrants came to Canada between 1947 and 1954. 

Excluded from IRO assistance (at the insistence of the USSR), however, were the so-called Volksdeutsche, the ethnic Germans forcibly removed from East Prussia,  Danzig, Sudetenland, Silesia, Poland and the Baltic States as well as  those fleeing Russian occupied East Germany, estimated at some 12 millions. Their plight, worsened by increasing tensions between the West and the Soviet Union in a divided Germany, attracted the attention of the considerable German community in Canada, centered on its churches.  

Dr. T.O.F. Herzer (1887-1958). Credit:  Canadian Lutheran World Relief, https://www.clwr.org 

One of the greatest champions of German immigration to Canada was Dr. T.O.F. Herzer, a trained Lutheran pastor and General Manager of the Canada Colonization Association (a division of the Canadian Pacific Railway), who facilitated  the emigration of thousands of Mennonites from Russia to Canada in the 1920s.  After the war, he was a leader of the Canadian Lutheran World Relief (CLWR) and helped establish in Ottawa in June 1947 the Canadian Christian Council for the Resettlement of Refugees (CCCRR) in co-operation with The Canadian Mennonite Board of Colonization, Canadian Lutheran World Relief, the German Baptist Union, and the Catholic Immigration Aid Society, This organisation undertook a comprehensive sponsorship of some 15,000 Volksdeutsche and 6,500 Mennonites not qualifying for IRO assistance. 

Availing of Canada's prioritising non IRO sponsored immigrants to "immediate family members" of those already residing in the country, German-Canadians sent in applications to sponsor 20,000 and the Canadian Government in August, working with the British and American occupation authorities in the western zones of Germany, agreed to the CCCRR facilitating the processing, vetting and transportation of these individuals from Bremen to Canada. 

Credit: The Windsor Star, 16 August 1947

In November 1947 the CCCRR was recognised as an agent of the Canadian Government to facilitate the immigration of qualified Germans to Canada, the first country to do so after the war. Even so, Germans were still classified as enemy aliens until September 1950 and applicants who had served in the Germany Army or had been members of the NDSAP were not eligible. Even so, an estimated 1,500 Nazi war criminals and collaborators were able to enter Canada between 1947-51, including the notorious Helmut Rauca, owing to inadequate security screening. It was a tiny minority among the  157,000 DP's,15,000 Volkdeutsche, 6,500 Mennonites who came over by 1950 and then with the readmission of German nationals (Reichdeutsche), another 250,000 Germans from 1950-1960 came to Canada. 

Now all that was needed were the ships.  Canadian authorities quickly discovered that of the approximately 50 passenger liners being operated on account of the British Ministry of Transport as troopships none was available  for the transport of immigrants. Much of this was due to the British decision to withdraw occupation forces in Europe and overseas, extending troopship charters. Filling the gap in immigrant berths, for the timebeing, were IRO-chartered American troopships, but the shortage of tonnage severely crimped Canada's desire to increase immigration. 

Rather than being entirely dependent on the Americans and the British for tonnage, integral to  Canada's initial post-war immigration plans was a dedicated Canadian vessel for both IRO sponsored DPs and the CCCRR sponsored immigrants. Indeed in making the first announcement of the immigration of DPs,  Reconstruction Minister Rt. Hon. C.D. Howe said "the government hopes to a convert a vessel obtained from Germany as part of war reparations to carry the immigrants." That was in July 1947 following  acquisition of Huascaran and her subsequent arrival in Canada.   

Huascaran at Liverpool on 26 April 1947 undergoing engine repairs before setting off for Canada. Credit: Liverpool Maritime Museum.

After a general overhaul at Liverpool commencing in April 1947, Huascaran, under Capt. Geo. L. Hayes and a crew of 23, including one of her original crew,  Second Engineer Rudolph Rolph, sailed in June for Canada, arriving at the Marine Industries' shipyard at Sorel, P.Q. on the 26th after a uneventful voyage, the first extended one for the vessel since her maiden trip back in June 1939. She was surveyed by the Montreal naval architect firm of German & Milne (which recently designed the  "world's most modern icebeaker," the ferry  Abegweit) and found to be suitable for conversion into a high capacity immigrant vessel which could be used as such westbound yet be readily converted to a full cargo vessel eastbound.  Over 100 workers were tasked with the conversion.

All of this went initially unreported in the press and it was not revealed, rather casually, until the following month when Huascaran was  specifically referenced in Ottawa by Reconstruction Minister Howe when announcing passage of an order-in-council to allow immediate admittance of 5,000 displaced persons to Canada. The Gazette on 5 July 1947 reported that:

...it was learned that the vessel has been sold to a Quebec firm and recently crossed the Atlantic to Sorel where she may be fitted out as an immigrant ship which could transfer 500 or more persons a voyage. Negotiations now are proceeding between Government authorities and the shipping interests which have acquired the vessel for a working arrangement to engage her for transfer of immigrants unable to cross to Canada because of the tight Atlantic shipping situation." On the 7th in the Commons, Minister Howe, in reply to a question, stated the ship had been turned over to Canada as reparations in a damaged condition in a German harbour and as Canada had no convenient means of getting her to the country, she was turned over to war assets for sale, "the ship was purchased by a Canadian firm, and repaired in Germany, then moved to Britain for further repaints, has now been delivered to Canada. The ship has been surveyed and found capable of carrying 600 immigrants. The survey was made at request of the present owners, who propose to convert the ship at their own expense.

Huascaran at Marine Industries yard in Sorel, shortly after her arrival from Liverpool, and one of her original crewmen, 2nd Engineer Rudolph Rolph, who made the delivery voyage in her. Credit: Owen Sound Daily Sun Times, 14 July 1947.

The final part of the puzzle was put into place in August 1947 when Canadian Pacific, the company that had practically invented, refined and was made for the populating of the Dominion with immigrants, purchased Huascaran from North American Transports after the  Canadian Government and Canadian Pacific came to an agreement that if the line would operate the vessel for at least three years in the movement of refugees, the government would pay half of the anticipated $600,000 needed to refit Huascaran for passenger service. 

The company, as a major step, has purchased the former German liner, Huascaran. The conversion of this ship, to enable her to carry eight hundred immigrants to this country each trip, will be of material assistance in easing the immigration bottleneck. The Huascaran, renamed the Beaverbrae, will be in service early in the new year.

Canadian Pacific Annual Report, 1947

The need for a sound immigration flow to Canada was never more apparent. This county, from one to the other, on the new frontier of the northwest, is in desperate need of the same kind of manpower which pressed its development in the early years of this century.

Western Canada in particular has entered a new stage of postwar expansion which will unquestionably be reflected to a major degree throughout the while economic structure of the Dominion."

W.M. Neal, CBE, Canadian Pacific Chairman and President

 4 September 1947 in Montreal

In Montreal on 2 September 1947, Canadian Pacific Railway Co. purchased Huascaran from North American Transports Co.. After returning from a month's inspection tour of Western Canada and the North West Territories, Canadian Pacific Chairman and President W.M. Neal announced in Montreal two days later the acquisition of Huascaran  which was "to enter  immigrant passenger service on the Atlantic service during the coming winter. The ship will provide space for approximately 700 persons, each voyage, plus a considerable cargo capacity." (Ottawa Citizen, 5 September 1947). Mr. Neal, in his announcement, added: "Operation of the Huascaran, as the other ships which the Canadian Pacific now owns or may acquire, will be proceeded with in closest co-operation with the Dominion Government as the nation's immigration policies develop...We must open the doors wider, to let in more new Canadians, for it is only by sharing the opportunity that we ourselves may reap the fullest benefit."

Huascaran was renamed Beaverbrae (II) on 25 September 1947, the name honouring one of the five-strong Beaver-class cargo ships, all lost during the war, and this was announced five days later by  W.M. Neal, sailing from Montreal in Empress of Canada. The name also reflected the ship's dual purpose role, joining the post-war Beaver-class ships on the cargo run to Britain eastbound, a function no less essential than her westbound immigrant-carrying crossings. 

The Canadian Pacific cargoliner Beaverdell, en route to Montreal from London, stopped in the St. Lawrence off Sorel on 30 October 1947 to unload a consignment of 16 British-built lifeboats for the refitting of  Beaverbrae. 

A smart looking Beaverbrae poses at Sorel, P.Q. for her official Canadian Pacific photo even if none of her additional davits and lifeboats have yet to be installed. 

Registered in Montreal, Beaverbrae proudly flew Canada's "Red Duster" and was the largest deep-sea Canadian registered merchantman.

Beaverbrae was entered in the Canadian Register on 27 November 1947, registered in Montreal and, at 9,033 gross tons, the largest Canadian-flagged deep sea vessel and the first Canadian registered trans-Atlantic liner since CNR's Royal George and Royal Edward of 1910.

Capt. G.O. Baugh, OBE, RD, RCNR (Ret'd).

At the same time, her master was appointed, Capt. Gerald Ormsby Baugh, OBE, RD, RCNR (Ret'd), laterly Staff Captain of Empress of Scotland. Born in Birmingham, Capt. Baugh joined Canadian Pacific in 1931 as a junior officer in the same ship, then named Empress of Japan.  Moving to Vancouver, he served in the Royal Canadian Navy during the war, commanding H.M.C.S. Alberni, the first corvette built at Victoria, B.C. and then commanding  the destroyer H.M.C.S. St. Clair for two years in the Battle of the Atlantic. When he settled aboard Beaverbrae at Sorel, he discovered the flag of German Rear-Admiral Felix von Huntzmann in a locker aboard and kept it as a ironic souvenir for a veteran of the Battle of the Atlantic now commanding a former unit of the German Navy. 

In place of the faded colors of Rear-Admiral Felix von Huntzmann, which she was flying when she was captured, her new colors will be Canada's 'Red Duster' and the checkered houseflag of Canadian Pacific Steamships.

The Vancouver Sun, 11 December 1947

Before the St. Lawrence was closed to navigation for the winter,  Beaverbrae left Sorel  on 6 December 1947 for Saint John, N.B. for completion of her refitting work there. 

Beaverbrae alongside the Marine Industries shipyard at Sorel.  Credit: National Post, 14 February 1948. 

Second only to the conversion of the Donaldson liner Letitia into a hospital ship by Vickers Canada, Montreal, during the war, the transformation of Huascaran into the emigrant liner Beaverbrae at Marine Industries' Sorel, P.Q., yards was the biggest project of its kind undertaken in a Quebec shipyard.  

It was, however, hardly uncommon just a few years after the end of the war, to convert ships to new roles, even unlikely ones nor to adopt a ship that once had 38 berths to have some 750 and to do so in short order.  The result was a vessel unlike any another in Canadian Pacific history and an unusual if somehow also fitting ship to be the largest in the Canadian Merchant Navy at the time. Neither Empress nor Duchess, not even a Mont, she was a Beaver, essentially a freighter whose westbound cargo was 780 men, women and children for which there were no brochures, deck plans or alluring posters.    

In many essentials, Huascaran remained unchanged: her cargo spaces and handling gear, her machinery, dimensions and even her basic appearance.  She was, after all, not even ten years old when she embarked on the latest chapter of a long, long career that would see her undergo far more drastic makeovers.  Externally, the biggest change, other than the unattractive two-storey "box" added to her after superstructure dating from her conversion as a naval workshop ship, was a considerable augmentation of her lifesaving equipment, reflecting her vastly increased compliment.  From two lifeboats to 18 required two extra pairs of davits on each side her Boat Deck carrying eight lifeboats and another two pair on each side atop a new deck over her poop deckhouse carrying another eight.  

Beaverbrae remained prodigious cargo carrier, her six holds had a 555,000 cu. ft. (bale) and 15,706 cu. ft. (reefer) and she retained Huascaran's efficient cargo handling gear.

In appearance, Beaverbrae was no graceful White Empress, and quite distinctive from other CP ships with her squat motorship funnel and boxy midships superstructure block and heavy narrow spaced kingposts that all contributed to businesslike profile that reflected her role.  She did retain her beautifully long and flared  bows so that that view from ahead, Beaverbrae looked quite pleasing.  

E.S. Huascaran as built, 1939. Credit: shipsnostalgia.com

D.E.V. Beaverbrae after her conversion, 1948, showing the extension of the deck over her poop deckhouse to accommodate four pairs of double-banked lifeboats and another four pair of davits and boats added aft of the bridge. The unattractive "box" added to her aft superstructure dates from her wartime conversion. Credit: shippingtandy.com

A postcard view of Beaverbrae in placid seas that her passengers would but envy on their often rough passages, especially in winter, from Germany to Canada.  

The 9,034 grt Beaverbrae had 773 passenger berths making her Canadian Pacific's largest capacity passenger liner at the time (compared to Empress of Canada/Empress of France which carried 700), a distinction perhaps less appreciated by those sailing in her.  She had five decks: Bridge, Boat, Promenade, Shelter and Main.  The private cabin accommodation, for 74, was on Promenade Deck and reserved for women travelling with babies and children.  The balance of 699 passengers were berthed  in dormitories in the 'tween decks on Shelter Deck with men quartered forward and women aft in two tier bunks and married couples were separated. During the conversion, additional portholes were fitted along the length of this deck but fore and aft passageways, cut through the bulkheads were narrow and naval in character. Washrooms were adjacent and companionways led to the open decks through openings in the hatchcovers.  Passengers were expected to make their own bunks and keep their quarters clean as well. 

Passengers on the aft deck of Beaverbrae at sea in nice weather. Note the companionway entrances at the end of the cargo hatch own to the Shelter Deck dormitories aft (for women).  Credit:  Flickr Alphonse Buse.

The public facilities were limited to a large dining/common room  amidships on Shelter Deck with a piano and provision to show movies. That, and recorded music "concerts" constituted the extent of the entertainment. The enclosed promenade had deck chairs and open deck space on the fore and aft cargo decks. For a ship whose passenger list was usually one-fifth children, one of the major deficiencies was a complete lack of any playrooms or facilities for them. There was a small canteen for the purchase of toiletries and cigarettes.  

"Hot and a lot of it," best described the food although the three meals a day was a luxury not experienced for many since 1939 with meat offered for breakfast, lunch and dinner although the novelty of American bacon was perhaps not relished by her often seasick passengers.  Every voyage, the  ship was provisioned with 10 tons of potatoes, 9 tons of fresh meat, 3 tons of smoked meat, 7 tons of pasta, 4 tons of vegetables, 2 tons of butter and cheese, 300 jars of baby food, 10 tons of sugar, 1 ton of jams, 16,000 chocolate bars and 36,000 bags of candy.  It was not uncommon for passengers to enlist to work in the galley or serve as the ship's "police" in exchange for cigarettes or other luxuries.

Alas, for many, food was the last things on their minds for Beaverbrae was many things but a good seaboat was not among them.  Light in displacement on the westbound crossings with no or little cargo, and with the extra tophamper of her added lifeboats, she could pitch and roll horribly and sailing year-round, the winter crossings could be miserable. Of all of the published accounts of voyages in her, seasickness is a common element, some of her unfortunate passengers were literally sick for the entire 10 or more days across.

In addition to her 116 officers and crew, Beaverbrae was staffed with an an IRO Escort Officer, Asst. Escort Officer, two stewardesses, a doctor, nurse, dispenser and hospital attendant.

Beaverbrae was indeed like no other Canadian Pacific ship, certainly utilitarian, a bit cobbled together but worth considering that she was only the third CP passenger ship in service when she made in her first voyage (following Empress of Canada and Empress of France) and was, in fact, the newest (by quite a margin) in the fleet, being 11 years newer than the two 1928-built Empresses being less than ten years old when recommissioned.  

On 24 January 1948 details as to the settlement scheme were released. Of the 770 immigrants to be accommodated each westbound voyage, more than half were travelling under the auspices of the CCCRR and the remainder by the International Refugee Organization or IRO In a conference on 23 January 1948 of the Canadian Citizenship Council, R.L. Christopherson, Asst. Commissioner of the CPR's Department of Immigration and Colonization, said that only about about half of displaced persons in occupied countries were eligible under the IRO and it was these people, many anti-Communists or ethic Germans who had to flee their homes in Eastern Europe in advance of Soviet forces. A working team had been sent to Germany to assist in assembling prospective immigrants. Immigrants brought forward by the council had relatives in Canada to act as sponsors. 

Altogether fitting for "The World's Greatest Transportation System," Canadian Pacific's Beaverbrae was not an individual ship, but rather one component in an intricate, carefully planned and integrated means of relocating peoples from one country to another via ship and trans-continental railway on one single through ticket and, in many cases, with their new home or farm or job pre-arranged as well.  No one did it better or for longer, and no single company better suited to operate Canada's only dedicated immigrant ship. In addition. both CP and CNR had recent and extensive experience operating troop transport trains throughout the Dominion from the Eastern embarkation ports.  If it was sometimes akin to "people processing" in character as well as quality, it was remarkably efficient so that once cleared for embarkation, a Beaverbrae passenger could be in his or her new Canadian home within three weeks of sailing, often a journey of some 5,000 or more miles for those destined for the west. 

On the German side, however, the cue was taken from HAPAG and Albert Ballin's innovative Immigrant Village in Hamburg prior to World War One where immigrants were housed, fed, bathed and medically inspected prior to boarding HAPAG liners for New York, the motive not being so much charity but to ensure that all were accepted upon arrival in Ellis Island lest be they be deported at a loss to the company.

So it was that the CCCRR established a smaller version, in Bremen, the Bremer Uberseeheim, Auswanderung Nach Canada or the Bremen Overseas House for Emigration to Canada. Housed in two fine buildings, containing simple rooms for families and small dormitories for single men and women, cafeteria,  dispensary, barbers, kindergarten and classrooms, laundry as well as the offices of the CCCRR, it was entirely organised to process 770 immigrants for Canada for each of the 8-10 one-crossings from Bremerhaven (later Bremen) to Canada.  Many of the arrivals had barely enough clothing and this was augmented by a store of donated garments, shoes and luggage from Canadians all over the Dominion.  Timed with the arrival of Beaverbrae, that voyage's allotment  of immigrants received a final medical clearance and exchanged their old identity documents for Canadian documents and packed and ready to embark the following day.  All this ensured a quick turnaround for the vessel outbound and pre clearance on arrival at Halifax, Saint John or Quebec.  

Entrance to the Bremer Uberseeheim, the CCCRR refugee camp.  Credit:  Canadian Lutheran World Relief, https://www.clwr.org.

Left: family accommodation, Right: Canteen. Credit:  Canadian Lutheran World Relief, https://www.clwr.org.

Left: camp doctor, Right: kindergarten. Credit:  Canadian Lutheran World Relief, https://www.clwr.org.

Left: mess hall, Right: church. Credit:  Canadian Lutheran World Relief, https://www.clwr.org.

Left: Exchanging old identity papers for Canadian passports, Right: Even the youngest immigrant had his or her papers. Credit:  Canadian Lutheran World Relief, https://www.clwr.org.

Right: Saying farewell to the camp on embarkation day, Left: Going aboard Beaverbrae. Credit:  Canadian Lutheran World Relief, https://www.clwr.org.

A final souvenir photo. Credit:  Canadian Lutheran World Relief, https://www.clwr.org.

On the "other side," Beaverbrae, arriving at Halifax or Saint John in winter or Quebec in summer, was met by two special Canadian Pacific or Canadian National trains.  Every immigrant was "tagged" with the tag indicating his or her final destination in Canada.   These trains, often 12-16 cars long, composed of the famous "colonist" austerity sleeping cars (day coaches with folding upper berths) which had been the "covered wagons" of Canadian emigration and settlement of the prairie provinces.  Two passenger trains with baggage cars usually took the arrivals to Montreal and Toronto, or to Winnipeg and further western destinations, with virtually every car targeting a different area. Each train was provided with three special cars, a kitchen car and two dining cars, one of which served the train crew as a sleeping car at night. A Canadian Pacific press release detailed that one these Western trains was stocked with a ton of meat, a ton of vegetables, 300 pounds of fish, 250 dozen eggs, 125 pounds of butter, 75 gallons of milk and half a ton of bread. 

Dutch family boarding Canadian National special settler train upon arrival at Halifax. Credit: Canadian National Railway X32173 via Canadian Museum of Immigration. 

So after a 10-12 day sea voyage, it might be another four days before the somewhat bewildered settler, having seen much of the breadth of the Dominion en route, arrived at his new home.  The trains often met by dozens of relatives, seeing family members for the first time or after a dozen or more years absence. The last link in the chain was complete and another 770 New Canadians were finally in their new home.

Cover of brochure detailing CP's vital Beaver cargo ship service from Canada to Britain of which Beaverbrae was an integral part. Credit: Wallace B. Chung and  Madeline H. Chung Collection, University of British Columbia.  

Although Beaverbrae is best remembered for her refugee transport role, she was very much a "dual purpose" vessel from the onset and an integral member of Canadian Pacific's famous "Beaver" cargo service.  Indeed, re-establishing this (the entire five-strong pre-war Beaver-class of cargoliners being lost in the war) took precedence over reviving the passenger service owing to the rather desperate state of Britain c. 1945-52 after "Lend Lease" shipments suddenly ended with peace, the country faced serious and sustained food and raw material shortages.  

So it was that the very first post-war CP newbuilding was Beaverdell, launched at Lithgows, Port Glasgow on 27 August 1945 and followed by Beaverglen, Beaverlake and Beavercove plus three more former Empire-class wartime standard freighters: Beaverburn, Beaverford and Beaverlodge.  "These ships, because of their heavy carrying of food, are known in the hard-pressed Mother Country as the 'B.U.' (bread unit) fleet." (Canadian Pacific 1947 Annual Report). Shipments of wheat, flour, beef, lumber and other commodities from Canada assumed vital importance while "dollar earning" British exports to Canada in the form of motorcars, motorcycles, bicycles, woolens, shoes and other manufactured high quality goods helped restore Britain's balance of payments. In 1948 CP ships carried over 500,000 tons of cargo in and out of Montreal.

Beaverbrae's voyage pattern reflected her dual purpose quality:

Eastbound (cargo service running with the other C.P. Beaver-class ships)

• Saint John, N.B. (winter) or Montreal (summer) to London Docks
• deadhead to Bremerhaven for passenger embarkation

Westbound (passenger service for sponsored immigrants and D.P.s)

• Bremerhaven to Halifax (winter) or Quebec (summer)
• deadhead to Montreal (summer)  or Saint John (winter) for cargo loading

When her Antwerp was substituted for London in late 1949, the essential pattern remained and in 1951 her European terminus changed from Bremerhaven to Bremen. 

The Route of the Beavers: Montreal (summer) or Saint John (winter) to the Port of London. Credit: Wallace B. Chung and  Madeline H. Chung Collection, University of British Columbia.  

With a 14.5-15-knot service speed, Beaverbrae took the best part of ten days to cross from Bremerhaven to Canada (but sometimes far longer in bad weather) and ran on a 28-day schedule with a five-day turnaround in Montreal/Saint John and a similar spell in London Docks for working cargo whereas her stay in Bremerhaven was only long enough to embark her passengers.   Her outbound cargo, averaging 5,000 tons, was as important to post-war recovery as the settlement of displaced persons, consisting almost entirely of foodstuffs for a Britain desperately short of basic commodities and, if anything, its people enduring more restrictive rationing than during the war with the sudden end of Lend Lease supplies from the U.S. and Canada. 

Her tentative schedule called for a five-week roundtrip with sailings from Saint John on 14 March and 20 April and her first arrival at Montreal on 20 May via Quebec. 

The B.C. press also reported that her Chief Officer T. MacDuff was from Victoria, Purser R.G. Forrester from Vancouver and Chief Steward C.A. Sterling was also from Vancouver.  

The trip was long, the quarters were spare and many of the passengers got seasick.

But the Beaverbrae will still be the focus, the common denominator in lives that changed course so dramatically decades ago.

'We shared all this hardship and then everybody was looking for a future for themselves and their children," Kilianski said.

"The ship was the tool.'

The Record, 30 September 2020

 interview with Nelly Kilianski, who sailed in Beaverbrae in 1951.

So Beaverbrae began her career, a ship and service unique for Canadian Pacific and one that prospered for six years, or double the mandated span.  Totally lacking in the pre-war glamour of the White Empresses nor in the anticipation of their post-war revival, Beaverbrae was afforded neither the lavish posters, brochure and publicity and went about her duties in relative obscurity. Her story was written mostly in the experiences of her passengers to whom their voyage was the last step in a long, often tormented and tedious wait to resume normal lives.  There were storms, minor breakdowns, one headline grabbing extended strike, but hers was mainly the workaday routine of a passenger-cargo liner that still assumed a life changing role for some 38,000 people.  

1948

On 29 January 1948 the Senate immigration inquiry in Ottawa was told that Beaverbrae would sail from Saint John, N.B. on 6 February and go into service.  Instead she left on the 7th, in heavy snow, with a full cargo for London. arriving,  at Gravesend on the 19th to unload her outbound cargo in London docks and then proceeded to Bremerhaven where she embarked 773 passengers. 

Departing Gravesend on 27 February 1948 and proceeding to Bremerhaven, Beaverbrae sailed from there on the 29th  for Halifax on her first passenger carrying voyage. Of her 779 passengers, 450 were predominently Polish displaced persons under I.R.O. sponsorship and the remaining 300 CCCRR sponsored ethnic German refugees.  In all, her passenger list comprised Poles, Ukrainians, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Czechs, Yugoslavians, Hungarians, Romanians and Germans, 261 men, 389 women and 129 children. 

On 4 March Resources Minister Glen left Ottawa for Halifax to witness the first arrival of Beaverbrae.  Another 860 "D.P.s" would arrived in Canada on the 7th aboard the I.R.O.'s chartered General Sturgis. Accompanied by A.L. Jolliffe, Minister of Immigration, and Capt. E.S. Brand, co-ordinator of shipping for immigration, Glen was also scheduled to inspect Aquitania which had begun a new immigrant service to the port from Southampton. In all, Canada planned to take in 100,000 immigrants in 1948, half from Britain and the Commonwealth, 10,000 Dutch farmers coming over in ships chartered by the Netherlands Government and displaced persons in Beaverbrae, General Sturgis, General Stewart or General Heitzelman. 

Credit: Montreal Gazette, 12 March 1948.

Beaverbrae came into Halifax the evening of 9 March 1948; the first new Canadian Pacific liner since Empress of Britain in 1931. Her polyglot passengers were met and addressed by Minister Glen as the passed through the immigration procedures on arrival, saying "their opportunities of succeeding in this country would as great as ever and that diligence and thrift are the things that create homes in this free country in which you have just arrived." Glen and other officials inspected Beaverbrae from stem to stern and commented that "the arrangements of the company and the conditions of the ship are most satisfactory." Also meeting the ship were C.P.R. Immigration head A.L. Jolliffe, Capt. R.W. McMurray, Managing Director of C.P. Steamships and Capt. E.S. Brand. 

Among Beaverbrae's passengers on her maiden voyage were these three Polish orphans joining relatives in Winnipeg. Credit: Surrey Leader, 8 April 1948.

One of the new arrivals, Mrs. Augusta Tews from Poland, told her daughter, Mrs. Arthur Braun of Kitchener, Ont., that "every day seemed like Christmas" aboard the ship and spoke of the "good food aboard, the free distribution of cigarettes and chocolate bars to passengers every day and the display of movies on board which depicted the new life the settlers might expect in various parts of Canada." (Montreal Star, 10 March 1948). Less sanguinely, some of the Poles expressed surprise at having "to share quarters with Germans whom they considered wartime collaborators of the nazis." (Calgary Herald, 10 March 1948).

The special train for Montreal left the quayside at 3:00 a.m. and that for the West at 4:30 a.m.  In all, 49 of the arrivals would settle in Montreal, 19 in Ottawa, 250 in Toronto and elsewhere in Ontario and 429 in Western Canada. 

Beaverbrae sailed from Halifax for Saint John where she arrived the evening of 10 March 1948 for loading cargo for her return to the U.K. and then onto London (9-10 April) and Bremerhaven to embark her next allotment of immigrants.  In fact, Saint John would have four of C.P.'s  "Busy Beavers" in port at week's end:  Beaverdell, Beaverlake, Beaverburn and Beaverbrae which would carry a combined 20,000 tons of flour and 6,000 tons of meat in their holds for Britain out of a total of 41,000 tons of cargo.  

Credit: Montreal Gazette, 30 April 1948. 

With flags flying, 'The Maple Leaf Forever' blaring over a loudspeaker, and more than 770 new Canadians lining the rails for a glimpse of their new country, the Canadian Pacific’s 9,000-ton Diesel-electric liner Beaverbrae docked in Quebec yesterday.

The Daily Colonist, 30 April 1948

Marking her first arrival at Quebec as the St. Lawrence Season got underway, Beaverbrae which left Bremerhaven on 19 April 1948, docked there on the 29th. On the quayside to meet her were 33 former Canadian servicemen greeting their German fiancees aboard, among the 752 passengers (Polish, Ukrainian and German including 192 Mennonites) with 29 babies and 143 children among the total. "During the trip, the immigrants were shown movies of their new homeland. 'The movies come second in popularity to the meals though,' said Captain G.O. Baugh, master of the ship. 'Mostly displaced persons, the passengers hadn't eaten like that since before the war.'" (Daily Colonist, 30 April 1948). The same day 642 refugees landed at Halifax from Nea Hellas and another 398 due there on 2 May aboard Sobieski.

In all, 18,000 displaced persons had arrived in the Dominion since the beginning of the year.   Typical of the dispersal of these new arrivals and the time it took them to travel across three-quarters of the country, 150 from Beaverbrae arrived in Edmonton the first week of May, comprising 40 families and some single persons with seven staying with relatives in the city, 12 heading for Barrihead and the remainder to various parts of northern Alberta.

Beaverbrae then continued upriver to Montreal where she made her maiden arrival on 30 April 1948 to load cargo for Britain at Pier 10. She sailed on 6 May and arrived in London on the 16th. 

Waiting to disembark at Quebec, 4 June 1948. Credit: The Gazette, 5 June 1948.

On her third voyage, Beaverbrae left Bremerhaven on 26 May 1948 for Quebec with 773 passengers, including 114 Mennonites,  establishing the remarkable "every berth filled" carrying of this ship, and she came into Quebec on 4 June. There, 516 boarded a 16-car train for Western Canada and another 250 one for the Eastern provinces.  Of the passengers for the West, 450 were destined for Winnipeg and the far west. Beaverbrae docked at Montreal on the 5th and departed by the 11th for London (arriving 19th) and Bremerhaven.  Rather a V.I.P. but now a "civilian" aboard was Capt. J.W. Thomas, CBE, of Vancouver, the retiring captain of Empress of Scotland through her war career and who left the ship in Liverpool.  The commanding officer of Beaverbrae, Capt. R.A. Liecester, was also from Vancouver. 

Credit: Vancouver Sun, 23 July 1948.

Twenty more German fiancees of Canadian war veterans were among the 770 immigrants landing at Quebec from Beaverbrae at midnight of 17 July 1948. Too late for disembarkation, her passengers were on their way the following morning via two special trains. Normally cargo was not carried westbound but on this occasion, Beaverbrae brought in a special "souvenir" of the war, a full mock-up model of the famous prefabricated "Mulberry" harbour used in the D-Day landings and bound for the Royal Canadian Engineering School at Chilliwack, B.C.  She even numbered among her passengers formal nobility of now occupied countries including Baron and Baroness Herbert Anrep. of Estonia and their two children, bound for Almonte, Ont. to join their cousin.

Baron and Baroness Herbert of Estonia and their two children upon arrival at Quebec. Credit: Ottawa Citizen, 19 July 1948. 

 

Beaverbrae remained just as integral to Canadian Pacific's busy Beaver cargo operations. When she arrived at Montreal on 19 July 1948, she came in with Beaverdell and Beaverburn, making for 26 deep water ships in port that day.  By the 24th, there were no fewer than six passenger liners (including the flagship Empress of Canada) and cargo ships of the line, totalling 68,000 tons, in the Port of Montreal, the busiest in over 20 years.  At noon that day, the Empress sailed and Beaverbrae, loaded to the marks with over 5,100 tons of foodstuffs and general cargo, left for London (arriving on 2 August) and thence for Bremerhaven.  

On her next voyage commencing on 9 August 1948, Beaverbrae broke her own passenger record with 784 landing at Quebec on the 18th. Of these, only 225 boarded the 10-car train for Montreal and connecting points as far as Toronto and the remainder fully taxed the capacity of the 16-car special for the West. 

A Lithuanian family is welcomed ashore from Beaverbrae by Canadian friends. Credit: Montreal Gazette, 19 August 1948. 

A sure sign of early autumn was the traditional mid September announcement of Canadian Pacific's winter sailing schedule which would begin after Empress of Canada was the last to clear Montreal on 27 November 1948.  Beaverbrae would be first to inaugurate the winter programme from Saint John, N.B. upon her arrival there on 30 November from Bremerhaven and with her "Beaver" fleetmates would make the New Brunswick port her Canadian terminus but as the previous season, land her passengers at Halifax westbound. 

Among those landing at Montreal on 22 September 1948 aboard Empress of Canada was the Rev. N.J. Warnke of Winnipeg who had been in Hanover, Germany for over a year directing immigration for the CCCRR, who told reporters that Beaverbrae "will henceforth be used entirely for the displaced persons movement" and that an estimated 3,000 new Canadians had been handled by the organisation in the past year. 

The following day,  Beaverbrae landed 770 new arrivals at Quebec on 23 September 1948, 570 entraining for the West on an 18-car train and 204 for Montreal and Toronto.  She actually landed 772 including two stowaways, William Cruchley, 20, of Wellend, Ont, and Frank Fowler, 27, of Toronto, who managed to get aboard whilst the ship was in London. They were sentenced to  30 days in jail.  Beaverbrae arrived at Montreal on the 27th and sailed on 2 October for London (11th) and Bremerhaven. 

A total of 784 passengers disembarked  at Quebec on 28 October 1948 (175 coming to Edmonton) and Beaverbrae carried on to Montreal where she docked the following day.  

A six-day strike by the Canadian Seaman's Union (CSU) (to which Beaverbrae's crew belonged)  threatened her sailing for  London and Bremerhaven on  19 November 1948 but it was settled in time. Instead, a flawed web  was discovered one of her diesel crankshafts, attributed by some to possible sabotage attempts before the Germans surrendered the vessel.  With the manufacture of the part estimated to take nine months, thus marooning the vessel in port for the winter, it was instead decided to forge the 3,200 pound block in Canadian Pacific's own Angus Shops in Montreal.  

Angus Shops workers were equal to the task. By working night and day, the shops forged a 5,200 pound of steel and machined it to strengthen the flawed shaft and shut off one piston of the diesel engine. Fourteen days later the block was delivered from Angus and the Beaverbrae sailed, the last ship to leave harbor that winter.

The Gazette, 7 July 1951

Chief Engineer J. Paul checks out the repair to a main crankshaft crafted by CPR's famous Angus Shops, Montreal. Credit: Montreal Gazette, 10 December 1948.

On 9 December 1948 repairs were completed and the motor successfully tested by which time she was the last ship in Montreal harbour.  She was off at 8:00 a.m. the following morning for Quebec and London where she docked on 18th and welcomed for her full cargo of foodstuffs.  Less welcome was John Anthony Calgie, aged 26, who was fined 20 for attempting to evade customs duty on 1,320 cigarettes, and 25 pairs of silk stockings and a quarter of a pound of tobacco after the goods were discovered in a cavity under a drawer in his cabin whilst the ship was lying at Royal Victoria Dock. He told the court that the goods were for his family in Glasgow whom he said he had not seen in five years and being Christmas, and thought the customs would not be so diligent in searching. 

In 1948, Beaverbrae seven westbound crossings carrying 5,481 passengers and seven eastbound ones carrying 31 passengers. 

Beaverbrae leaves Royal Albert Docks in July 1949. 

1949

The winter season did not see any reduction in the arrival of immigrants and displaced persons in Canada. The first three weeks of the New Year saw seven liners arrive, landing thousands of new Canadians with Gripsholm (on her first arrival since the war) and Beaverbrae docking at Halifax, the later landing 783 DP's, on 15 January 1949.

Scene at Windsor, Ont,, station on 17 January 1949 as over 300 relatives greet 58 displaced persons on arrival from Beaverbrae at Halifax on her first crossing of the year. Most would settle in Windsor and be reunited with family members they had not seen in 25 years.  Credit; Windsor Star, 17 January 1949.

In Ottawa on 4 February 1949 the Rt. Hon. J.A. MacKinnon, Resources Minister, told the Commons that 125,414 immigrants arrived in Canada in 1948, almost double the number in 1947. Of these, 46,057 came from the U.K and 16,957 from Europe including 10,169 Dutch and from Eastern Europe, 13,799 Poles and 10,011 Ukrainians. 

On her next arrival at Halifax that season, Beaverbrae landed 782 passengers at Halifax after a miserably rough crossing of 11 days on 10 March 1949, no fewer than 180 bound for Alberta, 125 settling in the northern districts of the province. 

Beaverbrae strikebound in the Royal Albert Docks. Credit: Illustrated London News, 23 July 1949.

That proved to be Beaverbrae's last arrival in Canada until...August during which time the vessel, officers and crew were involved, willing or not, in one of the great dramas of the year involving rival unions, communist machinations, the ports of Great Britain, longshoremen and eventually the Prime Minister and the King of England.  In the end, it was a perfect (and needless) storm that summed up all the tensions of the Cold War then at its height.  Lost in all was the ship's essential mission and the almost half year disruption in her sailings and the ability of her would be passengers to begin their new lives in Canada.

The full saga of the Canadian Seamen's Union (CSU) and The London Dock Strike of 1949 deserves its own chapter if not book and will not be attempted here, save the specific (and considerable) role Beaverbrae wound up playing in it. 

It was to be an infamous year of labour unrest among Canadian seafarers amid an ongoing rivalry between the CSU and the Seafarers International Union, a division of the American AFL, to represent Canadian seamen. At the time, the CSU numbered some 34,000 members but was increasingly and widely known to be heavily communist influenced and in particular its leadership. Shipowners and the government preferred the AFL and when they began to sign contracts with it and not the CSU in early spring 1949,   in late March 1949 CSU called a strike  the Canadian National's Lady Rodney and Canadian Challenger and eventually spread to Canadian-flagged ships all over the world. 

Some of the principals among the CSU who brought about the strike both among its members in Canadian ships and in British ports.  Credit: The Sphere, 21 July 1949.

From the onset, the communist leadership of the CSU conspired to use Beaverbrae and her crew, then still the largest deep-sea Canadian vessel and on then vital "food run" from Canada to Britain, as an incitement to a wider and international strike involving equally radical elements of British dock workers in then largest port in the world, London. When it is today perhaps fashionable to sneer at the notion of the "communist conspiracy," the 1949 London Dock strike was nothing less. In November 1948, the CSU Secretary, Jack Pope, went to London and opened an office of the union in North Woolwich to begin organising and enlisting the support of the local dockers.  

The most infamous strikebound ship in the world at the time, Beaverbrae lies at Royal Albert Docks where she remained for some 110 days in 1949.  When this photo was taken, her cargo of logs (foreground) was finally being unloaded with the settlement of the London Dock Strike.  Credit: The Sphere, 21 July 1949. 

As for Beaverbrae, when she sailed on 26 March 1949 from Saint John, loaded with Canadian grain, flour and timber, she numbered among her crew 13 "handpicked Communist seamen," including Quartermaster "Bud" Doucett and Joe McNeill (who had never been at sea previously) who was described in the press and by an British M.P. as "a paid Communist agitator.  They convinced the 85-strong crew to join the CSU strike upon arrival in the Royal Albert Dock on 3 April and four other Canadian ships in British ports also went on strike. Almost immediately radical elements of the dockers began picketing the "black" ships and refused to unload them. 

By May, dock workers in Bristol and Avonmouth went out in support of the Canadian strikers and the disruption spread to Liverpool until 10,000 workers and 80 vessels were idled.  The Transport and General Workers Union denounced the strikes which were not authorised by the union leadership. 

Some of the striking Canadians picketing in London. Credit: The Sphere, 21 July 1949.

On 3 May another effort to get Beaverbrae unloaded failed when London dockers again refused to go aboard a "blacklisted" ship and a union official stated that it an effort were made to force stevedores to unload the ship, "it will mean another dock strike."  The day Canadian Pacific signed a contract with the rival union, Seafarers International Union (AFL) and agreed to repatriate the striking crew to Canada with no victimization or prosecution upon return.  

On the 11th the Court of Appeals in London ordered the 79 striking crew to leave the ship by noon the following day which they did, the 34 officers remaining aboard. The crew were put up by some of the sympathetic longshoremen. Beaverbrae had now been idle for 40 days and was joined in London Docks by Argomont and Ivor Rita, Seaboard Ranger and Roystone Range at Liverpool, Gulfside and Montreal City at Avonmouth and Seaboard Trader at Southampton. Harry Davis, head of the CSU addressed seamen and dockers in London on the 15th and on the 18th huge chalk written signs reading "Strike" appeared on Beaverbrae's pierside hull. 

Man in the Middle: Beaverbrae's Capt. Alexander Kennedy on the bridge of his ship during the strike wearing "civvies." Credit: The Sphere.

Arthur Deakin, General Secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union, charged on 20 June 1949 that communists were attempting to "forment trouble in London Docks" when another effort was made to discharge Beaverbrae's cargo, but in defiance of their own union executives, the British Stevedores' and Dockworkers Union refused yet again to work the ship. The Minister of Labour hadbroadcast an appeal on the 11th  to the dock workers, stressing the quarrel between two Canadian Unions was of no concern to them and that the CSU had already been suspended by the Trade and Labour Congress and that the International Longshoremen's Association had expressed a desire to remove the Communist elements within the CSU responsible for the strike. Within a week, dockworkers were back on the job in Bristol, Avonmouth and Liverpool.

In London, however, the situation deteriorated and dockers then begin to refuse to work the other ships lying at Royal Albert Docks with Beaverbrae.  And despite assurances by the shipowners, including Canadian Pacific on 25 June 1949, that the strikers would not suffer any "victimization" if they returned to work nor forced to join the rival Seafarers' International Union, the CSU refused to back down.

The dam broke on 27 June 1949 when 1,000 longshoremen at the Surrey Docks and another 4,000 at the Royal Docks walked out and by the following some 10,000 were idle and thus began the Great London Dock Strike of 1949. Ironically, six gangs of  dockers had actually begun to unload Beaverbrae when 15 of her 79-man crew went back aboard, including one of her two stewardesses who told reporters "Tell the dockers to go back work and let us go back to Canada. This dispute has gone on long enough." Her 19-year-old son, an assistant pantry man on the ship, also returned to the ship. By 7 July, some 8,557 men were idle as were 95 ships, 30 of which were loaded with vital foodstuffs and others with military equipment for the Far East, amid withering criticism by union leaders, both of Britain's political parties, Prime Minister Clement Atlee and the public at large. 

On 12 July 1949 the King declared a State of Emergency over what was called the most serious domestic crisis in Britain since the General Strike of 1922. Soldiers and seamen were detailed to help unload 52 ships with food and perishable cargo and by the 19th, some 9,000 were at work. By then, 42 of Beaverbrae's crew had returned to the vessel and urged the dockers back to work.  On the 19th David McCaughey, a storekeeper aboard Beaverbrae sent a cable to the Canadian Labor Dept. on behalf of the crew stating that the CSU "no longer represents the crew." On the 22nd the rank and file dock workers in the Port of London voted overwhelmingly to end the strike and the CSU was forced to call off their strike in the U.K. 

Beaverbrae crew member, Donald Hudson, one of two who were assaulted in a dockland pub by radical fellow crewmen who were later convicted and sentenced to 18 mos. in prison. 

Things turned violent when on 24 July 1949, two of Beaverbrae's crew, William Bell, 30, and Donald Hudson, 23, were assaulted by two fellow crew members in the Tidal Basin Tavern, Bell being stabbed with a broken glass and requiring a blood transfusion. They were among many of the ship's crew who returned to work who had been threatened and intimidated. That day 28 corn porters had finally begun to unloading the ships's 1,200 tons of grain and 12 stevedores tackled her cargo of logs.  Beaverbrae's Captain told a reporter "I'm going to see the strikers from my ship in London this afternoon. I shall tell them, as I have said before, they can come back if they don't misbehave themselves.  But I certainly don't lack for a crew if I needed to take on men. I have had letters from all over England from men wanting to join the ship." On the 25th, 21 members of the crew rejoined the ship. Eight were not re-engaged as the other crew members refused to sail with them. In all eight of the 12 men who stayed behind would not be allowed to return and said to be leaders of the strike.  Two Alan Macisaac, 22, and Gerald Frederick Doucette (22) were remanded for causing grievous bodily harm to two shipmates at the Tidal Basin Tavern the previous Sunday.

In the end, the strike had cost Canadian Pacific £62,000 and tens of millions in lost wages and earnings by crews, dock workers, tug and barge men and overall, estimated to have cost Britain some £142 millions.  It also destroyed the CSU in the bargain; by 1950, its membership had fallen from 34,000 to barely 600. The strike had also exposed the communist infiltration of unions both in North America and Britain and hardened attitudes further in still torrid Cold War. As for the backlog of displaced persons, the strike had put back their dreams of starting anew by at least three months with some 2,000 awaiting passage.  

This morning, the Beaverbrae was being smartened up. Men were at work painting a new green waterline and a new Plimsoll line on her hull. 

Daily Mail, 26 July 1949.

Capt. Kennedy, back in uniform after more than three months, meanwhile was eager to get his ship and his crew back to sea.  With her cargo finally landed, save for the  5½ tons of potatoes, 1,500 lbs of vegetables and scores of grapefruit and oranges that spoiled and had to be disposed of, she also loaded 7½ tons of potatoes and had in her refrigerators, 900 lbs of butter, 800 lbs of cooking fats, 800 lbs of turkey and 2,000 lbs of chicken for the return crossing.  

Finally on her way, Beaverbrae is towed out of Royal Albert Docks, 25 July 1949. Credit: Daily Herald photograph. 

Through lock gates, searched and then guarded by Special Branch officers and police, the Beaverbrae sailed out into Gallions Reach at 9.46 last night.

The 9,000-ton Canadian ship, declared 'black' by the dockers at the onset of the London Docks dispute, was finally on her way to Bremerhaven to embark 758 displaced persons who had been waiting 118 days for her.

Half an hour before Captain Alexander Kennedy, the Scottish master, in uniform for the first time since April 4, gave the order "Cast off fore and aft," two of the crew of the 105 were escorted ashore.

One of them was Donald Hudson, one of the two men who were injured in a Tidal Basin inn on Saturday night, who is to give evidence against the two men accused of wounding him and another member of the crew. Fifteen minutes later detectives went ashore with a steward who is also to be a witness. 

A few minutes before the Beaverbrae sailed, Captain Kennedy said: "Thank heavens it is all over and are finally going. We are hoping for a peaceful voyage to Bremerhaven and then on to Montreal.

Daily Herald, 27 July 1949

Beaverbrae being towed through one of the lock gates as she sails from London Docks. Credit: Daily Herald photograph. 

So 112 days after she arrived, Beaverbrae finally cast off from Berth 11 Royal Albert Docks, London, at 8:27 p.m.  Because of threats that chains would thrown into the lock gates to prevent her from sailing, Special Branch officer and uniformed men went ahead as the ship was towed from the dock to Manor and then through two more bridges before reaching the King George V Dock and her departure was made without incident save for the intense press attention, newsreel cameras and by now quite unwanted time in the spotlight that she never enjoy. "Everything is quiet on board tonight; the crew is settling down, once the men get to sea and get some fresh air inside them they will feel much better abut things," Capt. Kennedy told reporters.

London Docks most notorious long term resident in 1949, Beaverbrae is towed out of the Royal Albert Docks.  Credit: Daily Mirror photograph. 

Finally "back to work," after three months,  Beaverbrae sailed from Bremerhaven on 30 July 1949 with 787 passengers. "Gosh, it's wonderful to be back in Canada" Capt. Alexander Kennedy told reporters shortly after he brought Beaverbrae into Wolfe's Cove, Quebec the morning of 8 August.  Police presence was much in evidence on the dock but there were no CSU pickets present.  When asked what he did to keep busy during the enforced four months marooned in London Docks, Capt. Kennedy replied "Well, keeping a ship ready for sea while your crew is ashore is no easy job. And you successively attend police courts, the courts, and the Appeals Court, interview newspapermen from all over the world, receive a tribunal of Laborite M.P.'s aboard, speak over the BBC and made personal appeals to crewmen who are wavering  in their strike determination, you are as busy as the man on the bride in a hurricane." (Gazette, 9 August 1949).  The captain credited the British press in helping to end the strike by exposing the communist influence in the CSU and the strike eventually finished the union.

As for Beaverbrae, "rusty and out of condition after her enforced rest, will proceed to Montreal for drydock and a thorough overhaul."  This was accomplished by Vickers-Canada at their Montreal plant starting 9 August 1949.  The work included the fitting of a new 28½-ft. 13½-ton crankshaft which was manufactured in Erie, Pa. and installed via the No. 4 hold after the removal of 200 tons of machinery and spare parts and cutting away a section of the bulkhead between the hold and the engine room. A harbour crane lifted the new shaft aboard.  In addition, a new generator was installed. 

Finally, Beaverbrae returned to service with her departure from Montreal on 16 November 1949 which included her first call at Antwerp to discharge cargo before proceeding to Bremerhaven. Thereafter, her route would be direct to Antwerp with no call at London and thence to Bremerhaven.

With 780 passengers, Beaverbrae docked at Halifax on 11 December 1949. She then proceeded to Saint John to load cargo for Antwerp, sailing on the 13th. 

In 1949, Beaverbrae completed four voyages carrying 3,132 passengers westbound and  four eastbound carrying one. 

Elizabeth Eck, a 24-year-old Yugoslavian, bound for a farm in Marquette, Manitoba, was feted as the 10,000 immigrant brought to Canada in Beaverbrae, arriving at Halifax 11 December 1949.  She is shown being greeted on arrival at Winnipeg by Dr. O.F. Herzer, of the Canadian Colonization Assoc. with Rev. C.L. Monk, Executive Secretary of Canadian Lutheran World Relief on the far left. Credit: Star-Phoenix, 4 January 1950.

1950

New to Breaverbrae was facilitating Dutch emigration to Canada and on 10 January 1950 it was announced she would sail from Antwerp on 7 February instead of Bremerhaven with settlers from the Netherlands.

Coming into Halifax on 18 January 1950, Beaverbrae's 786 passengers continued their journey to their new Canadian homes in two special CPR trains, 350 to Quebec and Ontario and the other carrying 393 to the prairie settlements and British Columbia.  She proceeded to Saint John and thence to Antwerp.

On her first voyage from Antwerpen with passengers, Beaverbrae landed 783 at Halifax on 24 February 1950, of whom over 459 were Dutch agricultural workers settling on farms in Quebec, Ontario and four western provinces, and 271 were arriving under the auspices of the Canadian Christian Council, mostly bound for western Canada.  There was still room aboard for 90 new export British motorcars which joined a backlog of 2,000 on the quaysides awaiting rail space. She sailed from Halifax for Antwerp on 2 March. 

Original caption: Congratulations to 11,000th CCCRR-Emigrant Miss Simon by Dr. T.O.F. Herzer, the Capt. of the Beaverbrae and the Overseas Directors. Credit: Canadian Lutheran World Relief, https://www.clwr.org.

Curiously, there was a report in the Montreal Star of 6 March 1950 that "shipping officials here today expressed concern in the drop in the movement of immigrants. A spokesman for one company said that after the next voyage of the Canadian immigrant ship Beaverbrae in which she will bring out about 750 Dutch settlers from Rotterdam, the situation looks blacker than it has since the movement began more three years ago. There is even a possibility the liner may be transferred to other registry, should the immigration voyages become unprofitable. The Beaverbrae is the only ship of her type flying the Canadian ensign. 'The best we can look forward to in the following voyage is about 300 immigrants, which is going to mean a heavy loss for the ship,' the official said."  The pressure to keep the ship filled to capacity saw the CCCRR begin to actively lobby the Canadian Government loosen immigration qualifications for Germans beyond close relatives and it was largely successful in this, the 1950s seeing a tremendous increase in arrivals and beyond those just in Beaverbrae.  Meanwhile, her load factors were being buoyed by Dutch migrants.

With 720 passengers, over 680 being Dutch agricultural works settling on farms in Ontario and the western provinces, Beaverbrae docked at Halifax on 29 March 1950.  One passenger, Jacob Friesen, was final home after a four-month vacation to Germany with his family in 1939 stretched to 11 years and being blinded during an Allied bombing in East Prussia. He finally was able to return to Canada along with his wife, three children and his guide dog, Asta, through the CCCRR.  Beaverbrae, after loading cargo at Saint John, sailed from there on 5 April for Antwerp and Rotterdam. 

Among those arriving in Canada from the Netherlands aboard Beaverbrae was the 18-strong van Aert family from Leur, near Breda, who were bound for St. Eustache, Manitoba. Credit: De Noord Ooster, 14 April 1950. 

Any worries as to her carryings diminishing were assuaged when 778 immigrants arrived at Quebec aboard Beaverbrae on 30 April 1950 from Rotterdam and Bremerhaven.  Of those aboard, 212 were Dutch settlers and the rest were displaced persons. She docked at Montreal on the 2nd and sailed on the 8th for Bremerhaven, unusually calling outbound at Quebec to top up with grain. 

Another capacity load 782 immigrants, almost all displaced persons, landed at Quebec on 8 June 1950 from Bremerhaven, with 509 boarding a 16-car special train for Winnipeg, Moose Jaw, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver while a 13-car special took 265 to Montreal, Toronto, London and Windsor. She arrived at Montreal on the 10th and sailed eastbound on the 14th. 

In what was a "light load" for the ship, Beaverbrae had only 502 disembarking at her next call at Quebec on 12 July 1950. Of these, 341 were sponsored by the CCCRR, 74 were Mennonite workers and close relatives, 49 were Lutheran workers and 37 Austrian and German nationals, all bound for the three prairie provinces, Quebec and Ontario.  She commenced her return crossing from Montreal to London and Bremerhaven on the 19th.

For the first time, Beaverbrae carried immigrants bound for United States (Chicago, Milwaukee and New York State) when 20 Germans for those parts were among the 657 coming ashore at Quebec on 18 August 1950, having departed Bremerhaven on the 8th.  Forty, bound for points west of Edmonton, were caught in the national rail strike in Canada and had to take busses instead.

It was back to capacity loads for Beaverbrae with no fewer than 793 (her best list that year) landing at Quebec on 23 September 1950, 279 bound for the far west and British Columbia.  By the 25th, she was at Montreal and took time off for her annual overhaul, shifting to the Vickers Canada yards on 20 October for drydocking there before sailing on the 25th for Bremerhaven.  

Beaverbrae during her maiden call at Bremen, 11 November 1950, which would thereafter be her Continental terminus. Credit: Die Mennonitische Rundschau 13 December 1950

On 11 November 1950 Beaverbrae made her first departure from Bremen. With the port facilities there finally completely restored, Beaverbrae began using the ancient Hanseatic port instead of Bremerhaven.  She was, in fact, the only trans-Atlantic liner to use Bremen as her German terminus. Before she sailed, she hosted a reception aboard for local immigration officials, CP executives and CCCRR leaders. Making her final foray into the St. Lawrence that season, Beaverbrae came into Wolfe's Cove, Quebec on  the 23rd with 781 passengers, 100 for the U.S., the rest for Canada with 511 for a 16-car special train for Montreal, Toronto, London and Windsor. She sailed from Montreal on 1 December.

Not all her passengers were good citizens, either of their native country or their adopted Canada and among those landing at Saint John on 13 December 1950 was one Albert Helmut Rauca who, under his real name of Helmut Albert Rauca was a former Einsatzgruppe Master Sergeant and Gestapo Jewish Affairs Specialist who was largely responsible for the some 11,000 Jews murdered in the Kaunas Massacre of 29 October 1941. He was finally tracked down and extradited to Germany in 1983 and died later that year in jail awaiting trial. 

Getting one more arrival before the year was over, Beaverbrae arrived in Canada on 30 December 1950, unusually landing her 791 passengers at Saint John, N.B., which now resumed its old status as Canadian Pacific's prime winter terminus instead of Halifax.  Of the new arrivals, 414 were destined for the West and 358 for points in Quebec and Ontario. There were 192 children aboard and the oldest passenger aboard was Mrs. W. Sorage, born in western Ukraine, and who would celebrate her 90th birth en route to join her son, a prosperous lumber mill operator in Vancouver who had emigrated to Canada 24 years earlier. Mrs. Sorage said she enjoyed the ocean trip and was accompanied over by her niece, Nadia Play, a refugee from Romania.   A 13-year-old, Andreas Hack, from Germany, made the trip alone across and onwards to Alberta where he joined his mother and stepfather. "We are all safe now, everything is good and free," his mother, Mrs. Paul Forberger told the Calgary Herald. 

In 1950, Beaverbrae completed 10 westbound crossings carrying 7,321 passengers and 10 eastbound crossings carrying 15 passengers. 

German issued photo card of Beaverbrae in the Weser. Credit: https://www.akpool.de/

1951

On 9 January 1951 Beaverbrae sailed from Saint John for Bremerhaven.

The number of immigrants brought to Canada under the auspices of the Canadian Christian Council for Resettlement of Refugees (CCCRR) reached 15,000 upon the arrival of Beaverbrae at Saint John on 9 February 1951 with 734 new arrivals, 550 sponsored by the CCCRR and the other 200 by the IRO.  When the ship docked, Mrs. Susanna Aukzemas, 80, from a German refugee camp was deemed to be number 15,000 and welcomed by H.C.P. Cresswell, Chief Commissioner of the CPR's Dept. of Immigration and Colonization. 

Credit: Star-Phoenix, 19 February 1951.

"After extensive but amicable negotiations between the Canadian-flag operators concerned and officials of the SIU," on 8 March 1951 it was announced that Canadian unlicensed seamen would get a $15 a month wage increase making the best paid in the industry with a bosun earning $195 a month, able seaman $182, ordinary seaman $160, a fireman $182 etc. 

It was a busy late winter for Saint John, N.B., numbering close to 2,000 passengers passing through the port in the past 24 hours upon the arrival on 28 March 1951 of Beaverbrae which landed 792 in additional to more than 1,000 arriving or sailing in Empress of France for Liverpool and Empress of Canada making her last arrival at the port for the season. 

When Beaverbrae sailed from Saint John on 6 April 1951 she had in her holds the last of a consignment of military equipment fulfilling a promise made 68 days previously by Canadian Defense Minister Claxton that the country would equip an entire division of the Belgian Army. The arrival of Beaverbrae at Antwerp on the 17th a total of 170 artillery pieces, 23,000 rifles and mortars and 2,500 tons of munitions had been delivered.  The ship was met on the quayside by Lt-Gen. Maurice Pope, Canadian Ambassador to Belgium and Defense Minister Eugene De Greef of Belgium. 

It was disclosed shortly after docking at Quebec on 6 May 1951 that a passenger, 38-year-old German immigrant Arnold Hintz, had died aboard, the result of a fall, early in the voyage and had been buried at sea in the Irish Sea.  More misfortune followed Beaverbrae to Montreal where, whilst working cargo alongside Pier 7 on the evening of the 17th, fire destroyed part of a cargo of cotton bales aboard in a forward hold. About 60 bales were thrown onto the dock where firemen played their hoses on them, out of a total of 200 in the hold.  The ship's sailing planned for the 18th for Antwerp and Bremen was briefly delayed for an investigation.

Beaverbrae landed 777 on her next arrival at Quebec on 18 June 1951, more than 100 of whom were destined for Edmonton where they arrived on the 22nd, almost all ethnic Germans from Germany, Poland and Austria.

The ship's remarkable consistency in carryings continued with 783 immigrants coming ashore at Wolfe's Cove, Quebec on 27 July 1951.  She sailed from Montreal on 3 August for Antwerp and Bremen.  

Beaverbrae sails from the Überseehaven, Bremen, as photographed from the Fährhaus Wähmann. Credit: https://www.akpool.de/

On her first westbound crossing from Bremen, Beaverbrae arrived at Quebec on 6 September 1951. Of her 778 passengers, 379 boarded a 14-car special  trail for Montreal and Toronto whilst the 12-car train for west took almost 400, with 150 for Winnipeg and other travelling right through to Vancouver.  

Under Capt. Alexander Kennedy, Beaverbrae sailed from Montreal on 12 September 1951 for Antwerp and Bremen.  She had a new ship's surgeon, Dr. Kenneth Walker, aged 27, replacing her regular doctor who was on leave, and he was almost immediately confronted by an ill Captain who complained of stomach aches and severe headaches, the causes of which could not be readily determined.  Then the 52-year-old Captain began to exhibit strange behaviour and make odd decisions including asking that the ship be quarantined on arrival in Antwerp on the 21st when there was no illness aboard or, for that matter, passengers.  

The captain's headaches worsened on the two-day trip to Bremen whence Beaverbrae sailed on 24 September 1951 with 793 immigrants for Canada. That day the captain complained of almost passing out and having blurred vision amid more odd behaviour, to the extent that the Chief Officer Leonard Johnson began to assume many of his duties. Four days out, in mid Atlantic, the Captain ordered a course change without explanation that had the ship headed for a small town a hundred miles inland from the St. Lawrence. This was countermanded by the Chief Officer who still resisted any suggestion by Dr. Walker that the captain was seriously ill and endangering the ship. 

Finally, on the 30 September 1951 Dr. Walker had no choice but to wire Canadian Pacific headquarters in Montreal: "I have this day, September 30, relieved the Master of his command due to sickness and his resultant inability to command this ship." Twenty-four hours before Beaverbrae was due to dock at Quebec, the captain complained of suffering from extreme dizziness and collapsed. Dr. Walker stayed with him all night and upon coming alongside on 9 October 1951, accompanied him in the ambulance to Enfant Jesus Hospital. There, a neurosurgeon operated on Capt. Kennedy and found an inoperable brain tumor.  Capt. Andrew Kennedy passed away that December, leaving behind a wife and two children. Born in Glasgow, Kennedy came to Canada in 1922 and settled in Vancouver, serving before the war in Empress of Asia as Chief Officer and as staff captain of Empress of Scotland during her transport service.

Remarkably, the ship had also arrived right in the middle of the biggest event in Quebec in many years when it welcomed Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip, beginning their epic 21-day tour of Canada.  Beaverbrae docked at Wolfe's Cove on 9 October 1951 at 2:00 a.m., just before the Royal Couple arrived in Quebec at 10:00 a.m., having arrived by air at Montreal.  The purser arranged to have disembarkation of the 793 new Canadians delayed so they could see the welcome:

… the D.P.'s impatiently crowded the ship's rail, enjoying virtually a box seat for the spectacle. Flags, bunting and red carpet added color to the majestic scene which was alive with bustle and pageantry. The New Canadians could have not have arrived under more auspicious circumstances.

Edmonton Journal, 9 October 1951.

 

Beaverbrae's arriving passengers enjoy a "ringside seat" to see the arrival of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip in Quebec. Credit: Montreal Gazette, 10 October 1951.

The ship arrived at Wolfe's Cove at 2 a.m. and from that hour on until the Royal party arrived for the opening ceremony, the group of men, women and children coming to make their homes in Canada, remained on the decks, shivering in the cold, morning air, to await the arrival of Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh. 

Many of them obviously undernourished, the group of immigrants had been living in displaced persons' camps in Western Europe. The adults had been there since the days of the last way.

Few of them spoke English. One of the group, Hans Heiman, a former Berlin postal clerk, told the Star, through an interpreter, that all the D.P.'s were 'excited about this chance to make our homes in Canada.'

When they learned that their ship would be arriving at Quebec City a few hours before the arrival of the Princess and the Duke, they asked the skipper to have the liner berthed as close as possible to the spot where the Princess steps from the Royal train to open her Trans-Canada tour.

'We have heard a lot about her and the King and Queen, her good father and mother, and we wanted to see here,' Herman said. 'Our hearts said thanks to her on behalf of Canada for giving us this chance to come to Canada.'

The Windsor Star, 9 October 1951

Beaverbrae proceeded to Montreal for an extended stay during which she would undergo her annual overhaul at Vickers Canada and, as it proved, be reintroduced to the Royal Couple a second time. 

Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip arriving at Vickers' shipyard during their visit to Montreal, with Beaverbrae, dressed overall, in the floating dry dock.  

During their visit to Montreal near the end of the Royal Tour, drawing a crowd of some 500,000, Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip made an extensive visit to the Vickers Canada facility on 30 October 1951, which was especially enjoyed by Prince Philip, a six-year serving naval officer. They were shown around the yard by J.E. Labelle, President, G.C. Bloomfield, shipyard manager and W.G. Brough, hull superintendent.

A wildly cheering crowd estimated by police at over 20,000, crammed the approached to the shipyard hours before the open, blue convertible carrying the Royal Couple turned into the driveway leading to the shipyard. About 9,000 others, most workmen, their wives and relatives jammed the enclosures inside the plant.

A great cheer went up as the car bearing the Princess and her husband in uniform stopped outside the door to Vickers where they were received by J. Edouard Labelle, shipyard president.

The crowd cheered again as the Princess and the Duke of Edinburgh got back into the car for a drive through the other shops. In the yard they were shown the flag-bedeck immigrant ship Beaverbrae, a Canadian war prize after World War II. Crewmen lined the ship's railings sending up a round of cheers second only to that from the crowd outside.

Montreal Star, 30 October 1951 

Beaverbrae sailed from Montreal on 12 November 1951.  Her final crossing to Canada for the year, from Bremen on 2 December, with 778 passengers, was her roughest and most miserable, encountering a succession of winter Atlantic gales and heavy ice off Newfoundland so that she did not arrive at Saint John until the 19th... after 17 days! Most of her poor passengers were hopelessly seasick during most of the crossing, reminding yet again that getting there was surely not "half on the fun" on what was one of the smallest regular trans-Atlantic liners of the period.

In 1951, Beaverbrae completed eight westbound crossings carrying 6,217 passengers and eight eastbound crossings carrying two. 

1952

Literally beginning the New Year, Beaverbrae sailed from Saint John on 1 January 1952 with a solitary passenger aboard.

Making her first Canadian landfall in 1952, Beaverbrae came into Saint John on 6 February with 795 passengers, no fewer than 419 of whom were destined for Winnipeg, arriving there by special train on the 9th; 11 for Calgary, 51 for Edmonton, 12 for Lethbridge, 11 for Medicine Hat and one for Regina. Beaverbrae sailed from Saint John on the 14th. 

On her second arrival for the year, Beaverbrae had 790 to disembark at Saint John on 19 March 1952 and she sailed eastbound on the 26th.

Starting the St. Lawrence season, Beaverbrae came into Quebec from Antwerp and Bremen on 23 April 1952 with 786 new Canadians and continued upriver to Montreal where she docked on the 25th. Her next arrival, with 766, on 28 May nary elicited a mention in the press

Beaverbrae lost her long serving skipper in June 1952 when Capt. G.O. Baugh was reassigned as captain of Mapledell which would re-open CP's Orient route in that August.  Capt. L.H. Johnston of Montreal took over command of the Beaverbrae. 

Breaking her own enviable record for berths occupied, Beaverbrae had 801 coming down her gangways at Quebec on 10 July 1952 after an exceptionally stormy crossing, and onto two special trains on the quayside, the one for the West taking 517 and another for Quebec and Ontario.  Not on the passenger list was 21-year-old German stowaway Joseph Pimesmaier who was sentenced to a $50 fine or to serve a month in jail. Unable to pay the fine, he was jailed and later deported.  Beaverbrae sailed eastbound on the 19th. 

Credit: Montreal Gazette, 23 August 1952.

Quebec witnessed the simultaneous arrival of some 1,500 immigrants on 19 August 1952 when Groote Beer and Beaverbrae docked there, the Canadian Pacific liner accounting for 788 of them.  Of these, 370 were bound for the Montreal area, 500 for Toronto, London, Galt and North Bay and the remainder for the west. Beaverbrae came into Montreal the following day. Sailing for Antwerp and Bremen on the 26th, she had among her cargo, 17 anti-aircraft guns for the Royal Netherlands Army, part of the Canadian contribution to NATO European forces.

Beaverbrae arrived at Quebec on 23 September 1952 with 791 passengers.  An otherwise routine year was considerably enlivened on her return crossing, commencing from Montreal on 25 October (following drydocking at Vickers) when two days later, 30 miles off Cape Magdelaine, 140 miles east of Father Point, near Rimouski, Beaverbrae lost her rudder. Under Capt. Johnson, the liner had 118 crew aboard but no passengers, and a full cargo of grain. Left drifting helplessly, the tug Foundation Frances arrived to take her in tow to Halifax, only to break her own rudder.  Another tug, Foundation Vira, arrived on the scene to take up Beaverbrae's tow whilst Foundation Josephine II left Quebec and headed for Father Point to take her fleetmate in tow.  On the 28th, Beaverbrae was reported to moving through the Straits of Canso at 6 know, but in no immediate danger. The reason for the lost rudder was not clear and unusual as the weather at the time was not bad and she had just completed a month-long overhaul.  

The weather, however, considerably deteriorated and the tow assumed heroic proportions at times.

On 1 November, she was off Cape Breton Island and under the tow of both Foundation Vera and Foundation Josephine II and expected to reach Halifax the next day.  Instead, she came in the afternoon of the 2nd, ending a week-long tow plagued by bad weather. 

Yesterday's arrival ended a week of drama and unceasingly effort for all three vessels. They were forced to hove to in sheltered coves in the Magdalens during the middle of the week, when they suddenly were caught in the teeth of the furious northwest Atlantic storm which ripped into east coast shipping lanes for three days and nights. Both tugs fixed lines to the rudderless Beaverbrae and resumed the tow Friday (31 October), after the storm had subsided. 

The Montreal Star, 3 November 1952.

Beaverbrae's master, Capt. L.H. Johnston. Credit: Windsor Star, 6 November 1952.

Beaverbrae went into drydock at Halifax for survey and agents there reckoned it might take as long as a month for check the ship for damage and replace the rudder. Instead, it was not until 4 December 1952 that she sailed for Southampton with 7 passengers and then on to Bremen. 

The last emigrant ship to leave Germany that year, Beaverbrae departed Bremen on 23 December 1952 with 560 passengers. 

In 1952, Beaverbrae completed 7 westbound crossings carrying 5,517 passengers and seven eastbound crossings carrying 12. 

Beaverbrae at Quebec, 10 May 1953. Credit: Canadian Museum of Immigration.

1953

The Lutheran, Baptist and Mennonite churches of Canada show an excellent example of practical help to post-war refugees in a plan whereby 560 West Germans are coming to Canada. These churches advanced passage money and assigned jobs to the immigrants, most in agriculture. The West Germans have sailed from Bremen on the Canadian Beaverbrae. For them this Christmas and New Year will be days of hope to be remembered all their lives. In return, Canada will benefit by the presence and activities of a very high type of immigrant.

The Sun Times, 7 January 1953

Credit: The Province,  7 January 1953. 

Making her first arrival in 1953, Beaverbrae docked at Saint John on 2 January. Among the 569 disembarking was the eight-strong Claasen family, including six boys aged 9-15, who had escaped from East Germany, the boys going across the border individually one at a time under the pretense of "seeing Grandma." They were sponsored by the Mennonite central committee and arrived at Vancouver on the 7th, settling on farm in Surrey, B.C.. Beaverbrae sailed back to Antwerp and Bremen on the 9th. 

Shortly after Empress of France cleared her berth at Saint John, bound for Liverpool, Beaverbrae took her place, coming in on 12 February with 506 passengers, most all of them Germans, and accommodated, as usual, in two special  trains, one for the West and the other for Quebec and Ontario. The youngest on the passenger list was three-year-old Lason Seigfried, travelling alone, and joining his mother in Winnipeg. 

After two relatively "light" lists, there were 763 new Canadians disembarking from Beaverbrae at Saint John on 24 March 1953. Loaded with cargo, she was off again for Antwerp and Bremen on the 31st with five passengers, one of the most ever carried eastbound. She did not get very far when issues with her propeller shaft obliged Capt. H.L. Johnston to put into Halifax for repairs on 3 April. 

Top: Alexander Holz (left) was the 30,000th immigrant sponsored by the Canadian Christian Council, and his family on arrival at Quebec; bottom left, the train arriving at Lethbridge, Alberta and bottom right, Holz meeting Elizabeth Eck, the 10,000th immigrant) during the train stopover in Winnipeg. Credit: Surrey Leader, 11 June 1953.

Beaverbrae left Bremen on 31 April 1953 with a full list of 777 German emigrants, mostly sponsored by the Canadian Christian Council, and made her first Quebec arrival for the season on 10 May. Among them was Alexander Holz, the 30,000th immigrant sponsored by the CCCRR, travelling with his wife and five children and settling at Coaldale, Alberta.  During a train layover at Winnipeg, Mr. Holz was introduced to Miss Elizabeth Eck, the 10,000 immigrant, by the Rev. C.L. Monk, Executive Secretary of the Canadian Lutheran World Relief. The ship docked at Montreal on the following day and made her first sailing from the port for the season on the 17th for Antwerp and Bremen. 

The week of 20 August 1953 saw 1,800 new Canadians arrive by liner, starting with Sydney and Groote Beer docking at Quebec and Montreal respectively on the 20th followed by Beaverbrae on the 23rd with 788 aboard. 

In what would prove an extended sojourn in Canada, Beaverbrae arrived at Quebec on 23 September 1953 where she landed 789 passengers and proceeded to Montreal, docking there on the 25th. She was to have sailed on 2 October for Antwerp and Bremen, but on the 29th, the Seafarers International (AFL-TLC) went on strike, over wages and a demand for a 40-hour week,  including its 8,800 members in Canada and effecting some 1,000 crew aboard 35 vessel.  At noon, crews aboard four ships in Montreal-- Beaverbrae, Canadian Leader, Canadian Constructor and Seaboard Trader went on strike.  

On 1 October 1953 the Shipping Federation of Canada declared the strike action against Beaverbrae illegal as the reconciliation proceedings leading to the strike applied only to dry cargo vessels. Beaverbrae was loaded with vitally needed armaments and equipment for NATO and had 778 emigrants waiting to board her in Bremen.  With no end of the strike in sight, much of her cargo was then off loaded and she remained at Pier 7. On the 2nd, CPR police were enlisted to handle the lines mooring Beaverbrae to send her instead to Canadian Vickers Ltd. for her annual overhaul after sailing to Bremen being cancelled. The twelve police released her lines without incident and the ship sailed downstream to the yard.  The strike was settled on the 23rd. Following her refit, Beaverbrae sailed on 7 November from Montreal for Antwerp and Bremen.

When Beaverbrae arrived at Saint John on 6 December 1953 after a rough trip and extended 11-day crossing owing to a breakdown of one of her diesels cutting a day's run to but 200 miles, her arriving 786 passengers brought the total of German immigrants to Canada since 1951 to 90,000. 

In 1953, Beaverbrae completed nine westbound crossings carrying 6,549 passengers and nine eastbound crossings carrying 17 passengers.

1954

Beaverbrae arrived at Saint John on 9 January 1954, her 394 passengers being mostly dependents of husbands or fathers who had already been in Canada for some time. She sailed for Antwerp and Bremen on the 15th. Her next arrival, on 13 February,  landed the smallest list of her career, just 279.

Credit: Montreal Gazette, 3 March 1954.

With no prior announcement, Canadian Pacific placed an advertisement in the Montreal Gazette on 3 March 1954 offering Beaverbrae for sale.  The first press reports of her sale appeared on the 11th, the Ottawa Journal stating "Difficult maintenance problems-- the Beaverbrae is the only diesel vessel in the CPS fleet-- and high costs of operation, compared with other CPS vessels which have British registry, prompted the decision. The vessel will continue in service until she had been sold." Beaverbrae's sale precipitated a general re-flagging of Canada's deep sea merchant fleet, Canadian registry and wage scales proving simply uneconomic under present freight rates. 

The now unwanted Beaverbrae briefly ran around in the Weser Estuary shortly after sailing from Bremen for Canada the evening of 9 March 1954.  Two hours later, she managed to free herself  under her own power and continued her voyage.  She docked at Saint John on the 20th, landing 759 passengers there.  Of the two special trains meeting her, the one for West  had 393 passengers and the second, for Montreal, had 343.  She sailed for Germany on the 29th.

Beaverbrae sailing from Bremen. 

Beginning her final St. Lawrence season, Beaverbrae docked at Wolfe's Cove, Quebec, on 26 April 1954, with a full list of 759, including 125 sugar beet workers destined for farms bear Lethbridge, Alberta.  She sailed from Montreal on 1 May.

On 29 May 1954, Beaverbrae came into Quebec with 713 passengers, sailing from Montreal with 2 on 4 June.  What proved to be her second to last arrival, on 2 July, landed 429 and she sailed eastbound on 9 July.

Canada's deep-sea merchant fleet is losing its largest ship.

At Pier Seven a quiet, final scene in the drama of Canada's dwindling ocean trading fleet was being enacted today as the 9,000-ton Canadian Pacific liner Beaverbrae was prepared for lay-up.

The Beaverbrae, the only Canadian passenger carrier that remained on the high seas, has paid off the largest crew that remained on the books. A total of 108 officers and men are affected.

There was a mood of resignation aboard the ship this morning as engineers checked their gauges for the last time, as the last cargo swung out of the holds and deckhands and stewards completed the hundred-and-one small jobs necessary before the ship is ready to be laid up.

She will be taken to the Dominion Coal Dock Thursday [12 August] and held there until sold.

Montreal Star, 11 August 1954.

Beaverbrae's (Capt. D.L. Johnston) final voyage commenced from Bremen on 27 July 1954 with 566 passengers and she arrived at Quebec on 7 August, proceeding to Montreal that same day where she docked at Pier 7.  After unloading and destoring, the vessel was shifted to Bickerdike Pier on the 12th where she would be laid up pending sale. 

On 1 November 1954 Beaverbrae was shifted to the Vickers yard for drydocking. The next day Canadian Pacific  announced her sale, for an undisclosed sum, to Compagnia Genovese d'Armamento of Genoa, after a fortnight of negotiations.  "Beaverbrae will be partly reconstructed for use in passenger and cargo service between Italy, Portugal and South America, the new owners said." (Windsor Star, 2 November 1954).  An Italian crew was expected to arrive toward the end of the month at which time the vessel would be transferred to Italian registry and sail to Genoa, the destination of her trials voyage as Huascaran more than 15 years ago. 

Canada's dwindling merchant navy officially lost its largest unit, the 9,500-ton passenger-cargo liner Beaverbrae, yesterday during a brief ceremony along the west-end sugar docks of Montreal harbor. The vessel has been bought by Italian interests and will leave port Tuesday for Genoa, where she will be completely refitted to enter the Italy-South America run.

The checkered red-and-white house flag of Canadian Pacific Steamships on her funnel has been painted over and soon the word Beaverbrae, on her bow, will be replaced by her new name, Aurilia.

The flag of Italy was hoisted in a symbolic gesture by her new master, Capt. J. Navarro, and then tucked away until the vessel departs from Montreal. 

The Gazette, 11 November 1954.

In 1954, Beaverbrae completed seven westbound crossings carrying 3,927 passengers and six eastbound crossings carrying 9. 

Going to her reward in 1997, a half century after she first hoisted the Red Ensign, Beaverbrae might be remembered as Canada's last overseas liner or perhaps for her succeeding years under other flags and names, but for 38,000 Canadians she will be recalled as the ship that opened a new chapter in their lives during just six of her 59 years afloat that earned her place in their memories and family histories.  No "White Empress," Beaverbrae was still Canada's true post-war "ship of state."

D.E.V. BEAVERBRAE

1948 - 1954

103 North Atlantic crossings carrying 38,231 passengers

374,000 nautical miles logged (approx.) 

"Muss i denn,,... Beaverbrae sails from Bremen with another capacity load of New Canadians. 

Built by Blohm & Voss, Hamburg, yard no. 518

Gross tonnage        6,951 tons (gross) Huascaran

                               9,034 tons (gross) Beaverbrae

Length (o.a.)        487.5 ft.

             (b.p.)        469.1 ft.

Beam                    60.3 ft. 

Machinery           three MAN eight-cylinder and one six-cylinder diesel and Siemens                                                          propulsion motors driving single screw, 6,350 hp.

Speed                    16 knots (trials)

                              15 knots (service)

Passengers            35 First Class (58 with uppers) Huascaran

                              773 one-class (74 cabin and 699 dormitory)

Officers & crew    58 Huascaran

                              116 Beaverbrae

"far from you day and night, nevertheless I only think of you..." Credit: ferriesbc.proboards.com 

Canadian Pacific, George Musk, 1968

Merchant Fleets: Canadian Pacific, Duncan Haws, 1992

North Atlantic Seaway, Vol. One, N.R.P. Bonsor, 1975

The Kind of People Canada Wants: Canada and the Displaced Persons, 1943-1953, Julie Frances Gilmour, Thesis, University of Toronto, 2009

Calgary Herald

Daily Colonist

Daily Mail

De Noord Ooster

Die Mennonitische Rundschau

Edmonton Journal

Illustrated London News

Liverpool Journal of Commerce

Montreal Gazette

Montreal Star

National Post

Ottawa Citizen

The Province

Sound Daily Sun Times

Star-Phoenix

Sun Times

Surrey Leader

The Sphere

Toronto Star

Vancouver Sun

Windsor Star

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https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/Post-Second-World-War-refugees-reunite-330548361.html

Credit: http://illahie.blogspot.com/

Additions/Corrections/Contributions welcomed

contact the author at posted_at_sea@hotmail.com

© Peter C. Kohler